Hi xMatters - We're currently evaluating on trial, but will probably be moving forward soon. Is there a mechanism for repeating or retrying a given contact multiple times before the alert is escalated? I saw the ability to set up "repeat notification" on the Android/iOS mobile app, but I wanted something from the Message Sender / Administrator role to accomplish the same tasks over Phone call, SMS, email, etc
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6 comments
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Francois Groulx Great question Daniel!
If you are contacting a group (naturally a collection of people) you can add the same person in the mix multiple times with a time delay. So let's say you have user 1 initially getting the call then after 5 minutes you want to call again. Just add him again to the schedule with a time delay of 5 minutes in between and that will do it. If he stops the event before that timer hits he won't be called again but if it's ignored or not heard or missed etc... it will retry again. You can even target a specific device for that person the second time around if you want! This does allow for some sort of retry logic to be added but you have to target a group to be able to do that.
Each device may also have its own retry mechanisms. Especially voice calls. If the call goes to voicemail you can set retry logic on there to keep trying x times before leaving a message. Also if the user hangs up before full message is delivered, does not answer, or if the call fails it will keep trying.
The repeat notification is great on the app but each user must set their own preference and it will just keep bugging them on the app - it won't retry e-mail, phone or anything else at the same time.
If you have a particular requirement or vision on how you want this retry to work (would the group idea be a good start? Does it depend on the user or the device? etc...) add it here so we can continue to offer some advice for you to try.
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Daniel Gustafson Thanks I think adding the user multiple times to a group could work OK. Basically something that we can control that works like the App repeat or Voice call repeat. If someone misses their App Push notification and they haven't set up the repeat notification on their own, it seems like it would be easy to miss (at least until the next contact method is tried).
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Francois Groulx Great! If you find any other niche cases this does not cover please comment so we can continue helping you.
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Philip Colmer Hi Francois
I'm interested in a similar requirement but I've hit a snag with shift rotations. In our team, there are only two of us, so I started off with a shift that looks like this:
The shift is set to schedule-based rotation, rotating second to first, every week.
Taking your suggestion, I extended a shift so it looks like this:
Now, I know that the user can manage a setting in the app for repeat notifications but I want this behaviour to be specific to this workflow.
The problem I'm hitting is the rotation. xMatters doesn't see "P" as one person - it sees "P" as three people, so the next rotation becomes:
P - Android Phone
P - Android Phone
C
P
instead of:
C
C - Android Phone
C - Android Phone
P
Is there any way to achieve what I'm trying to achieve?
Thanks.
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Francois Groulx Hey Philip!
What if you create a "sub-group" for P and a "sub-group" for C? So in group P you would have:
P
Delay 5 mins
P>Mobile App
Delay 5 mins
P>Mobile AppThen do the same for C
In the notification group you would simply add group P>delay 15 mins>group C
Maybe that would work?
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Philip Colmer Thanks, Francois. I have adopted your suggestion, although I've had to avoid explicitly mentioning the Mobile app because things go awry when I start adding absences.
Instead, I've decided that for the workflow I'm working on, I've added the Devices option and made it mobile-only and changed the sub-groups to specify the people rather than their devices.
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