Escalation policies

An escalation policy makes sure an important alert does not sit unnoticed. When an alert is raised, its own recipients hear about it the way their settings say. If nobody acknowledges it in time, the policy tells the next people, then the next, until someone acknowledges it or the problem clears. “When an alert sits unacknowledged, the next person hears about it. Nobody gets paged twice for the same alert.”

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Before you start

You need the Manage escalation permission, under Notification Center; without it, the Escalation page is not shown. The permission exists only if your plan includes Escalation. If it does not, nothing escalates. Escalation works on acknowledgement, so the people you escalate to should know how to acknowledge a notification; see Notification inbox.

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Create a policy

Each step can wait 5 min, 10 min, 15 min, 30 min, 1 h, 2 h, 4 h, 8 h or 1 d.

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Check the timeline

While you edit, the card If an alert came in at 09:00 shows when each step would happen and who it would reach, for example “09:30 · Anna Nowak · bell, email”. A step on the next day shows +1. The timeline appears once every step has someone to tell: “Add someone to every step to see the timeline.”

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Send a test

To try a saved policy, click Send a test alert. You get a test notification, “Test escalation: …”, at the policy’s lowest severity, and it escalates through this policy’s steps like a real alert: “This is a test of the escalation policy. Acknowledge it to stop it.” Acknowledge it in your inbox to stop the test.

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What happens to an alert

1. It is raised. Its recipients get it the way their own settings say: right away, in a digest or in a summary. Omnilinker picks the one policy that covers it; see Which policy applies.
2. The wait runs. In the inbox, the alert shows escalates … with the time, and “Goes to … at … unless someone acknowledges it.”
3. A step comes due. If nobody has acknowledged the alert and it has not cleared at its source, the step’s people get their own copy. It always reaches them right away, by bell and pop-up. It also goes by email when the step has Email on, or when the person’s own Interrupt me line includes email, and email is set up. Its Activity says “Escalated to you: it was not acknowledged in time.”
4. The next step waits, and so on, until the last step.

Escalation stops as soon as anyone who got the alert, in any step, acknowledges it, or the problem clears at its source. Omnilinker checks for due steps every minute.

• Nobody is told twice. A person who already has the alert, as a recipient or from an earlier step, is skipped.
• Roles are read when the step comes due: everyone who has the role then, and is an active user, is told.
• Quiet hours do not apply. “Escalations reach people right away, whatever their quiet hours.”
• Exceptions do not apply to the escalated copy: it always reaches the person right away. The original alert follows each recipient’s own settings, and an alert a recipient’s exception hides from them does not escalate from their copy.
• Snoozing does not stop an escalation. Only acknowledging it does.
• Escalated copies do not escalate again.

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Which policy applies

Each alert follows at most one policy, chosen when the alert is raised. Of the policies that are on and cover its severity and source, the most specific wins:

1. A policy that names sources wins over one for any source.
2. Then the one with the higher lowest severity wins.
3. If two are still equal, the one whose name comes first alphabetically wins.

A policy covers alerts raised after it is saved. Alerts raised before it was created do not escalate through it.

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Change, duplicate or delete a policy

The list on the left shows each policy with On or Off, its severity, its sources and its number of steps, for example “Critical · any source · steps: 2”. Click a policy to edit it, then Save policy. Cancel discards your changes.

• Turn it off: switch Policy enabled off and save. Alerts it was escalating stop escalating, and new alerts are not escalated through it.
• Duplicate: makes a copy named ”… (copy)”, which starts Off. Change it and turn it on.
• Delete: asks “Delete the policy ”…”? Alerts it is escalating stop escalating.” and deletes it.

Changes to the steps apply to alerts already escalating through the policy: their next step follows the saved steps.

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How well it works

When a saved policy is open, the card Last 30 days shows how many alerts it Escalated and the Median to acknowledge: the typical time from the alert to someone acknowledging it.

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Troubleshooting