On-call notifications and preferences

On-call uses multiple channels (Mobile app, phone, SMS, Slack, email and WhatsApp) to notify you of upcoming shifts and escalations.

You’ll be able to use either the dashboard or the mobile app to add your contact methods and set notification rules.

Responders in Mainland China have a few setup differences — see On-call in China.

Contact methods and notification preferences

Set up all contact methods you’d like to use within the incident.io dashboard. Navigate to Settings → Your account → User preferences to find them.

Your Slack and email notifications should already be setup for you here by default but we’d also highly recommend adding your phone and downloading the mobile app is one of the most popular contact methods when escalations arise.

In Contact methods, select Add method to add a phone number, or WhatsApp if you’re on the Team plan or above.

After having all the methods you want to use for notifications, you can choose how we should notify you when you are on-call or are being escalated to e.g. via app, SMS, Phone Call, Slack etc. Escalations follow your High-urgency notifications rules.

We have sensible default rules for your notifications but you can edit those rules depending on what works best for you. Each rule sets when to notify you and which method to use, and you can select Add another rule to add a level. For example, you can add up to 10 levels of incrementally delayed notifications.

An individual rule can also bypass Do Not Disturb, using the bypassing DND dropdown on that rule. So you can, for example, send a quiet push notification immediately and only escalate to a loud, DND-bypassing call after a minute if unacknowledged.

If an escalation level is set to notify more than once, every attempt starts your rules again from the beginning. A rule with a delay longer than the interval between attempts therefore only completes on the final attempt. For example, if a level notifies every 5 minutes and your rules call you after 7 minutes, the call only happens on the last attempt.

Additionally, it’s important to have reminders to know when you are about to be on-call. In Shift changes, add rules to tell us how and when to notify you when you are starting or ending a scheduled shift.

Mobile app settings

Download the incident.io mobile app and sign in using one of these methods:

• Slack, Microsoft Teams, or SAML: Open the mobile app and sign in directly
• QR code from the dashboard: Open the sidebar or command palette in the web dashboard and select Sign in on mobile. Scan the QR code with your phone’s camera to sign in instantly — no need to type credentials on your phone

If your organization uses SAML, the QR code will take you through your identity provider’s sign-in flow. SAML enforcement is always respected.

Once signed in, we’ll guide you through an onboarding flow to set up the right notifications:

1. Enabling Push Notifications

2. Enabling Critical Notifications

3. Saving our Contact Card on your phone

4. Verifying your phone number

5. Bypassing the ‘Do not disturb’ mode

Doing all the above ensures that you will not miss any important updates or notifications! You will be able to review all settings in the mobile app later on.

Testing

After setting up all notifications and preferences, you can test that every notification path works. Click the bell Send a test notification button on a contact method in the dashboard, or Test in the mobile app, and the test arrives on that method.

We send the app test at the same urgency as a real page, so it also proves that pages get through Do Not Disturb on that phone. For what each test sends and what to do when a test doesn’t arrive, see Test your on-call notifications.

Mobile app preferences

Additionally, you will be able to change appearance between Light and Dark mode on the settings page of the mobile app. You can also just follow the device’s theme you have set up.

You can find more details about bypassing the ‘Do not disturb’ mode in iOS and Android in this help article

Adding contact methods for other users

If you need to add a contact method on behalf of another user, admins can do this from the team members page. See Adding contact methods for another user for details.

FAQs

Why doesn't my phone number support SMS?

For non-mobile numbers — VoIP, Google Voice, or landlines — we default to voice calls only because most can’t reliably receive SMS. Mobile numbers get both SMS and voice by default.

If your number does in fact receive SMS, you can enable it from your notification preferences (see below).

How do I enable SMS for a Google Voice or VoIP number?

Some VoIP and Google Voice numbers can receive SMS even though we can’t detect this automatically. To enable SMS:

1. Open your notification preferences and find your phone number
2. Send a test SMS to confirm the number actually receives it
3. Toggle on SMS support and confirm that you’ve checked the number does support SMS

We require a successful test send before enabling SMS so you don’t add a notification rule to a number that can’t receive one.

Can I disable SMS or voice on a phone number?

Yes. You can turn off either capability from your notification preferences — useful if your number is voice-only or SMS-only.

Before disabling a channel, remove any notification rules that depend on it. We block the change if a rule would be left targeting an unsupported channel.

Why can't I enable SMS or voice for my number?

Some countries don’t support SMS or voice routing through our providers. If a capability can’t be delivered to your country, we block the override. See supported countries for the full list.

What's the HELP/STOP welcome message I received?

When you enable SMS on a non-mobile number, we send a one-off message explaining how to opt out (reply STOP) or get help (reply HELP). This is a US carrier compliance requirement and sends once per number.