On-call schedules

On-call schedules help managers or administrators determine whether they have enough resources on call to cover all shifts for each day. The on-call schedule specifies who is to be notified, when, and the notification method. An administrator must complete the On Call Information form to identify individual operator or contact assignments before ITSMA Service Management can create an on-call schedule record.

At midnight, the problem background processor generates the on-call schedule for the next day. The background processor uses information in these tables to produce the on-call schedule for the next 24 hours:

• caldutyhours contains shift definition records.
• operator and contacts provide information about the operator.
• oncallsched defines on call assignments, notification methods, and time zone variations.
• tzfile defines time zones.

Time zones

The On Call Information form has a time zone field where you can note deviations from the server time zone for any operator. For example, consider this scenario:

• A European company has headquarters in London, where the corporate server is located.
• The company record specifies that Western European Time (WET) is the default time zone.
• Teresa Thompson is an employee, but she works remotely from California.
• Her manager notes that her Local Time in the on-call schedule form is Pacific Standard Time (PST).
• When her manager sends her to Chicago for two weeks of on-site customer support, the manager makes an entry in the Exception Time Zone field that temporarily changes her location to Central Standard Time (CST).
• When she returns to California, the manager removes this exception entry from the on-call schedule form before Service Management generates the next day's record.