Why you need to stop the handover of that shared on-call duty phone

Oct 5, 2020 | DevOps, General, ITOM & ITSM, OT & IoT

If you are still handing over a shared on-call duty phone or pager (sometimes called ‘operations phone’), it is time to rethink your process. The Covid19-induced new normal has a dramatic impact on our work live and social behavior. We work from home and that is especially true for the IT workforce. We meet with less people and limit our social network to relatives and close friends.

Classic on-call duty includes a central on-call duty phone or mobile device, with a physically handover to the next person on duty each time a new duty starts. This is diametral to the “new normal”. There are better ways to organize your on-call duty handover.

Challenge

The reason for a handover of a shared on-call duty or operations phone device is typically the inflexibility of alert or call routing (configuration). In critical alerting scenario, a fixed device eliminates the need to reconfigure IT monitoring, phone systems or other error-detecting systems whenever a new on-call duty slot starts. So, the destination of notifications, alerts and calls stays the same. Because re-configuring these systems is usually cumbersome, error-prone and elaborate.

The downside is the need to physically hand over the device to the person who starts their on-call duty. While this is no problem when we see each other in the office, in many companies this is no longer the case.

Solution

Oncall Scheduling SIGNL4With SIGNL4 – a critical alerting solution with a powerful mobile app – you can now simply use your own smart device with the SIGNL4 app installed and have alerts and notifications automatically routed to you when you are on duty. No need to have this one single on-call duty phone (not even talking about pagers!).

SIGNL4 allows for convenient, browser-based scheduling of on-call duties and shifts. It will always reliably route any incoming critical alert to the right person on duty. It uses mobile push, text messages, voice calls and instant messaging tools, including tracking and escalations to ensure alert delivery.

All you need to do is to change the delivery address for critical events and alerts in your monitoring or other IT systems once – to the email address or webhook of your SIGNL4 response team. And SIGNL4 handles all the rest for you.

Benefits

The benefits are straight forward. It really makes a difference – for you personally and for your business.

  • No need to meet with your on-call duty successor anymore
  • No more worries about who has the on-call duty phone
  • No extensive cleaning and disinfecting the device after your received it

If you think this can help your business, click here to enjoy a free 30-days trial

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SIGNL4 Alerting App

Stay ahead of critical incidents with SIGNL4 and its superpowers. SIGNL4 provides superior and automated mobile alerting, delivers alerts to the right people at the right time and enables operations teams to respond and to manage incidents from anywhere.

Learn more about SIGNL4 and start your free 30-days trial.