Exploring On-Call Scheduling
Summarize
Summary of Exploring On-Call Scheduling
The On-Call Scheduling application in ServiceNow Yokohama release helps organizations ensure that the right support team members are available to resolve issues promptly. It automates the assignment of incidents by rotating through duty rosters, reducing administrative overhead for resource managers and helping incident managers quickly engage the appropriate personnel. This application is designed to improve collaboration among process owners, support managers, and on-call staff while enhancing operational efficiency and reducing mean time to resolve (MTTR).
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How On-Call Scheduling Works
The On-Call Scheduling workflow involves multiple organizational roles collaborating effectively:
- Shift Admin: Creates shift and group templates, assigns roles, and configures escalation trigger rules.
- Shift Manager: Creates shifts, manages team membership, designs escalation processes, reviews schedules and time-off requests, and manages coverage.
- Roster Member: Views on-call schedules, specifies availability and preferred contact methods, submits time-off requests, refers coverage, accesses roster and escalation details, and receives notifications and reminders.
Shift managers also monitor escalation, group, and performance reports to optimize team responsiveness.
Key Features and Benefits
- Flexible Calendar Views: Users can view shifts by day, week, or month and set preferred start days, enabling easy schedule management and visibility.
- Customizable Escalation Policies: Create escalation rules and paths tailored to organizational requirements using available templates.
- Multi-Channel Notifications: Notifications can be sent via Slack, Microsoft Teams, mobile push, SMS, or voice messages, allowing users to set their preferred contact methods.
- Comprehensive Reporting: Generate escalation, shift, and performance reports to monitor team effectiveness and identify improvement areas.
- Mobile Access: The On-Call Scheduling mobile app empowers users to manage schedules, receive notifications, and perform tasks remotely.
- New Schedule Engine: Enhanced capabilities and user experience through the updated On-Call schedule engine.
Who Benefits
- ITIL Users, Rota Managers, and Administrators: Benefit from streamlined scheduling, escalation design, notification management, availability configuration, and reporting.
- Premium Dashboard Users: Access enhanced performance reports for escalations.
This application automates and simplifies on-call shift management, improves communication across teams, and helps organizations reduce incident resolution times by ensuring the right resources are always on duty and reachable.
The On-Call Scheduling application helps you ensure that dedicated support team members are available to resolve issues as they arise. Learn more about On-Call Scheduling and the benefits it can provide for the different user roles in your organization.
On-Call Scheduling overview
On-Call Scheduling provides a way to determine which member of a user group is available to work on a task.
On-Call Scheduling finds the right person to assign an incident to, by rotation through a hierarchy of duty rosters. The automated process relieves the administrative burden on resource managers and makes it easy for the incident managers to bring the right resources to the table when needed.
On-Call Scheduling can be used by process owners and support managers who want to collaborate more effectively. On-Call Scheduling simplifies the manual shift maintenance and administration efforts while improving the mean time to resolve (MTTR) efficiencies.
On-Call Scheduling workflow
- Shift admin creates shift and group templates.
- Shift admin assigns role and configures escalation trigger rules.
- The shift manager creates a shift and add or delete members to the shift.
- Shift manager designs the entire escalation process for the new shift.
- Roster member views their on-call schedules and find out who the other members on their shift are.
- Roster member can specify their availability and preferred contact methods from the methods set up by Shift admin.
- Roster members can submit a time-off request and refer another member of the group to cover the shift.
- Roster members views the roster and escalation details for a shift.
- Roster members view on-call reports and receive reminders.
- The shift manager approves or rejects the time-off requests.
- Shift manager reviews the on-call schedules for their groups for any gaps and time-off requests.
- Shift manager provides, replace, or delete coverage and time-off requests.
- Roster members receive on-call escalation notifications to acknowledge tasks or conference requests.
- Shift manager views escalation, group, and performance reports of their on-call teams.
On-Call Scheduling benefits
| Benefit | Feature | Users |
|---|---|---|
Use the calendar to view or select a shift. You can set a day, week, or month view as your preference. The calendar also allows you to set your preferred start day of the week. |
View my On-Call calendar on my calendar app | itil, rota_manager |
Create your own escalation policies and path. On-Call Scheduling allows you to create an escalation trigger rule using the templates available, based on your requirement. |
Designing an escalation process | itil, rota_manager, rota_admin |
Use any one of the multiple channels such as Slack, Microsoft Teams, mobile push messages, SMS, and voice messages to set as the preferred contact method for receiving notifications. |
Configure my availability and contact preferences | itil, rota_manager, rota_admin, admin |
| Generate escalation reports, shift reports, and performance reports. | Viewing On-Call Scheduling reports | itil, rota_manager, rota_admin |
| Access the performance reports that are available for premium dashboard users. | Legacy: Viewing the Performance reports for escalations | premium dashboard user |
Download and use the Mobile agent to perform all these activities on the go. |
Getting started with the On-Call Scheduling mobile app | itil, rota_manager |