Knowledge Base · Alerts & escalation
How does two-way escalation actually work?
When an alert comes in, 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, 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