> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.custral.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # On-Call > Rotate who picks up inbound work, hand off on a schedule, and let anyone book cover. An **on-call schedule** is a named rota: an ordered list of people and a rule for when the baton passes between them. A routing rule can then target the schedule instead of a fixed person, so "whoever is on call" stays true without anyone editing the rule each week. Shifts belong to the team that runs them, so you manage them from **Settings → Team → Teams → the team → Shifts**. The Teams list carries an **On now** column, which is where to look for who is on call across the whole workspace. *** ## What a schedule holds | Field | What it does | | --------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | **Participants** | The rotation, in order, people **or teams**. The first slot holds it when the rota starts. | | **Rotation** | Daily or weekly, how often the baton passes. | | **Hands off on / at** | The weekday (weekly only) and time of day the baton passes. | | **Timezone** | The zone those times are read in. Leave it empty to follow the workspace's. | | **Coverage** | The days and hours the schedule covers anything at all. | Who is on call is **worked out from the clock**, not stored, so editing the rota takes effect immediately, and there is no state to drift out of step. Hand-offs are counted in calendar days, so a rota that hands off at 09:00 keeps handing off at 09:00 through a daylight-saving change rather than sliding by an hour. ## A slot can be a whole team A rotation slot is a person or a team. When a team's turn comes it holds the **whole shift**, and each message that arrives inside it goes to the next member in turn, skipping anyone away or over their conversation cap, exactly as the **Assign to Team** action does. A team counts as **one slot**. Three slots is a three-week cycle whether the middle one is a person or a team of eight; expanding a team inline would give it one turn per member and re-phase the whole rota every time somebody joined. A team on the rota has no single presence dot, because nobody is *the* on-call person until a message arrives. The list shows how many of the team could take one, "3 of 5 available". Cover is always a person, even on a rota of teams: standing in for a window is something an individual does. ## Coverage, and what happens outside it A schedule with no coverage window runs 24/7. Give it one, weekdays, or 18:00–09:00, and **outside that window the schedule names nobody**. That is deliberate. A rule targeting the schedule is then skipped, and the next rule down gets its turn, so an after-hours message reaches the after-hours rota instead of waking whoever happens to be next in the day rota. Follow-the-sun is two schedules and two rules, in priority order. ## Cover Cover is one person standing in for a window, whatever the rotation says: holiday, an appointment, a swap. Add it from **Add cover** and give it a member, a start, an end and optionally a note. Cover **wins outright** for its window, including outside the schedule's own coverage hours: it is a decision a human made about a specific window, and the rota has no way to know why. When it ends, the rotation resumes exactly where it would have been. ## Routing to a rota On a channel's routing rules, choose the **On-Call Schedule** action and pick the schedule. The person the rota names still passes the rule's ordinary availability gates. If they are away, at their conversation cap, or missing a required skill, the rule yields nobody and the next rule takes over: the same fall-through as every other rule. That makes a second rule beneath an on-call rule a simple escalation: put the rota first with **Only assign to agents who are online**, and a team or a manager underneath it. ## Status, and being skipped Every member can set themselves **Available** or **Away** from the account menu at the bottom of the sidebar. Away keeps them out of routing while leaving them signed in; they appear offline to their team once they close Custral. The team's shift track shows who holds each layer right now, so a rota whose current holder has stepped away is visible before a message arrives rather than after. ## Using it Settings → Team → Teams → the team → **Add a shift**, then pick a template, Business hours, After hours or Weekend cover, or start from scratch. A template fills in the rotation and coverage; it cannot know who is in the rota, so it leaves the participants to you. Add the people and teams in the order the baton should pass, then the rotation and hand-off time. Leave it empty for 24/7, or give it the days and hours this rota is responsible for. On the channel's routing rules, add a rule with the **On-Call Schedule** action. **Add cover** overrides the rota for a window and hands it straight back afterwards. ## Troubleshooting Either the moment is outside its coverage window, the schedule is disabled, it has no participants, or its start date is still in the future. The "On now" column names which. The on-call member is being gated out. Check whether they have set themselves Away, are over the rule's open conversation cap, or lack a skill the rule requires. Check the schedule's timezone. With none set it follows the workspace's, which may not be the rota's own region. ## Next steps * [Routing Rules](/comms/inbox/routing): actions, gates, and the 30-day analytics. * [User Groups](/team/users/groups): the other way a rule can name several people. ## Related topics - [Routing Rules](/comms/inbox/routing.md) - [Chat Routing](/comms/chat/routing.md) - [Voice & Calls](/comms/voice/overview.md) - [Caller ID](/comms/voice/caller-id.md) - [Caller verification](/comms/voice/verification.md)