> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://support.incidents.cloud.solarwinds.com/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://support.incidents.cloud.solarwinds.com/~/changes/lGFY3mJPy207GveiFTeX/escalation-policies/create-and-manage-escalation-policies.md). # Create and Manage Escalation Policy {% embed url="" %} Escalation Policies ensure that the right people are notified at the right time. Incident notifications can be configured to escalate to Users, Squads or Schedules in a given order and time. You can create different Escalation Policies for different Services. ### Prerequisites * The User Role for the user in the Team must have the necessary permissions in order to manage Escalation Policies. ### Creating an Escalation Policy Ensure that the right Team is selected using the team picker at the top of the screen. 1. Click on **Escalation Policies** from the navigation sidebar

2. Click on **Add Escalation Policy** to create one from scratch

3. Give the Escalation Policy a **Name** and an optional **Description**

4. Add `Users`, `Squads` or `Schedules` as recipients of notifications at any level of the Escalation Policy

5. Enter the appropriate time for **Escalate After**, giving enough notice for your recipients to acknowledge the alert after which it will escalate to the next level (if defined)

{% hint style="info" %} **Notify your team members as soon as an incident is triggered in Squadcast** If you want to notify your team members as soon as an incident is triggered in Squadcast, set the **Escalate After** time for the first layer of escalation (first Escalation Rule) to **0 mins**. As and when an alert reaches Squadcast for the Service, an incident is created for it and the mapped users as in the Escalation Policy will get notified **of** it immediately based on the notification channels selected.

{% endhint %} {% hint style="info" %} **Escalate After and the Order of Rules** The time in (mins) input in the `Escalation After` text box takes the absolute time from the time of the incident creation. That is, the time input in all the levels of escalation is calculated from the time of the incident trigger. The order of the rules will be carried out based on the time input. That is, from the shortest to the longest time, irrespective of the order in which the rules are placed while defining. {% endhint %} 6. There are two ways to add the medium of notification under **Notification Rules**: From the dropdown, you can select either **Personal** or **Custom**

(a) **Custom** - As an Admin, you can select one or more of the available notification channels **(Email, Push, SMS, and Phone)** to explicitly specify the channel via which the mapped users need to receive the incident notifications

(b) **Personal Notification Rules** - Allow users to **set up** their preferred medium of notification for incidents {% hint style="info" %} **Note****:** By default, **Personal Notification Rules** (as indicated by **the Personal** option in the dropdown) are enabled for all the mapped users in the Escalation Rule. {% endhint %} 7. Use **Add Rule** to add a new Escalation Rule (layer of escalation) in the policy

8. **Actions For Unacknowledged Incidents**\ \ **Repeat the \_entire policy**\_ if no one acknowledges the incident even after the Escalation Policy has been executed fully once

{% hint style="warning" %} **Maximum Repeats Possible** You can repeat any Escalation Policy for a **maximum of 3 times** only.

{% endhint %} 9. **For unresolved incidents** **(a)** **Send acknowledgment reminders** helps set up re-notification to work as reminders for users to resolve an incident. On someone acknowledging an incident, that user will start receiving periodic reminders as set up, for a maximum of 48 hours from the time of acknowledgment. To set reminder rules for re-notification, Navigate to **Escalation Policy** -> **Edit** -> check **For unresolved incidents send acknowledgment reminder every** -> Enter time (in hours), along with the mode of notification -> click **Save** {% hint style="info" %} **Note****:** Time input can be between 1 and 48 hours (inclusive). {% endhint %}

Send acknowledgement reminder every hour for unresolved incidents in Squadcast

To edit reminder rules for re-notification, Go to **Escalation Policy** -> **Edit** -> Goto **For unresolved incidents send an acknowledgment reminder every** -> Edit the time (in hours), along with the mode of notification -> click **Save**

{% hint style="info" %} **Note:** 1. Re-Notification starts from the time of the latest acknowledgment. 2. Only the user who acknowledges will get the reminder. 3. Users will stop receiving notifications after 48 hours of acknowledgment. {% endhint %} {% hint style="info" %} **Note****:** There will be two types of logs under notification logs, differentiated by the icon in the first column: * Incident Alert * Acknowledgment Reminder Alert

* Incident Alerts - Alert notifications are sent out for incidents to on-calls, users, or squads based on Escalation Policies or Routing Rules.

* Acknowledgment Reminder Alerts - Reminder notifications are sent out for acknowledged incidents to the user who acknowledged the incident.

{% endhint %} **(b)** **Set a rule to re-trigger an unresolved incident** You can also set a rule to re-trigger an incident if it is not resolved until a certain period of time. When an incident comes in, whether it was acknowledged or not, if it is not resolved until a certain period of time, enabling this rule with a time will let the system decide if this incident needs to be re-triggered. If the incident is re-triggered, it will be assigned to the latest escalation policy that it was assigned to previously. This rule will specify when your incident will be re-triggered, from the time of the first trigger.

Set rule to re-trigger an unresolved incident

{% hint style="warning" %} **Important****:** * It can be set to a maximum of 48 hrs from the time of the first trigger. * An incident can only be re-triggered once. {% endhint %} 10. Click on **Save** to save and view the Escalation Policy

{% hint style="warning" %} **Important****:** If the incident has transitioned away from the **Triggered** state when it was assigned to a specific Escalation Policy, then the rest of the rules in the Escalation Policy will not be executed. {% endhint %} ### Editing/Deleting an Escalation Policy 1. To edit an existing Escalation Policy, click on **More Options** for that particular Escalation Policy 2. Choose **Edit** to modify the existing Escalation Policy or **Delete** to delete the Escalation Policy entirely

3. After modifying the Escalation Policy, click on **Save** {% hint style="info" %} **Note****:** Before deleting an Escalation Policy, **ensure that it is not associated with any of the Services or that there are no open incidents associated with the Escalation Policy**, otherwise you will be prohibited from deleting it. {% endhint %} ### FAQs 1. Can I add members from different Teams to an Escalation Policy for my Team? No, adding members from across Teams into an Escalation Policy is not allowed. Any member that needs to be added to the Escalation Policy for a Team must be a part of the same Team. 2. Is there a way to introduce Round Robin assignment of incidents to different entities within an escalation level? Yes, please refer to the documentation [here](https://support.squadcast.com/docs/round-robin-advanced-escalations). --- # Agent Instructions This documentation is published with GitBook. GitBook is the documentation platform designed so that both humans and AI agents can read, navigate, and reason over technical content effectively. Learn more at gitbook.com. ## Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter, and the optional `goal` query parameter: ``` GET https://support.incidents.cloud.solarwinds.com/~/changes/lGFY3mJPy207GveiFTeX/escalation-policies/create-and-manage-escalation-policies.md?ask=&goal= ``` `ask` is the immediate question: it should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. `goal` is optional and describes the broader end goal you are ultimately trying to accomplish on behalf of the user. GitBook uses it to tailor the answer towards what is most useful for that goal. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.