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On-call schedules define who is responsible for responding to incidents during any given time window. A schedule contains one or more rotation layers, each with its own rotation type, handoff time, and list of participants. This guide walks you through creating a schedule, adding a rotation layer, and checking who is currently on call — all from the dashboard.
Managing schedules from a script or pipeline instead? See the On-call schedules API guide.
1

Create a schedule

Go to On-call Schedules in the dashboard (/oncall-schedules) and click Create Schedule. Fill in the dialog:
  • Name (required) — e.g. Platform Engineering.
  • Description (optional) — what this schedule is for.
  • Timezone (required) — search and pick the schedule’s IANA timezone (e.g. America/New_York). The timezone drives when handoffs happen and accounts for daylight saving automatically.
Click Save Schedule. scaling.cloud opens the new schedule’s detail page.
2

Add a rotation layer

On the schedule detail page, click Add Layer and configure the rotation in the Add Rotation Layer dialog:Participants rotate in the order you add them: the first is on call from Effective From, and each subsequent person takes over after Rotation Length days at the Handoff Time. Click Save Layer when done.
A schedule can have multiple layers. Use Reorder Layers to set precedence — position 0 is the owner-bearing layer, and its current participant becomes the Schedule Owner used as the incident lead.
3

Check who is currently on call

The schedule detail page shows a Current On-call card with whoever is on call right now. If someone has an active override for this schedule, the card shows an Override tag alongside their name. If no layer is active, it reads No one on-call — check that a layer’s Effective From has passed and its Effective Until has not.

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Next steps

Configure Escalation

Point an escalation policy at this schedule so incidents page it.

Follow-the-sun escalation

Page the team that’s awake using working-hours conditions.