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Overview

Alert Urgency controls how quickly responders must act when an alert is triggered.
It’s the core signal Rootly uses to decide:
  • How aggressively to page on-call responders
  • Whether notifications should be audible (wake people up) or quiet
  • Which escalation paths apply during or outside of working hours
Configured well, urgency ensures true incidents get immediate attention, while low-impact noise stays non-disruptive.

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Understanding Alert Urgency

Rootly ships with three urgency levels by default:
  • High
  • Medium
  • Low
You can:
  • Add new urgencies
  • Rename existing ones
  • Reorder them to change their relative priority
Rootly automatically interprets order as:
  • Top → high urgency
  • Middle → medium urgency
  • Bottom → low urgency
Urgency influences:
  • Escalation behavior (which paths run, what channels are used)
  • Whether notifications bypass Do Not Disturb
  • Dynamic Escalation Paths (e.g., only wake people up on High)
  • Heartbeat severity
  • Live Call Routing behavior
  • Analytics on alert volume & response behavior
The team’s top urgency becomes the default urgency for new Alert Sources.
This is usually “High”, but it’s fully controlled by how you order your urgencies.

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How Rootly Determines Urgency

When an alert is created, Rootly applies urgency in this order:
  1. Urgency Rules on the Alert Source
    • If any rule matches, its urgency wins.
  2. Default Urgency on the Alert Source
    • If no rule matches, we use the source’s default urgency.
  3. Team Default Urgency
    • If the source has no default, Rootly falls back to your team’s top urgency.
The Alert model also enforces a fallback: if no urgency is set by the source or rules, it assigns the team’s default urgency automatically.

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Configuring Alert Urgency Definitions

Alert Urgency definitions live under the Alerts → Urgency tab and are shared across:
  • Alert Sources
  • Heartbeats
  • Live Call Routing
  • Escalation Policies
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Step 1: Create or edit urgency definitions

  • Go to Alerts → Urgency
  • Click + New Alert Urgency or select an existing one to edit
  • Provide a Name and a Description (e.g., “Critical – Wake up on-call immediately”)
  • Drag and drop urgencies to reorder them
Reordering urgencies automatically updates their internal “high / medium / low” semantics and color coding.
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Step 2: Configure urgency for Heartbeats

Heartbeats generate alerts when a periodic signal is missing. Assign an urgency so these alerts escalate correctly.
  • Go to On-Call → Heartbeats
  • Edit an existing heartbeat or click + New Heartbeat
  • Set the Alert Urgency for that heartbeat
Configuring alert urgency on a heartbeat
Use High urgency for critical production heartbeats, and lower urgencies for less critical environments (e.g., staging).
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Step 3: Configure urgency for Live Call Routing

Live Call Routing creates alerts when someone dials your on-call phone number.
  • Go to On-Call → Live Call Routing
  • Edit a Routing Number or create a new one
  • In Routing Rules, set the Alert Urgency
Alert urgency routing number configuration
An Alert Urgency is required for Live Call Routing unless you’re using a Calling Tree.
With a Calling Tree, urgency is set per mapping instead.
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Step 4: Configure urgency rules on Alert Sources (recommended)

Alert Sources control how urgency is derived from incoming payloads.
  • Go to Alerts → Alert Sources
  • Click the pencil icon next to a source
  • Open the Configure or Urgency section
  • Click + Add Condition
Alert Source urgency conditional configuration
For each rule:
  • Choose whether to evaluate:
    • Payload (JSONPath)
    • Alert Field (recommended for long-term stability)
  • Select an operator:
    • is
    • is_not
    • contains
    • does_not_contain
  • Provide a comparison value
  • Select which Alert Urgency to set when the rule matches
New Alert Sources inherit your team’s top urgency as their default.
Urgency rules override this default when they match.
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Step 5: Configure Escalation Paths for urgency-aware routing

