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On-Call Scheduling

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In this lesson, you will learn:

  • What on-call scheduling does
  • The parts: rotation, roster, escalation
  • How it uses the 24×7 schedule
  • How to build SNWR’s rotation

🔁 Quick look back: Last time: Interactions: Logging a Call or Chat. You learned how an interaction records a call or chat, and how an incident is created from it.

1 “Who’s on call tonight?”

It’s 10 PM. The VPN gateway goes down.

  • The incident is assigned to SNWR Network Support.
  • But everyone has gone home.
  • Nobody knows who is on call, and the outage lasts until morning.

🎯 The problem: Without on-call, urgent work waits for the next working day.

👉 The fix: build an on-call rotation, so ServiceNow knows who to contact at any hour.

2 Words to know

Key term: On-call rotation

A plan that shares out-of-hours cover between team members, in turns.

Key term: Roster

The ordered list of people in a rotation, like primary and backup.

Key term: Escalation

Who is contacted next, and when, if the first person doesn’t answer.

📦 Entitlement check: On-Call Scheduling is part of ITSM Advanced, which SNWR has.

3 SNWR Network Support’s rotation

SNWR Network Support on-call. Rotation: weekday evenings 18:00 to 09:00 and weekends, one week each, on the SNWR 24x7 Critical Support schedule. Roster: primary Ravi Iyer this week, backup another engineer. Escalation: 1 page the primary; 2 after 15 minutes with no answer, page the backup; 3 after 15 more minutes, contact the group manager Beth Anglin.
Figure 1. Primary first, then backup, then the manager.
Part SNWR setting
Group SNWR Network Support
When Evenings 18:00–09:00, and weekends
Rotation One week per engineer
Escalation Primary → backup (15 min) → manager (15 min)

4 How it’s used

  • When a P1 incident is assigned to the group out of hours, ServiceNow can look up who’s on call.
  • Agents can also check “who’s on call now” from the incident.
  • Engineers swap shifts in the tool, so the schedule stays true.

💡 Good to know: On-call cover and P1 SLAs both use SNWR 24×7 Critical Support. So when someone is paged at night, the SLA clock is running too.

⚠️ Heads up: An on-call plan only works if contact details are right. Check phone numbers before go-live.

5 Let’s try it: build the rotation

  1. In the All menu, open On-Call Scheduling and create a schedule for SNWR Network Support.
  2. Add a rotation for evenings and weekends, one week per person.
  3. Add a roster with Ravi Iyer and one more engineer.
  4. Set the escalation: primary, then backup after 15 minutes, then Beth Anglin after 15 more.
  5. Use the on-call calendar to check who’s on call tonight.

6 Quick recap

  • On-call shares out-of-hours cover in turns
  • A roster orders the people; an escalation says who’s next
  • SNWR: primary, then backup, then the manager, 15 minutes apart
  • On-call and P1 SLAs both use the 24×7 schedule
  • Check contact details before go-live

7 Check yourself

Think of your answer first. Then tap to check.

1 It’s 10 PM and a P1 lands with Network Support. Who’s contacted first? Show answer

The primary on-call engineer, for example Ravi.

2 What happens if the primary doesn’t answer in 15 minutes? Show answer

The backup engineer is paged.

3 Which schedule does SNWR’s on-call use? Show answer

SNWR 24×7 Critical Support.

4 Which ITSM package includes On-Call Scheduling? Show answer

ITSM Advanced.

Nice work! SNWR’s urgent incidents always reach someone. 🎉
Next up: Incident SLA Design for SNWR

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