Knowledge Base · Alerts & escalation
How does two-way escalation actually work?
When an alert comes in, my-iris notifies the first on-call recipient by SMS or a voice call and waits for a reply. Replying "1" acknowledges the alert and it resolves. Replying "2" skips straight to the next responder. If nobody replies within the configured wait window, my-iris escalates to the next person automatically — up to around 20 rounds — until someone acknowledges. Every step is a tracked state, not a fire-and-forget message: who was notified, when, on what channel, and how they responded.
Related questions
Is the wait time between escalation rounds configurable?
Yes — the delay before escalating to the next responder is set per receiver group, so a critical cold-chain alert and a lower-urgency notice can use different escalation timing.
Does escalation work the same way on a phone call as it does by SMS?
Yes — on a voice call the same "1 to acknowledge, 2 to skip" logic is a keypad (DTMF) press instead of a text reply, so escalation behaves identically regardless of channel.
See the full escalation engine — the state machine that reaches a human.
Two-way escalation