Notification rules determine how you are notified when an incident is assigned to you. This applies to both the frequency of notifications and the methods used — push notifications, phone calls, SMS, email, and Slack. You can configure different sets of rules for high and low-urgency incidents, as well as when incidents change.

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User Permissions

• All users can create, edit, and delete their own notification rules.
• Admins and Global Admins can create, edit, and delete notification rules for all users except the Account Owner.
• The Account Owner can create, edit, and delete notification rules for all users.

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Requirement

You must first add contact methods to your user profile to configure notification rules.

The following notification rule types are available:

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Best Practice

PagerDuty strongly recommends adding multiple channels to your notification rules. Push notifications have the highest reliability of all delivery methods, so if a third-party SMS or voice carrier experiences an outage, a push notification rule ensures you can still be notified.

When Someone Invites Me to Respond to an Incident

When a user requests your help as a responder on an incident, PagerDuty sends responder notifications using your high-urgency notification rules.

When you receive a responder notification, you are prompted to Accept or Decline the request.

When a High-Urgency Incident Is Assigned to Me

1. Navigate to User Icon My Profile Notification Rules tab.
2. Under High urgency incident notifications, click +.
3. Enter the number of minutes PagerDuty must wait before sending the notification. The default is 0 minutes, which sends the notification immediately.
4. Select the contact method you want to be notified on. You can use the same contact method in multiple notification rules.
5. Click Save.

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Stagger Notification Rules

Set a short delay between notification rules so you are not notified simultaneously across all contact methods. For example:

• A push notification immediately (0 minutes) after assignment
• A phone call after 1 minute
• A Slack notification after 2 minutes
• An email after 3 minutes
• An SMS after 4 minutes

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Escalation Timeout Interaction

If a notification rule delay is greater than an escalation policy's escalation timeout, and an incident escalates to the same user at the next escalation level, that user may receive notifications from the previous escalation level once the configured delay elapses.

When a High-Urgency Incident Assigned to Me Changes

Create notification rules to receive a notification whenever one of your high-urgency incidents changes status — acknowledged, resolved, or escalated.

1. Navigate to User Icon My Profile Notification Rules tab.
2. Under High urgency incident state changes, click +.
3. In the first dropdown, select the incident state you want to be notified about: Acknowledged, Resolved, or Escalated.
4. In the second dropdown, select the contact method to notify.
5. Click Save.

For PagerDuty to deliver a status-change notification, you must have already received a standard high-urgency notification on that channel. If your incident is acknowledged, resolved, or escalated before your initial notification delay elapses — for example, by another user or via the API — you will not receive a status-change notification.

Additionally, if you acknowledge or resolve your own incident, you will not receive a status-change notification even if you have a rule configured.

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Acknowledgement Reassigns Before Notifications

If a user not assigned to an incident acknowledges it, the incident is reassigned to them. Only the current assignee receives notifications, so the originally assigned user is not notified.

For example, if User B (not currently assigned) clicks Acknowledge on an incident assigned to User A:

1. The incident is reassigned to User B.
2. Status-change notifications are sent only to User B.
3. User A does not receive a notification because they are no longer assigned.

When a Low-Urgency Incident Is Assigned to Me

1. Navigate to User Icon My Profile Notification Rules tab.
2. Under Low urgency incident notifications, click +.
3. Enter the number of minutes PagerDuty must wait before sending the notification. The default is 0 minutes, which sends the notification immediately.
4. Select the contact method you want to be notified on. You can use the same contact method in multiple notification rules.
5. Click Save.

When an Incident I Am Subscribed to Has a Status Update

Configure notification preferences for status updates on incidents you are subscribed to.

1. Navigate to User Icon My Profile Notification Rules tab.
2. Under Incident status updates, click +.
3. In the dropdown, select a contact method.
4. Click Save.

To add additional contact methods, repeat the steps above. To edit a rule, click to the right of it. To remove a rule, click to the right of it.

On-Call Handoff Notifications

On-call handoff notifications (OCHONs) alert you up to 48 hours before you go on or off call. These notifications can only be sent as a push notification or email.

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Requirements

All three of the following conditions must be met for OCHONs to send:

• You must have on-call handoff notifications configured in your user profile (instructions below).
• You must be a target on an escalation policy.
• The escalation policy must have OCHONs enabled. If the escalation policy is attached to a service, OCHONs are always enabled. If it is not attached to a service, follow the instructions in Escalation Policy Basics to enable it.

1. Navigate to User Icon My Profile Notification Rules tab.
2. Under On-call and off-call notifications, click +.
3. Enter the following information:

4. Click Save.

Shift Agent Notifications

Configure Shift Agent notifications to receive updates on upcoming shift conflicts and shift coverage requests.

1. Navigate to User Icon My Profile Notification Rules tab.
2. Under Shift agent notifications, click to add a new rule.
3. Select the Slack account where you want to receive notifications.
4. Click Save.

Edit a Notification Rule

1. Navigate to User Icon My Profile Notification Rules tab.
2. Click to the right of the notification rule you want to edit.
3. Make the required changes.
4. Click Save.

Delete a Notification Rule

1. Navigate to User Icon My Profile Notification Rules tab.
2. Click to the right of the notification rule you want to delete.
3. Accept the confirmation.

Temporarily Disable Notifications

If you are going on vacation or will be unavailable for a period of time, PagerDuty recommends creating an override for any schedule on which you are on call. This ensures coverage if an incident is assigned to you while you are unavailable.

You can create overrides in the web app, mobile app, or via the API.

To ensure you do not receive notifications while unavailable, you can also delete your notification rules.

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What Deleting Notification Rules Does Not Do

Deleting notification rules does not prevent incidents from being assigned to you. Incidents can still be assigned and reassigned to you as long as you remain on call on a schedule or part of an escalation policy — you will simply not be notified of them.

Deleting notification rules also does not remove your contact methods. When you are ready to receive notifications again, return to your profile and re-add notification rules.