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Alert urgency indicates how quickly an alert requires attention. This determination is based on the potential impact and seriousness of the problem causing the alert. Setting up alert urgency ensures that the most critical issues are prioritized and addressed promptly, reducing downtime and minimizing the impact on operations.

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Configuring Alert Urgency Definitions

Rootly has defaults for High, Medium, and Low, but you can edit these, delete them, and/or create new alert urgency definitions.
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Step 1: Create a new Alert Urgency definition

To create a new alert urgency definition in the web app:
  • Go to Alerts > Urgency tab and click + New Alert Urgency.
  • Enter a Name (required) and a Description (required).
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Step 2: Configure Alert Urgency on Heartbeats

  • Go to On-Call > Heartbeats.
  • Edit existing Heartbeat or + New Heartbeat.
  • Set the desired Alert Urgency for the Heartbeat. Learn more about Heartbeats. Alerturgency Newheartbeat Pn
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Step 3: Configure Alert Urgency on Live Call Routing (required)

  • Go to On-Call > Live Call Routing.
  • Edit existing Routing Number or + New Routing Number.
  • Go to the Routing Rules tab and set the desired Alert Urgency. Alert urgency routing number configuration
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Step 4: Configure Alert Urgency on Alert Sources (required)

  • Go to Alerts > Alert Sources and click the pencil icon beside the desired Alert Source. Then go to the Configure tab.
    By default, all Alert Sources will default to High urgency.
  • Click + Add Condition. You can set conditions based on a field selected from your alert payload. Screenshot2025 05 17at10 39 27AM Pn
  • Click Save Changes to continue.
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Step 5: Configuring Escalation Paths for Alert Urgency

The most common use case is when you want High Urgency alerts to always wake up on-call personnel regardless of working hours, and Low Urgency alerts to never page and wake up on-call personnel outside of working hours.
  • Go to On-call > Escalation Policies and find the escalation policy you want to set up a path for. Click the pencil icon on the right side to edit.
  • Set the Working Hours for your team.
  • Under Dynamic Escalation Paths, click + New Path.
  • Enter a Name for your path (required) and add conditions for Alert Urgency, within working hours, and JSON path.
  • Set the notification type to Audible or Quiet.
Alert urgency routing number configuration
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Step 6: Configure your personal Audible Notifications and Quiet Notifications (required)

  • Go to Account settings > Notifications > On-Call Notifications to set Notification Rules for quiet and Audible Alerts.
  • Audible alerts override the Do Not Disturb settings on your device. By default, a critical alert will be sent to your primary device via the Rootly app. If the Rootly app isn’t installed on a mobile device, you’ll receive a phone call.
  • Quiet alerts obey Do Not Disturb settings on your device. 
We recommend setting up Push Notifications, SMS, Email, or a combination of these. Learn more about Notification Rules.

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Using Alert Fields for Alert Source Urgency

Alert fields can be used to dynamically set the urgency level on incoming alerts based on the field values. To configure urgency using alert fields:
  1. Navigate to your alert source and select the Urgency tab.
  2. Build conditions to determine when a specific urgency level should be applied to the alert.
  3. Use alert field values in your conditions (for example, “If Severity equals Critical, set urgency to High”).
  4. Note: You’ll only have access to the alert fields that have been configured on the current alert source you’re working with.
When an alert comes in, Rootly will evaluate your urgency conditions based on the alert field values and automatically set the appropriate urgency level.