On-Call Scheduling workflows

  • Release version: Zurich
  • Updated July 31, 2025
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of On-Call Scheduling workflows

    On-Call Scheduling workflows in the Zurich release automate task assignments and notifications for on-call rosters, leveraging escalation policies and user preferences. These workflows manage communication channels, respect time-off schedules, and handle acknowledgements to ensure timely on-call response and task delegation.

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    Key Features

    • On-Call: Assign by Acknowledgement: Uses escalation settings including overlapping shifts and custom rules to notify users via SMS, voice, email, Microsoft Teams, or mobile push. Notifications require trigger rules and deactivate older business rules. Respects roster time-off and logs communication attempts. Failed contact attempts are logged without further retries.
    • On-Call: Escalations by Email: Sends email notifications to escalatees until task acknowledgement, logging communications and treating catch-all users equivalently for response and assignment.
    • On-Call: Assign: Directly assigns tasks to the current primary roster member without escalation.
    • On-Call: Check Assignment Response: Processes inbound SMS responses to assign tasks and update notification records accordingly.
    • On-Call: Assign by Acknowledgement Voice: Handles outbound voice calls to users or devices, assigning tasks based on voice responses and updating notification records.
    • On-Call: Time-off approval: Manages requests for vacation or PTO by sending approval requests to managers.
    • On-Call: Conference Call Escalation: Initiates voice calls to escalation group members during conference calls, escalating if members do not join the call.

    Practical Considerations for ServiceNow Customers

    • Trigger rules are essential to initiate notifications and supersede some legacy business rules; customers must deactivate custom business rules from earlier releases to avoid conflicts.
    • Time-off management is integrated, ensuring that unavailable roster members are excluded from escalation and notifications.
    • Communication channel preferences are enforced per escalation settings, but if forced channels fail (e.g., no SMS device defined), no fallback attempts are made, and failures are logged for audit.
    • Catch-all users receive the same treatment as other escalatees, requiring responses and enabling task assignment based on their acknowledgement.
    • Workflows maintain detailed logs of escalation communications and responses to support transparency and auditing.

    Workflows perform On-Call Scheduling operations.

    Workflows installed with On-Call Scheduling

    On-Call: Assign by Acknowledgement

    The workflow uses data from escalation settings, including overlapping shifts and custom escalation settings for shifts and rosters. Depending on the settings, the workflow moves through the escalation path and sends notifications by SMS, voice, or email that ask users to accept a task.

    To send notifications, a trigger rule is required. Trigger rules supersede some On-Call business rules in earlier releases. To define a trigger rule, you must deactivate business rules that you customized in earlier releases.

    The workflow respects time off as specified in rosters. Roster members with time off are not included in the escalation path and no notifications are sent to them.

    If Force communication channel is specified in the Escalation settings for rosters, the Subscription-based notifications is used: SMS, email, voice, Microsoft Teams, or mobile push. If the preferred method is SMS and the on-call member does not have an SMS device defined, the user is not contacted even if the user has an email address. When forcing a communication channel on an escalation level does not succeed, no further communication attempts are made. The failed contact attempt is logged. The setting Force communication channel is available only if Notify is installed.

    • Until acknowledged, sends on-call notifications to escalatees based on the escalation policy and configured contact preference.
    • Logs escalation details for each communication.
    • Resumes the workflow immediately after rejection.
    • Catch-all users are treated like all other escalation users: A response is expected and the incident might be assigned to them based on their response.
    Note:
    This workflow internally launches the On-Call: Assign by Acknowledgement per Rota workflow.
    On-Call: Escalations by Email
    • Until acknowledged, sends on-call email notifications to escalatees based on the escalation policy and configured email contact preferences.
    • Logs escalation details for each communication.
    • Catch-all users are treated like all other escalation users: A response is expected and the incident might be assigned to them based on their response.
    On-Call: Assign
    Assigns the task to the current primary roster member.
    On-Call: Check Assignment Response
    • Triggered when an inbound SMS message is received.
    • Based on the response in the message, assigns the task to the roster member.
    • Updates the response in the corresponding notification record.
    On-Call: Assign by Acknowledgement Voice
    • Triggered when an outbound call is made from the on-call number to any user or device.
    • Based on the response to the voice call, assigns the task to the roster member.
    • Updates the response in the corresponding notification record.
    On-Call: Time-off approval
    • Triggered when vacation time off (PTO) is requested by a user.
    • Sends approval requests to appropriate managers.
    On-Call: Conference Call Escalation
    • Triggered when a conference call is initiated and a group is added to the call.
    • Makes a voice call to the first group member in the escalation policy.
    • If the member does not join the conference call, then escalates to next group member in the policy