Escalation chain
An ordered list of fallback contacts that fires when the on-call person doesn't acknowledge in time.
An escalation chain is the safety net under a rotation. When the on-call person is @mentioned but doesn't acknowledge within the timeout, the chain fires — notifying the next contact, then the next, until someone responds.
Escalation chains exist because being on-call isn't the same as being available every second. People sleep, commute, and step away. The chain makes sure an unanswered @mention becomes someone else's problem quickly, instead of sitting silently.
In Dynaro, each rotation has one escalation chain. The number of fallback steps it can hold depends on the plan — 2 on Free, 5 on Team, unlimited on Pro. Each step is one more fallback contact before the @mention is considered unhandled.
In practice
An @oncall mention goes unacknowledged for 10 minutes. Dynaro escalates to the team lead. Still nothing after another 10 minutes — it escalates to the engineering manager. That's a two-step escalation chain doing its job.
Related terms
The signal that the on-call person has seen an @mention and is handling it — which stops the escalation clock.
User groupA Slack group like @oncall that Dynaro keeps in sync with whoever is currently on-call.
RotationA recurring schedule of who's on-call for a team — configured once, then run automatically.
See the terms in action on the features page or how it works.
On-call, but simpler.
Install in Slack. Configure your first rotation in 10 minutes. Free for small teams.
Add to Slack