What Round Robin tells people, and when

Round Robin tells people about duty in Slack: in the rotation’s channels, in direct messages, and in replies that only the person who acted can see. This page lists every message by area, with what sends it, who receives it, where it appears and what controls it.

To reword a duty message or switch it off, see Customize rotation messages.

You need: Round Robin in each channel that should get a rotation’s messages. Run /invite @Round Robin in the channel.

Where a message appears

Where	What it means
Channel	A post in each channel where the rotation has Post duty messages here on. Everybody in the channel sees it.
Direct message	A message from Round Robin to one person.
Only you	A reply in the conversation that only the person who acted can see.
Thread	A reply in the thread the request came from. Everybody in the channel can read it.
Modal	A dialog that opens in front of the person who acted.
App Home	Round Robin’s Home tab, for the person who opens it.

A message that has a template follows its Enabled switch: switched on and left empty, the message is not sent. See How the Enabled switch works.

Duty changes

Duty starts

What happens	Who is told	Where	What controls it
Somebody goes on duty: a handover, Rotate now, Set on duty, or a new person when a window opens	The rotation’s channels	Channel	On duty channel template. Attach Card To On-Duty Messages adds the rotation card.
Somebody goes on duty	Each person going on duty	Direct message	On duty direct message template

Each window that hands over posts one message, naming everybody going on duty in it:

Awesome! @Blair is now on duty for rotation Support. They will be on duty until day and time.

The day and time show in each reader’s own Slack clock.

Each person gets one direct message per change, however many seats they take. When they take two lanes, the message names both, as in Seats: Primary, Escalation. On a rotation with an on-duty group, it also says they are now in the group.

Somebody who moves from one seat to another and stays on duty gets no message.

Duty ends

What happens	Who is told	Where	What controls it
Somebody goes off duty	That person	Direct message	Off duty direct message template
The rotation is disabled, or linked to or unlinked from a partner schedule, and nobody goes on duty	The rotation’s channels	Channel	Off duty channel template
A handover finds nobody who can take duty	The rotation’s channels, then the rotation’s owners	Channel, direct message	Warnings when nobody can go on duty, in the Skips and hand-overs card under Settings → Behavior

At an ordinary handover the channel gets only the on-duty message. It hears that duty ended only when nobody takes over.

When nobody can take duty, the channel reads:

Watch out! There are no valid users to go on duty for rotation Support.

The owners get the same text in a direct message, sent only when the channel post went out. Only Warnings when nobody can go on duty stops both: the Off duty channel template has no effect on them. To find out why nobody could take duty, see Resolve an unexpected assignment.

On a rotation linked to a partner schedule, the channel hears nothing when one responder’s shift ends and the partner still has somebody assigned.

Covered hours

What happens	Who is told	Where	What controls it
A window closes	The rotation’s channels	Channel	Off duty (coverage closes) template, Stay quiet when the same person carries on, Attach Card To Off-Hours Messages
A window closes	Each person whose duty pauses	Direct message	Off duty direct message template
A window opens and the person who went off when it closed is back	The rotation’s channels	Channel	On duty (coverage opens) template, Stay quiet when the same person carries on
A window opens and the person who went off when it closed is back	That person	Direct message	On duty direct message template
A window opens and somebody else goes on duty	The rotation’s channels and that person	Channel, direct message	The On duty templates, as in Duty starts

The closing message names who comes back, and when:

Rotation Support is now outside its covered hours. @Alex will return on duty day and time.

A window with no opening ahead posts nothing to the channel when it closes.

The person pausing is told when their duty starts again:

Dear @Alex, I would like to inform you that rotation Support is now outside its covered hours and your duty is paused. Your duty will start again day and time.

That message keeps this wording even when the Off duty direct message template has text of its own. Switching the template on and leaving it empty stops it. With no opening ahead, the person gets the ordinary off-duty message instead.

Stay quiet when the same person carries on applies to the channel only, and only when the same person is back the same day. Direct messages are sent either way. See Two switches that go with covered hours and What gets announced.

