Build your first on-call rotation

This tutorial creates a rotating schedule and uses it as the first target in an escalation policy. When the step fires, HowlOps resolves the person who is on call at that moment.

Before you start

Invite the responders and wait until they accept. Each responder should configure at least one personal destination under Settings → Notifications. A schedule decides who is responsible; the personal chain decides how that person is reached.

Create the schedule

1. Open On-call → Schedules and select New schedule.
2. Enter a name such as Primary on-call.
3. Choose Rotation, then set the timezone used for handoffs.
4. Select Create schedule.

Open the new schedule and add a rotation. Choose its cadence, handoff time, and start date, then add responders in the order they should rotate. Save and confirm that the coverage view shows a current responder and the next handoff.

Page the current responder

1. Open On-call → Escalation policies and select New policy.
2. Name the policy and save it.
3. Add the first step with a delay of 0 minutes.
4. Choose the schedule you created as the target.
5. Add a later fallback step if your response process needs one.
6. Set this policy as the workspace default, or select it from a matching routing rule.

Keep the first delay at zero when the first responder should be paged immediately. A later step's delay starts after the preceding step fires.

Test both parts

1. Ask each responder to use Test my on-call. This checks only that person's current personal chain.
2. Use Send test alert on the escalation policies page. This creates a synthetic alert and runs workspace routing, escalation, and delivery.
3. Open the test alert and inspect its activity. Confirm that the schedule resolved to the expected responder and that delivery succeeded.

The synthetic alert resolves automatically. The action is rate-limited, so inspect the first result before sending another one.