> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.incident.io/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Alerts and escalations

> Keep responding to a team's alerts and escalations within that team

By default, anyone in your organization can resolve any alert and acknowledge, snooze, or cancel any escalation. For most teams that's the right thing: anyone can jump in and help out.

As you grow, you might want tighter control to avoid someone accidentally taking actions on alerts or escalations outside their remit. In incident.io, you can restrict acting on alerts and escalations to only the team responsible for them, so that someone in an unrelated team can't accidentally resolve a page or silence an escalation they don't understand. This guide walks through setting that up.

There's one important exception: anyone who's actually paged by an escalation can always acknowledge or snooze it, so you can never be paged by something you're not allowed to silence.

The permission is **Take actions on alerts and escalations**, which covers resolving alerts and acknowledging, snoozing, or cancelling escalations. Ownership comes from the **Team attribute** on an alert, the same attribute used for [routing](/alerts/team-routing); manual escalations fall back to the escalation path they were sent to.

See [Team roles](/admin/team-roles) for how team-based permissions work in general.

## Grant the permission to a team role

At [**Settings → Permissions → Team-level**](https://app.incident.io/~/settings/permissions/team), create or edit a team role and select **Take actions on alerts and escalations**. Assign it to the people on each team who should act on that team's alerts and escalations.

<Frame caption="Granting 'Take actions on alerts and escalations' to a team role. The warning is expected here: the permission is still granted to everyone via the Standard role, which you'll fix next.">
  <img
    src="https://mintcdn.com/incidentio-18bb4170/M7i-hon-ddMx3JM5/images/help-centre/restrict-escalation-response/screenshot-2.png?fit=max&auto=format&n=M7i-hon-ddMx3JM5&q=85&s=e91ed6393bad8868971f030a3707352b"
    alt="Creating a team role with the 'Take actions on alerts and escalations' permission selected, showing a warning that
all users still have the permission via the Standard
role"
    width="1280"
    height="950"
    data-path="images/help-centre/restrict-escalation-response/screenshot-2.png"
  />
</Frame>

## Remove it from the Standard role

This permission is in the **Standard** role by default, so until you remove it there everyone still holds it account-wide and the restriction has no effect. At [**Settings → Permissions → Account-level**](https://app.incident.io/~/settings/permissions), edit **Standard** and uncheck **Take actions on alerts and escalations**.

<Frame caption="Removing 'Take actions on alerts and escalations' from the Standard role">
  <img
    src="https://mintcdn.com/incidentio-18bb4170/M7i-hon-ddMx3JM5/images/help-centre/restrict-escalation-response/screenshot-1.png?fit=max&auto=format&n=M7i-hon-ddMx3JM5&q=85&s=36ecb241f0d3c72b911ce8602fac1f7a"
    alt="Editing the Standard role with the 'Take actions on alerts and escalations' permission
highlighted"
    width="1280"
    height="950"
    data-path="images/help-centre/restrict-escalation-response/screenshot-1.png"
  />
</Frame>

## Check it's working

Someone who isn't on the owning team will see the resolve and acknowledge buttons disabled, with a tooltip explaining why. Members of the owning team, and anyone paged by the escalation, can act as normal.

<Frame caption="The resolve button disabled for someone outside the owning team">
  <img
    src="https://mintcdn.com/incidentio-18bb4170/M7i-hon-ddMx3JM5/images/help-centre/restrict-escalation-response/screenshot-3.png?fit=max&auto=format&n=M7i-hon-ddMx3JM5&q=85&s=c2b161bbc09c044f2c6a9735e243d6bb"
    alt="A disabled resolve button with a tooltip explaining the user isn't on the owning
team"
    width="1280"
    height="950"
    data-path="images/help-centre/restrict-escalation-response/screenshot-3.png"
  />
</Frame>

## FAQs

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="What happens to alerts without a Team attribute?">
    They have no owning team, so once you've restricted the permission, only people who hold it account-wide (such as an
    admin) can act on them. If you want a team to handle these alerts, make sure the alert source extracts a Team
    attribute. See [Alerts and teams](/alerts/team-routing).
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Can someone who was paged still acknowledge an escalation if they're not on the owning team?">
    Yes. Anyone notified by an escalation can always acknowledge or snooze it, regardless of team membership. This makes
    sure a misrouted page can never reach someone who then can't silence it.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="What about manual escalations, which don't come from an alert?">
    Ownership falls back to the escalation path the escalation was sent to. It can be responded to by anyone who was
    paged, anyone who holds the permission account-wide, and members of the team that owns that escalation path.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Does this stop alerts from being auto-resolved?">
    No. Alerts are still auto-resolved as normal, regardless of who triggers it. These permissions only govern people
    resolving alerts directly.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Can admins still resolve any alert?">
    Yes. Anyone who holds the permission account-wide can act on any alert or escalation. This is useful for keeping a
    small set of administrators who can step in across teams.
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>