Reminders

What happens	Who is told	Where	What controls it	Plan
A window’s handover is coming up	The person that window hands over to next	Direct message	Notify users before shift starts, Notify before, Before going on duty template	Pro
A window is about to open	The person who comes back when it opens	Direct message	Also notify users before their duty starts when a coverage window opens	Pro
A shift is about to end	The people on duty in that window	Direct message	Notify users before shift ends, Notify before, Before going off duty template	Pro
A window is about to close	The people on duty in that window	Direct message	Also notify users before their duty ends when a coverage window closes	Pro

Each window reminds its own people, once per handover, opening or closing. A reminder switched on with an empty template sends nothing. See Remind people before a shift, and When a reminder does not arrive for the cases that send none.

Requests and changes to duty

Cover and swap requests

What happens	Who is told	Where	What controls it
Somebody asks for cover	The requester and each person asked	Direct message	The request, made in the dashboard
Somebody proposes a swap	The requester and the person asked	Direct message	The proposal, made in the dashboard
A request is accepted, refused, cancelled or expires	The requester and the people asked	Direct message	The answer, from Slack or the dashboard. An unanswered request expires on its own.
Accept or Refuse cannot be applied	The person who pressed it	Only you	None

A pending cover request offers Accept to each person who can take it. A pending swap offers Accept and Refuse. The buttons show only while the request is pending, and the original messages change as the request is answered, cancelled or expires. Request cover and Swap duty describe each message.

When a button cannot be applied, the reply names why:

You see	What to do
Request expired	The request’s time has passed. Nothing can be done with it.
Request changed or unavailable	Open Review request and read the current request.
Conflict review required or Remaining time review required	Open Review request and answer in the dashboard after reviewing the checks.
Cover unavailable or Swap unavailable	It can no longer be applied as it stands. Open Review request.
Update unconfirmed	Your answer may not have been saved. Check the request in My shifts before you press again.

Assignments

What happens	Who is told	Where	What controls it
A direct assignment is created, changed or ended	Each person who held that duty before, and each person it names now	Direct message	None. It is sent whenever the people change.

The message is headed Assignment created, Assignment changed or Schedule restored. It names the rotation, the lane, the window and who made the change, and lists up to eight periods, with Additional intervals counting the rest. See Change an assignment.

Skipped turns

What happens	Who is told	Where	What controls it	Plan
A matching Slack status skips somebody at a new turn	The rotation’s owners	Direct message	No-duty keywords	Pro

User @Alex skipped duty in rotation Support due to Slack status: :palm_tree:. If possible, the next available rotation member will take over.

An absence is not a skip and sends no skip message. Somebody covers the absent hours, and gets the usual on-duty message.

Rotations, people and the workspace

Welcome

What happens	Who is told	Where	What controls it
Somebody invites Round Robin to a channel	The person who invited it, and the channel	Direct message, channel	None

Rotation membership

What happens	Who is told	Where	What controls it
Somebody is added to a rotation	That person	Direct message	None
Somebody is removed from a rotation	That person	Direct message	None

Rotation lifecycle

What happens	Who is told	Where	What controls it
A rotation is created	The rotation’s owners	Direct message	None
A rotation is disabled	Each person on duty, and the rotation’s channels	Direct message, channel	The Off duty templates
A rotation is enabled	The person who goes on duty, and the rotation’s channels	Direct message, channel	The On duty templates
A rotation is deleted	The rotation’s channels, and each member	Channel, direct message	None

A rotation that hands over by hand comes back from Enable rotation with nobody on duty, so nothing is sent until somebody is put on. See Switch it back on.

On-duty group

What happens	Who is told	Where	What controls it
Somebody deletes the group in Slack, and Round Robin restores it	The rotation’s owners	Direct message	The group linked on People & Groups
Somebody deletes the group in Slack, and it cannot be restored	The rotation’s owners	Direct message	The group is unlinked from the rotation
Round Robin can no longer manage the group	The rotation’s owners	Direct message	The group is unlinked from the rotation. Check the workspace’s user group permissions.

The group’s members change at every duty change without a message of their own. The on-duty direct message tells each person they are in it.

Plan limits

What happens	Who is told	Where	What controls it
The workspace goes above its plan’s limits, and handovers stop	The owners of each rotation, or its channels when it has no owner	Direct message, channel	The plan, and the people in rotations
Round Robin is a week from being removed from the workspace	The same	Direct message, channel	The plan, and the people in rotations

Both messages give the people count, the plan’s limit and the removal date. App Home shows Quota reached!, and Rotate opens a modal saying the rotations are on hold. See What happens when you exceed your limits.

