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Overview

While most alerts in Rootly arrive programmatically from monitoring tools, responders often need to page someone on the fly — escalating to another team, looping in a subject matter expert, or starting a page for an issue a monitor hasn’t caught. Manual paging lets users trigger the same escalation policies and paging behavior as a programmatic alert, from Rootly Web, Slack, or the mobile app. Manual alerts can target:
  • Users — page a specific person directly
  • Teams — kick off the team’s escalation policy
  • Services — kick off the service’s escalation policy
  • Functionalities — kick off the functionality’s escalation policy
  • Escalation Policies — page a policy directly
When you page a team or service, Rootly runs the same escalation policy as if a programmatic alert had targeted it — the behavior is identical to automated paging.

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Customizing Paging Targets

Rootly lets users page across all five target types by default, but seeing every option in an urgent moment can lead to decision paralysis. If your responders only ever page teams (or only ever page services), narrow the picker to the targets they actually use. To configure:
  1. Navigate to the Alerts page in Rootly Web.
  2. Click Settings in the top-right corner.
  3. Open the Manual Paging Options tab.
  4. Toggle on or off the target types you want available to your users.
Manual paging options settings
At least one paging option must remain enabled. The targets you leave on are the only targets your users will see when escalating from Rootly Web or Slack.

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Paging in Slack

Rootly exposes a single Slack paging command with three interchangeable aliases: /rootly escalate, /rootly call, and /rootly page. They all invoke the same underlying command — pick whichever word your team prefers. The modal that opens depends on where you invoke the command, not on which alias you typed:
  • In an incident Slack channel — the escalation dialog opens with the current incident’s context. If your team has an external paging integration (PagerDuty, Opsgenie, VictorOps), the dialog routes the page to that provider; otherwise it uses Rootly On-Call.
  • In any other channel shared with the Rootly bot — the manual page dialog opens for ad-hoc paging (Rootly On-Call schedules, teams, services, functionalities, or escalation policies).
You can also @-mention users after the command to prefill target users — for example, /rootly page @alice @bob.
Manual paging form in Slack
If your team has disabled the Rootly on-call slash commands (via Team Settings → Custom Slack paging workflow), /rootly escalate|call|page won’t be available. Ask an admin to re-enable the commands if you need them.

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Paging in Web

You can start a manual page from Rootly Web in three places:
  • Left-hand navigation — click Start Paging at any time.
  • Alerts page — click Start Paging in the top-right corner.
  • Incident page — click Escalate to page someone into the current incident.
Start Paging button in left nav
Fill out the form with context for the person you’re paging, then click Start Paging to send the page.

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Paging in Mobile

The Rootly mobile app supports manual paging with the same target types available in Web. From the app, tap the paging action, pick the target type, fill out the form, and send the page — the flow mirrors what you see in Web so you don’t have to learn a second mental model when you’re paging from your phone. Mobile paging is especially useful during weekend or off-hours coverage when you may not have Rootly Web open, and when you need to escalate quickly without opening a laptop.

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Default Alert Message

If your team frequently pages with similar context, configure a default title and description template so users don’t have to type the same boilerplate every time. Liquid templating lets you populate fields dynamically. To configure:
  1. Open the Alerts page in Rootly Web.
  2. Click Settings in the top-right corner.
  3. Toggle on Default alert message.
  4. Author the title and description, using Liquid expressions where dynamic values are needed. Users can still edit the populated text before sending the page.
Default alert message setting

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Best Practices

  • Give the person you’re paging as much context as possible. A clear title and description shortens time-to-acknowledgement and helps responders prioritize. Use a default alert message template to enforce a minimum bar.
  • Narrow the paging picker to what your responders actually use. If teams never page individual users directly, turn that target type off — every option you remove is one less decision in a high-stress moment.
  • Invoke the paging command from inside an incident channel when you’re extending an existing incident. In an incident channel, the dialog attaches the resulting page to the current incident automatically. Outside a channel, the page is unattached — use this for ad-hoc paging that isn’t tied to an existing incident.
  • Reach for manual paging when programmatic monitoring missed something. If a customer-reported issue isn’t covered by an existing monitor, manual paging is the fast path to get someone on it.

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Troubleshooting

The Manual Paging Options tab on the Alerts settings page controls which target types are visible to your users. If users, teams, services, functionalities, or escalation policies are missing from the form, ask an admin to re-enable that target type. At least one target type is always enabled.
Confirm the Rootly bot is installed in the channel where you’re running the command — /rootly escalate, /rootly call, and /rootly page are aliases and behave identically, so switching between them won’t help. Also check whether an admin has disabled the on-call slash commands under Team Settings (the setting names /rootly page, /rootly escalate, /rootly oncall, /rootly alerts, and /rootly override as the set it disables).
Check the escalation policy attached to the target you paged. If the policy has no on-call user for the current time window, no one will receive a notification. Open the target’s escalation policy and verify that the schedules and steps point at users who are currently on-call.
Make sure Default alert message is toggled on under Alerts → Settings. If your template uses Liquid expressions that reference fields unavailable at paging time, those variables resolve to blank. Test the template by manually paging a test target and inspecting the populated form.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Yes. When you page a team, service, functionality, or escalation policy, Rootly runs the attached escalation policy — which routes through the on-call schedule for that target. Paging a specific user bypasses the schedule and contacts that user directly.
Yes. See the Paging in Mobile section above — the mobile app supports the same target types and form as Web. Install and configure the Rootly mobile app if you haven’t already.
Yes. Every manual page creates an alert in Rootly with the title, description, and target you specified, so the page is tracked alongside programmatic alerts.
/rootly new opens a new incident. Manual paging triggers a page (and the corresponding escalation policy) without necessarily declaring an incident, though you can attach the resulting alert to an existing incident or create one from it.

Alerts Overview

The umbrella page covering programmatic alert ingestion, sources, and noise reduction.

Escalation Policies

How Rootly decides who to page and when, based on schedules and steps.

Alert Urgency

Control which alerts page on-call immediately and which can wait.