A common pattern:
  • High urgency → always audible, 24/7
  • Medium urgency → audible only during working hours
  • Low urgency → quiet notifications or no after-hours paging
To configure this:
  • Go to On-Call → Escalation Policies
  • Edit the relevant policy
  • Configure Working Hours
  • Under Dynamic Escalation Paths, click + New Path
  • Set conditions such as:
    • Alert Urgency includes High
    • Within working hours is false
  • Choose Audible or Quiet notification behavior
  • Configure targets (teams or users) for that path
Escalation path creation with alert urgency conditions
Dynamic Escalation Paths can match one or many urgencies, enabling nuanced routing such as “High or Medium after hours, Low during working hours only”.
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Step 6: Configure personal notification behavior

Each responder controls how urgency translates to alerts on their devices.
  • Go to Account Settings → Notifications → On-Call Notifications
  • Configure notification rules for Audible and Quiet alerts
Behavior:
  • Audible alerts override device Do Not Disturb and will attempt higher-impact channels (e.g., Rootly app push + phone call)
  • Quiet alerts respect Do Not Disturb and are better suited for non-urgent noise
We recommend setting at least two channels for Audible alerts
(e.g., Push + SMS, or Push + Phone).

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Using Alert Fields for Dynamic Urgency Assignment

Alert Fields normalize data across different alert payloads (e.g., severity, environment, customer tier).
Urgency rules can use these fields instead of brittle JSONPaths.

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Example Patterns

  • If Alert Field: Severity is Critical → set urgency to High
  • If Alert Field: Environment is staging → set urgency to Low
  • If Alert Field: Customer Tier contains "Enterprise" → set urgency to High

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How to Configure

  1. Open your Alert Source and go to the Urgency or Configure tab
  2. Click + Add Condition
  3. Choose Alert Field as the kind
  4. Pick the desired field (only fields configured on this source will appear)
  5. Select an operator (is, is_not, contains, does_not_contain)
  6. Provide the comparison value
  7. Choose which Alert Urgency to assign
When alerts arrive, Rootly evaluates field-based urgency rules first.
This keeps your urgency logic stable even if the underlying payload schema changes.

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Where You’ll See Alert Urgency

Once configured, urgency surfaces throughout Rootly:
  • Alerts list & details – visually highlighted urgency labels
  • Heartbeats – each heartbeat alert inherits its configured urgency
  • Live Call Routing – phone-originated alerts carry urgency into escalation
  • Escalation Policies – Dynamic paths filtered by urgency
  • Notifications – audible vs. quiet delivery based on urgency + path
  • Analytics – filter and analyze alert volume by urgency level

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Best Practices

  • Drive behavior, not just labels
    • Name urgencies by the action they imply (e.g., “Critical – Page Immediately”)
  • Use Alert Fields where possible
    • Avoid tightly coupling urgency rules to a specific tool’s payload schema
  • Keep the number of urgencies small
    • Three to five well-defined levels are easier to reason about than many granular ones
  • Align urgency with business impact
    • “High” should always mean “wake someone up”, not “interesting metric blip”
  • Regularly review usage
    • Use analytics and retrospectives to adjust urgencies if too many alerts are High or too many critical issues are Low

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Troubleshooting

  • Confirm you added rules on the correct Alert Source
  • Check whether the rule is using Payload (JSONPath) or Alert Field
  • Ensure the operator is one of: is, is_not, contains, does_not_contain
  • Verify the payload or field value actually matches the condition
  • Remember: if no rules match, the source default or team default will be used
  • The Alert Source may not have urgency rules configured
  • The Source default may be set to a single urgency for all alerts
  • The team’s top urgency will apply if no other urgency is set
  • Check whether multiple sources are pointing to the same urgency configuration
  • Urgency is required on Live Call Routing unless a Calling Tree is configured
  • If using a Calling Tree, confirm mappings are set there instead
  • Confirm the Alert Urgency condition matches exactly (e.g., High vs. HIGH)
  • Double-check Working Hours definitions
  • Ensure your personal On-Call Notification settings allow Audible or Quiet alerts for that path
  • Verify that multiple paths aren’t overlapping in unexpected ways