Fortinet black logo

User Guide

Set up an On-Call schedule

24.1.0
Copy Link
Copy Doc ID af1daa65-c273-11ec-9fd1-fa163e15d75b:457762
Download PDF

Set up an On-Call schedule

On-Call schedules allow you to set dynamic alerting behavior based on your specific on-call rotations within your organization. Schedules can be set to any level of granularity.

Create an On-Call schedule

To create or edit an On-Call schedule:

  1. From the navigation menu, select Teams & Activity > Users, Groups & On-Call.

  2. Select the On-Call schedules tab.

  3. Select Add On-Call to add a new On-Call schedule. To edit an existing schedule, select the 3-dot menu.

Add On-Call events

You can add On-Call events by clicking and dragging on your desired date range or by clicking New Event. The Edit Event drawer will slide out where you can configure your event.

Recurring events

By default, events are scheduled to occur a single time. The more common situation, however, is to configure recurring events.

When the create event pane opens, set your event start and end times. This will define how long each recurring event lasts. Next, change the Recurrence option from One Time to This is a recurring event. From there, you can choose a number of recurrence options:

  • Every n days: beginning on the day of your event start date, an event will occur every n days from that point

  • Every n weeks: beginning on the day of your event start date, an event will occur on the selected days of the week, every n number of weeks. For example, use 1 for every week, 2 for every other week

  • Every n months on the nth day of the month: every n number of months, on the date of the month that coincides with the date of your Start Date. For example, entering a start date of May 1st every 1 month will schedule an event on the first day of every month

  • Every n months on the nth day of the week of the month: Every month, an event will be created on the n day of the nth week. For example, setting a start date of May 1, 2018, which is the first Tuesday of May, will schedule an event for the first Tuesday of every month.

From there, you merely need to select a user and their contact methods to be utilized for alerting.

Default On-Call contact

At the top of the On-Call schedule, there's a button for Set Default Contact. This allows you to select a fallback contact to be utilized in when an incident is identified utilizing an Alert Timeline with your On-Call schedule but no On-Call event is present.

Using On-Call schedules

To utilize your On-Call schedule, you still need to add it to an Alert Timeline. Navigate to Monitoring > Alert Timelines. From there, either create a new Alert Timeline or edit an existing one. Add a new event on the timeline, and then when configuring it, select your desired On-Call Schedule from the On-Call Schedules dropdown.

Example

You added an event in your Alert Timeline to trigger after four minutes. Once an incident on an instance utilizing this timeline has been ongoing for four minutes, we'll look at the On-Call schedule to see who is on-call. We'll alert them according to the configured contact methods on the on-call event. If no event is present, the Default Contact will be used.

Notifications when rolling on and off

To remind team members that they are rolling on or off-call, an email or SMS message can be sent.

Configuring notifications

  1. Visit any On-Call schedule.

  2. Next to the name of the On-Call schedule, select the 3-dot menu.

  3. Select Edit Details.

  4. In the slide-out pane, select the notification types you'd like sent - rolling-on, rolling-off, or both.

Notification options

Option

Description

Notification Type

SMS or Email. If a user doesn't have one of these contact methods, they will be skipped.

Amount of time...

Starting: The amount of time before the user is to start their on-call shift that the message should be sent. Use 0 minutes to notify the user when their shift starts

Ending: The amount of time before the user is to roll-off on-call that a reminder should be sent. Use 0 minutes to send a message to the user exactly when their shift ends.

Message

The notification content

Optionally, you can also customize the email template the notification uses. Under Settings > Email templates, you will find OnCall Notification Conclusion and OnCall Notification Intro - this will allow you to add extra content in addition to the message that is configured above - items such as links to help docs, run-books, wiki's, etc.

Set up iCal integration

On-Call schedules can be viewed in your own calendar by enabling the On-Call schedule iCal feed option.

  1. Open an On-Call schedule.

  2. On the upper-right corner of the calendar, select the RSS feed icon.


    The Calendar Feed drawer will slide out.

