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On Call

Leveraging AI for Efficient On-call Scheduling

Regardless of industry specifications, creating and maintaining a highly functional incident management process is crucial for organizations of all sizes. The various potential applications of Generative AI in this process can significantly enhance the efficiency, accuracy, and speed of incident detection, analysis, and resolution. GenAI can be utilized across all stages of the incident management process, including preparation, response, communication, and learning.

Time, timezones, and scheduling

Our On-call product has been in the wild for a few months now, and in this post I want to talk about building a time-sensitive system and what we did to handle some of the challenges. I’ll cover what our scheduler is responsible for, the basics of working with time, and talk a bit about how we tested our system.

The Impact of On-Call on Mental Health

Lately, I have been thinking about the mental health effects that stem from working in the cybersecurity industry. And in my research, I came across an Afternoon Cyber Tea podcast that sparked my interest. During their talk, host Ann Johnson and Dr. Ryan Louie, MD, PhD, dissect parallels between those who work in cybersecurity and those who work in healthcare, and uncover how these types of jobs affect mental health.

The complexity of phone networks

Arguably the most important part of an on-call product is knowing that you will be notified when things break, wherever you are. When it comes to SMS and phone call notifications, we have to leave the familiar realm of the internet and JSON responses, and deal with systems that provide limited observability and insight into what’s gone wrong.

Building a multi-platform on-call mobile app

A significant part of being on-call is the ability to respond to pages and handle escalations on the go. In the early stages of developing incident.io On-call, we considered whether a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) could rely solely on SMS and phone calls. However, we quickly realized that a fully featured mobile app was going to be essential to the on-call experience. This led us to the question: how should we build this mobile app?

Behind the scenes: Launching On-call

March 5th was a big day for incident.io as we released our on-call product to the world. Nine months of listening to our customers, coding, fixing, testing, and polishing came together for our biggest product launch to date. Releasing On-call was a huge milestone and represented the next step in our journey as a company.

On-Call Life: Setting Expectations

Imagine this: You’ve just been offered a new job in tech. Maybe it’s your first job right out of college, and you’ve only heard of being on-call in passing conversations up until this point. Or, perhaps you’ve been in tech your whole life but never had to be on-call until today. Or, maybe you’re contemplating whether on-call is for you because your company is dangling some extra cash (because, who doesn’t like extra money!).

Live Call Routing/ Dedicated Lines (Powered by OnPage)

Are you tired of missing critical alerts and important calls during your on-call shifts? Are you looking for a way to facilitate communication between your customers and your on-call team by utilizing an IVR system that can elevate critical calls, and escalate it based on on-call schedules and routing rules? Discover how OnPage's innovative Live Call Routing technology can transform your on-call experience!
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All-in-One Incident Management: Why Squadcast Trumps Separate On-Call and Alerting Tools

The pressure is on. Incidents happen, and resolving them quickly and efficiently is crucial for meeting your SLAs. But relying on a patchwork of tools for alerting, collaboration, and post-incident analysis can create confusion, delays, and frustration. They can work or may have been working perfect in your company but here are a few factors to consider: The list of questions can go on differing from organization to organization. These are just a few factors that can help you evaluate whether your current tools are truly effective for Incident Response, or if it's time to switch to a unified solution like Squadcast.