Phone call escalation for alerts

Why

Slack and email are fine during the day. At 3am, a phone on silent sleeps through both. A team with units in the field needs one thing to work when it matters: a call that keeps going until a person says "I've got it". It should also go to the next person, not the next channel. If you slept through a call, you slept through the text too.

How it works

A ladder is an ordered list of people. Each step reads like a sentence: "Call Ann, up to 2 times, a minute apart". Between steps: "If nobody answers, 4 minutes later", then the next person.

The call says the device, the metric and the current reading, then "Press any key to acknowledge." A keypress acknowledges the alert and stops the ladder for everyone. So does acknowledging it in the app.

Every attempt goes on the alert's timeline: called, answered, not answered, acknowledged by phone, or "Couldn't call" with the reason. Numbers show only their last four digits. If the ladder runs out, the timeline says "Nobody answered".

Using it

• Alerts, then On-call. Under Your phone, add your number and verify it. We call you and read a code out twice.
• Click New ladder and add steps. A person without a verified number is flagged on the step itself, so a ladder can't look ready when it would reach nobody.
• Open a monitor. Under Where it goes, pick the ladder. The summary line tells you exactly what happens, for example "Posts to #ops · Calls Ann, then Mariah, until someone acknowledges".

What decides who gets called

Only the monitor's own choice. Severity colors the alert but never rings a phone on its own. A monitor with no ladder calls nobody, so no phone rings unless someone chose that on purpose. Your number belongs to you, not the workspace, and works in every workspace you are on call for.

Limits

Calls only. Text messages are not turned on yet. There are no rotations or schedules: a ladder is an ordered list. Quiet hours are not built. Monitors, and so on-call, are part of paid plans.