Well-designed escalation policies balance responsiveness with responder fatigue. The following practices are recommended for teams using Vibe OnCall.

Use Schedules as Targets, Not Individuals

Assign on-call schedules to tiers rather than hardcoding specific individuals wherever possible. Schedules automatically resolve to whoever is currently on call, meaning your policy remains accurate as rotations change without requiring manual updates to the policy itself. Reserve individual targets for the final fallback tier where a specific person — such as a team lead or incident commander — should always be the last resort.

Set Meaningful Tier Timeouts

Tier timeouts should reflect the realistic time it takes a responder to notice and acknowledge an alert given their notification setup. A common starting pattern is:

• Tier 1: 10 minutes — enough time for a responder to see and acknowledge via their primary channel.
• Tier 2: 5 minutes — a shorter window, as a second attempt signals the situation is urgent.
• Tier 3: 5 minutes — final escalation to a senior responder or manager.

Avoid setting timeouts too short (under 2 minutes) as this can trigger unnecessary escalations before the primary responder has had a reasonable chance to respond.

Assign Multiple Targets Per Tier Where Appropriate

Each tier can have more than one target. For high-severity services, consider adding both a schedule and an individual backup to Tier 1 so that two people are notified simultaneously from the start rather than waiting for escalation.

Create Separate Policies for Different Services

Avoid reusing a single generic escalation policy across all services. Different services have different ownership, criticality, and team structures. A dedicated policy per service or service group makes it easier to tune timeouts, adjust targets, and audit coverage independently.

Keep Policies Aligned with Team Structure

When teams change — members join, leave, or shift roles — review your escalation policies to ensure targets and schedules still reflect current ownership. Stale policies that reference former team members or outdated schedules are a common source of missed pages.