This video shows how to create an on-call schedule.
In the ServiceNow platform, an on-call schedule specifies the times that support shifts are active.
An on-call schedule is used by the ServiceNow On-call Scheduling application to ensure that support team members are available to resolve issues as they arise.
For example, a company that wants support coverage around the clock would use a 24/7 schedule,...
... whereas a company that provides support around the globe could use a follow the sun schedule to cover time zones across continents.
Now let's create an on-call schedule.
In this video, we'll set up an on-call schedule for the database group.
First, we need to define a shift that the schedule will govern.
We could define one from the list of shift templates,...
... but we're going to define a new one
We'll call the shift, morning shift.
Next, we'll set a schedule for this shift.
Now we could use an existing schedule...
... but we're going to create a new one
We'll select its time zone,...
... specify start and end times for the shift...
... choose when we want the shift to repeat...
... and configure on-call reminders.
We want to send one reminder three days before a shift starts.
That's it, we've defined our schedule.
We can now set up rosters for this schedule.
But first let's understand some key concepts about rosters and roster rotation.
A roster is a set of members on call for a shift.
Usually there are multiple rosters for a shift.
One for each escalation level.
So for three escalation levels we can have a primary roster, a secondary, and a tertiary
Roster rotation is a process of alternating the duties of members on a roster.
Rotation ensures that not all roster members will be responsible for support incidents at the same time.
Rotation helps an organization cover all shifts even when a member is absent or on leave,...
... and it also boosts morale by reducing worker fatigue.
Let's set up two rosters for this on-call schedule, primary and secondary.
First, we'll add members to the primary roster from a list of available group team members,...
... then we'll define roster rotation details like rotation start date,...
... rotation interval, and the day of rotation.
And finally we'll specify whether we want to send on-call reminders,...
... and when they should be sent.
Keep in mind that we're setting these reminders just for this roster not for the entire shift.
We've defined the primary roster.
Now we'll define the secondary roster by clicking add roster, and copying the details from the primary roster.
When we do this, the system rotates the order of the members in the secondary roster by one.
This is because the first point of contact cannot be the same for more than one roster.
So Angel is the first contact in the primary roster and Beth is the first contact in the secondary.
Now let's see how escalation works.
Escalation is a series of notifications about an incident that are sent to team members in sequence until one of them responds.
The order of the members is defined in the escalation path.
The escalation can rotate through the members of a single roster or through the primary contacts of multiple rosters.
We have more than one roster in our schedule,...
... so our escalation type is, rotate through rosters.
This way if no one on the primary roster responds to the incident within 15 minutes,...
...members on the secondary roster are notified.
We can change the reminder settings to send additional reminders to the primary roster member before notifying the secondary roster member.
Let's add one reminder and set the duration to five minutes.
Now the system will wait five minutes before sending a reminder to the primary roster member,...
... and another five minutes before notifying the secondary roster member.
If both the primary and secondary roster members don't respond to the incident,...
... we can define a catch-all which specifies members who will be notified when no other members respond.
A catch-all can be a group manager, another person, or all the members of a roster.
In our case we want the catch-all to be all members of the primary roster.
There, all the escalation steps are configured.
Let's review what we've done so far.
We created an on-call schedule for the database group with a morning shift,...
... and a primary and secondary roster
And we customized our default escalation path by adding a reminder for the primary roster,...
... and the catch-all.
Everything looks fine.
We can go ahead and publish our on-call schedule.
That's it. Our on-call schedule has been published.
For more information see our Product Documentation or knowledge base.
Or ask a question in the ServiceNow Community.