Integrations

Partner schedules

What happens	Who is told	Where	What controls it	Plan
A rotation is linked to a PagerDuty or Jira Service Management schedule, or to a different one	Each person on duty, who goes off duty, and the rotation’s channels	Direct message, channel	The Off duty templates	Pro
The provider’s schedule names somebody	That person, and the rotation’s channels	Direct message, channel	The On duty templates	Pro
The connection to the provider becomes unstable, or stable again	The owners of every rotation on that connection	Direct message	The connection under workspace Settings → Integrations	Pro
The linked schedule changes at the provider	The rotation’s owners	Direct message	The schedule, at the provider	Pro
A rotation is unlinked, by you or because of a connection error	The rotation’s owners	Direct message	Disconnect PagerDuty or Disconnect Jira Service Management	Pro

Linking takes whoever was on duty off at once. They get the off-duty message and leave the on-duty group, and nobody is on duty until Round Robin first reads the schedule, usually within a minute. Whoever the provider names then goes on duty, announced like any other duty change. Unlinking leaves the rotation with nobody on duty, and a message after a connection error names the error. See Connect a rotation and Disconnect a rotation.

When the provider has no answer

When Round Robin has no answer from the provider, nobody is on duty in the linked rotation. In place of people, Slack shows one of these labels wherever it says who is on call (/rr <code>, /rr duties, App Home, rotation cards and mentions), and so does the dashboard.

Label	What it means	What to do
Rotation disabled	The rotation is switched off.	Enable it. See Switch it back on.
Schedule not linked	The rotation has no link to a provider schedule.	Link the schedule again under the rotation’s Settings → Integrations → External schedule.
Schedule not read yet	Round Robin has not read the schedule since it was linked.	Wait a minute. If it stays, check the connection under workspace Settings → Integrations.
Schedule data out of date	The last read of the schedule does not cover the current time.	Check the connection under workspace Settings → Integrations, and that the schedule still exists at the provider.

A mention of such a rotation reaches nobody and replies with the label. When the provider’s person on call has no Slack account, a mention replies No remaining Slack recipients, with the name the provider gives them. Map them on People & Groups: see Say who a participant is in Slack.

Calendar connection

What happens	Who is told	Where	What controls it	Plan
Google refuses Round Robin’s access to somebody’s calendar	That person	Direct message	Reconnecting under Settings → Calendar	Pro

The calendar card then shows Needs Reconnection. Open Settings → Calendar and click Reconnect. See Restore a connection that needs attention.

Out-of-office events from a calendar that needs reconnecting keep counting towards duty for 14 days from when the connection broke, then stop. A disconnected calendar’s events, whether its owner disconnected it or the workspace moved to the Free plan, stop counting at once. When events stop counting, who is on duty can change, and that change is announced like any other.

GitHub events

What happens	Who is told	Where	What controls it
A GitHub event the rotation follows	The people on duty, the rotation’s channels, or both	Direct message, channel	The rotation’s notification target and events

What people ask Round Robin

Mentions

What happens	Who is told	Where	What controls it
Somebody mentions Round Robin with a rotation code	Each person on duty, with Ack and Pass	Direct message	The rotation’s mention settings and code
Somebody mentions Round Robin with a rotation code	The person who asked	Thread, or only you outside a thread	The rotation’s mention settings
A person on duty presses Ack	That person, and the person who asked	Direct message	None
A person on duty presses Pass, or does not answer in time	That person, the next person on duty, and the thread	Direct message, thread	Require acknowledgment, Apply round-robin logic to mentions
Nobody is on duty, nobody is left after a pass, or the mention expires	The person who asked	Thread, or only you outside a thread	None
The person who asked already has an open mention on that rotation	The person who asked	Thread, or only you outside a thread	None
Round Robin is mentioned with no code, or a code that matches no rotation the person can see	The person who mentioned it	Only you	None

When cover resumes later, the nobody-on-duty reply says when. See Rotation mentions for the full flow.

Slash commands

Every reply to /rr is visible only to the person who ran it.

