On-Call Scheduling Quick Start Guide

GoAlert is an open-source offering that provides on-call scheduling, automated escalation, and notifications via SMS and voice to automatically engage the right person, the right way, and at the right time. These features allow people to promptly respond to any critical issue so that guest impact is prevented or minimized.

This guide is intended to introduce users to the most often used features in GoAlert. If you are a new team to GoAlert and need to setup a schedule for the first time and have any additional questions, feel free to reach out to us in the Gopher slack at https://gophers.slack.com/archives/CJQGZPYLV.

Logging In

Logging into GoAlert is super simple. From any internet connected device, including mobile, just go to your instance of GoAlert’s main page and login with the providers your admin(s) have configured.

Profile Setup

The first time you login to GoAlert, you’ll be prompted to enter your contact methods and notification rules. Both contact methods and notification rules must be set in order to successfully receive notification. You can update these settings at anytime by selecting your profile icon in the left navigation bar. On your profile page you can:

  1. Add a contact method or notification rule by selecting the ellipsis in the menu bar (upper right corner).
  2. Edit, delete, or test a contact method via the ellipsis on the contact method row.
  3. Choose whether to receive notifications when your alert status changes. Default is set to ‘disabled’
  4. Edit or delete your notification rules.
  5. See what services, escalation policies, and schedules your profile is associated with.

Viewing Alerts

If your team is already using GoAlert, you’ll want to determine which services are important for you to keep an eye on. Ask someone on your team or look up a teammate’s profile in GoAlert to see what services they are associated with.

Next, go to the service page (yourgoalertdomain.com/services) and perform a search. Select the service and mark it as a favorite by selecting the star icon in the upper right of the service details page.

Favorite services will show up at the top of the services page but most importantly will filter the alerts page to only show alerts for your favorite services.

Responding to Alerts

Two-way SMS is available for US based numbers. To respond to a single alert via SMS, simply reply to the message from GoAlert.

Government regulations in India do not allow for two way SMS.

Users can also respond to alerts via voice by selecting the appropriate number mentioned in the voice call when receiving an alert.

The web UI also has features for acknowledging/closing an alert.

  1. Find the alert on the alerts list page.
  2. Select the alert to open the alert details.
  3. Select the ellipsis in the menu bar (upper right corner) and then select Acknowledge or Close.

Occasionally, out of the ordinary things happen and you’ll need to escalate an alert or acknowledge/close a flood of alerts. You can take those actions through the UI as described below:

Escalate an Alert

  1. Find the alert on the alerts list page.
  2. Select the alert to open the alert details.
  3. Select the ellipsis in the menu bar (upper right corner) and then select Escalate.

Acknowledge/Close All Alerts

  1. Go to the service details page for the service under attack.
  2. Select the alerts option right below the service name/metadata section. Since you’ll have a bunch of alerts active during a storm of incoming alerts, there will be a red marker to the left of the alerts section.
  3. Select the ellipsis in the menu bar (upper right corner) and then select Acknowledge All Alerts or Close All Alerts. Note, this action will apply to any active alert currently associated with the service.

Receive Notifications Even When Your Phone Is on Silent or Do Not Disturb

On iOS and Android, you now have the option to set up an emergency bypass feature that forces notifications on SMS and voice calls. To set this up to work with GoAlert:

iOS

  1. Add the GoAlert number your admin(s) have configured to your contacts list.
  2. In the text or call ringtone options for each number find Emergency Bypass
  3. Set the toggle to On

Android

  1. Add the GoAlert number your admin(s) have configured as a favorite.
  2. Go to settings and select Do Not Disturb under sounds.
  3. Click on Do not Disturb and click on Allow exceptions
  4. Under ‘Custom’ select allow favorites, enabled the GoAlert number for both calls and messages.