Documentation Grafana Cloud Alerts and IRM IRM Manage On-call schedules

On-call schedules

Use on-call schedules in Grafana IRM to establish automatic rotation management and alert escalation. With on-call schedules, you can:

• Ensure consistent coverage for alerts and incidents
• Distribute on-call responsibilities across your team
• Define custom rotation patterns that match your team’s needs
• Manage schedule changes and temporary coverage adjustments
• Monitor and improve schedule quality

Key concepts

Before creating schedules in Grafana IRM, understand the following key components:

• Rotations: Recurring patterns that determine when team members are on-call, such as weekly or monthly cycles
• Shifts: Specific time periods when a team member is responsible for responding to incidents and alerts
• Schedule layers: Multiple concurrent rotation patterns that define different response priorities (a higher-level layer overrides a lower tier rotation)
• Time zones: Settings that ensure accurate schedule display and management for distributed teams across regions
• Overrides: Temporary schedule modifications to accommodate time off, shift swaps, or special coverage needs

Schedule types

Grafana IRM offers three flexible ways to manage on-call schedules:

IRM app managed schedules

Create and manage schedules directly through the Grafana IRM web UI:

• Design custom rotation patterns that match your team’s needs
• Configure multiple rotation layers
• Preview and validate schedule coverage in real-time
• Handle overrides and time zone adjustments

To learn more, refer to Create on-call schedules.

Calendar import (iCal)

Import schedules from calendar applications like Google Calendar:

• Manage rotations using familiar calendar tools
• Import schedules via iCal URLs
• Automatically sync schedule changes
• Set up override calendars for temporary coverage adjustments
• Support multiple assignees and priority levels
• View and monitor schedules through the IRM schedule interface

To learn more, refer to Import schedules.

Infrastructure as code

Manage schedules programmatically through Terraform and version control:

• Define schedules as code
• Track schedule changes in version control
• Automate schedule creation and updates
• Integrate with CI/CD pipelines
• Ensure consistent schedule configuration
• Scale schedule management across teams

To learn more, refer to Schedules as code.

Schedule quality

Monitor and improve your schedule effectiveness:

Quality metrics

• Coverage gaps
• Distribution balance
• User workload
• Schedule predictability

Quality score

The schedule quality score (0-100) helps you assess and improve your schedules:

Combine schedules and escalation levels

By defining an escalation chain including several “Notify schedule” steps with a “Wait” step between them, you can organize different levels of on-call responsibility:

Primary level

• First line of defense for incident response
• Handles initial incident assessment and resolution
• Typically staffed by team members most familiar with the system

Secondary level

• Provides backup support when primary cannot respond
• Activated if primary doesn’t acknowledge within set timeframe
• Often includes more experienced team members or specialists

Tertiary level

• Final escalation point for critical incidents
• Ensures coverage when primary and secondary are unavailable
• May include senior team members or management

Benefits of layered schedules

• Distributes on-call workload across teams
• Provides clear escalation paths
• Ensures continuous coverage for critical systems
• Allows for specialized response teams

Next steps

• Create an on-call schedule
• Import schedules from calendar
• Manage shift swaps and overrides
• Set up schedules as code