What happens	Who is told	Where	What controls it
/rr <code>	The person who ran it: who is on call now, who is next, and a link to the rotation	Only you	Which rotations the person can see
/rr duties	The person who ran it: who is on duty in the enabled rotations they can see, the first ten by name	Only you	Which rotations the person can see
/rr or /rr help	The person who ran it: what Round Robin can do	Only you	None
A code that matches no rotation the person can see	The person who ran it: Sorry, I could not find a rotation with code and the code	Only you	Which rotations the person can see
Round Robin is no longer installed in the workspace	The person who ran it: Workspace not installed.	Only you	Reinstall Round Robin from the Slack App Directory

On the Pro plan, a private rotation is seen by its people, its owners and the workspace’s admins. On Free, everybody sees every rotation. See People and roles.

App Home

What happens	Who is told	Where	What controls it
Somebody opens Round Robin’s Home tab	That person: the rotations they can see, ten per page by name	App Home	Which rotations the person can see

Above the rotations, the Home tab shows the plan, and a notice when something needs action: Quota reached! above the plan’s limits, Billing Issue! when a payment needs attention, and Workspace Suspended! when the workspace is suspended. When the rotations cannot load, it shows Something went wrong with Open Web Dashboard, and it fills in again on its own the next time it refreshes.

Rotation cards

What happens	Who is told	Where	What controls it
Somebody pastes a rotation’s link	Everybody in the conversation	Channel	Whether the person who pasted it can see the rotation
Somebody opens a card	That person, in the flexpane	Only you	Whether that person can see the rotation
Somebody picks Share card to a channel…	The chosen channel, under “@Alex shared the card for rotation Support”	Modal, then channel	The channel the person picks, and whether they can see the rotation. Round Robin must be in it.
Duty changes	The rotation’s channels, under the duty message	Channel	Attach Card To On-Duty Messages, Attach Card To Off-Hours Messages

A card shows a rotation only to people who can see it, so a private rotation stays private:

• A link pasted by somebody who cannot see the rotation stays plain text. Nobody in the conversation gets a card.
• The flexpane, opened by somebody who cannot see the rotation, shows Rotation not available and No access to this rotation.
• Share card to a channel… on a rotation the person cannot see replies Rotation not available, visible only to them, and posts nothing.
• Rotate now on a card, and the rotation’s actions in Slack, work for the people who can edit the rotation in the dashboard. Anybody else gets Rotation not editable, visible only to them, and nothing changes.

Slash commands says who can see a private rotation.

A card for a linked rotation with no answer from the provider shows the label under Current assignments: see When the provider has no answer. See Rotation cards for what a card shows.

Rotation actions

What happens	Who is told	Where	What to do
Rotate on a disabled rotation	The person who pressed it	Modal	Enable the rotation.
Rotate on a rotation linked to a partner schedule	The person who pressed it	Modal	Change the duty at the provider. Round Robin follows.
Rotate while the workspace is above its plan’s limits	The person who pressed it	Modal	Bring the workspace within its limits, or upgrade.
Rotate on a rotation that no longer exists	The person who pressed it	Only you, or a modal from App Home	Start again from /rr.
Rotate when Round Robin cannot complete it	The person who pressed it	Only you	Try again in a few seconds.
Set notes…, then Submit	The person who edits	Modal, then a confirmation in the conversation when opened from a message	None
The new-rotation shortcut	The person who used it	Modal, with a link to the dashboard	At the plan’s rotation limit, the modal says so.
Leave on an older message	The person who pressed it	Modal	Ask a rotation owner to change your membership.
A remove-schedule button on an older message	The person who pressed it	Only you, or a modal from App Home	Change a window’s handovers on the rotation’s Coverage tab.

A Rotate that works sends no reply of its own. The people and channels hear it as a duty start.

Errors

What happens	Who is told	Where	What to do
Something fails while Round Robin handles a request	The person who acted, or the channel when nobody is known, or a direct message when there is no channel	Only you, channel, direct message	Start the action again.

The message begins:

Ok look, no panic, but is possible something went wrong during our last interaction.

If the same action keeps failing, write to [email protected] with the rotation and the time.

Next steps

• Customize rotation messages: reword a duty message, or switch it off.
• Round Robin in Slack: cards, App Home, /rr and mentions in use.
• Templating tokens: what a template can say.