  3. Enable the On-Call schedule iCal feed option then select Copy to clipboard.

  4. Paste the copied URL to your own calender application to start subscribing to the feed.

Set up an On-Call schedule

On-Call schedules allow you to set dynamic alerting behavior based on your specific on-call rotations within your organization. Schedules can be set to any level of granularity.

Create an On-Call schedule

To create or edit an On-Call schedule:

  1. From the navigation menu, select Teams & Activity > Users, Groups & On-Call.

  2. Select the On-Call schedules tab.

  3. Select Add On-Call to add a new On-Call schedule. To edit an existing schedule, select the 3-dot menu.

Add On-Call events

You can add On-Call events by clicking and dragging on your desired date range or by clicking New Event. The Edit Event drawer will slide out where you can configure your event.

Recurring events

By default, events are scheduled to occur a single time. The more common situation, however, is to configure recurring events.

When the create event pane opens, set your event start and end times. This will define how long each recurring event lasts. Next, change the Recurrence option from One Time to This is a recurring event. From there, you can choose a number of recurrence options:

  • Every n days: beginning on the day of your event start date, an event will occur every n days from that point

  • Every n weeks: beginning on the day of your event start date, an event will occur on the selected days of the week, every n number of weeks. For example, use 1 for every week, 2 for every other week

  • Every n months on the nth day of the month: every n number of months, on the date of the month that coincides with the date of your Start Date. For example, entering a start date of May 1st every 1 month will schedule an event on the first day of every month

  • Every n months on the nth day of the week of the month: Every month, an event will be created on the n day of the nth week. For example, setting a start date of May 1, 2018, which is the first Tuesday of May, will schedule an event for the first Tuesday of every month.

From there, you merely need to select a user and their contact methods to be utilized for alerting.

Default On-Call contact

At the top of the On-Call schedule, there's a button for Set Default Contact. This allows you to select a fallback contact to be utilized in when an incident is identified utilizing an Alert Timeline with your On-Call schedule but no On-Call event is present.

Using On-Call schedules

To utilize your On-Call schedule, you still need to add it to an Alert Timeline. Navigate to Monitoring > Alert Timelines. From there, either create a new Alert Timeline or edit an existing one. Add a new event on the timeline, and then when configuring it, select your desired On-Call Schedule from the On-Call Schedules dropdown.

Example

You added an event in your Alert Timeline to trigger after four minutes. Once an incident on an instance utilizing this timeline has been ongoing for four minutes, we'll look at the On-Call schedule to see who is on-call. We'll alert them according to the configured contact methods on the on-call event. If no event is present, the Default Contact will be used.

Notifications when rolling on and off

To remind team members that they are rolling on or off-call, an email or SMS message can be sent.

Configuring notifications

  1. Visit any On-Call schedule.

  2. Next to the name of the On-Call schedule, select the 3-dot menu.

  3. Select Edit Details.

  4. In the slide-out pane, select the notification types you'd like sent - rolling-on, rolling-off, or both.

Notification options

Option

Description

Notification Type

SMS or Email. If a user doesn't have one of these contact methods, they will be skipped.

Amount of time...

Starting: The amount of time before the user is to start their on-call shift that the message should be sent. Use 0 minutes to notify the user when their shift starts

Ending: The amount of time before the user is to roll-off on-call that a reminder should be sent. Use 0 minutes to send a message to the user exactly when their shift ends.

Message

The notification content

Optionally, you can also customize the email template the notification uses. Under Settings > Email templates, you will find OnCall Notification Conclusion and OnCall Notification Intro - this will allow you to add extra content in addition to the message that is configured above - items such as links to help docs, run-books, wiki's, etc.

Set up iCal integration

On-Call schedules can be viewed in your own calendar by enabling the On-Call schedule iCal feed option.

  1. Open an On-Call schedule.

  2. On the upper-right corner of the calendar, select the RSS feed icon.


    The Calendar Feed drawer will slide out.

  3. Enable the On-Call schedule iCal feed option then select Copy to clipboard.

  4. Paste the copied URL to your own calender application to start subscribing to the feed.