We have just started on our journey of using xMatters to help improve our on-call management and communications.
Instead of boring you with details on our set up and usage, I will dive right into a use case that has been cumbersome for us to deal with on a day to day basis.
Situation - We have a fairly serious incident that requires rapid support from multiple groups.
Current State - We construct messages for each on-call group individually. We do this because when we put multiple groups in one message, the progression in xMatters stops when anyone on the message acknowledges the on-call.
Desired outcome - We would like to be able to put multpile groups in one message and have xMatters handle EACH included group's oncall schedule, notifications, and escalations separately by group. So, when Group A's on-call acknowledges the message, the notification and escalations continue to occur for Groups B, C, and D until all groups have reached an on-call and are acknowledged.
We thought about using the Outbound Only option in this scenario, but the problem there is it notifies everyone in the groups and does not follow the schedules and escalations as needed (besides the fact that those messages do not require acknowledgement).
Anyone else have this same need? If so, how are you dealing with it?
Thanks,
Harry