Not everyone who is told can acknowledge. A role can be set to notify-only (the "Acknowledge alerts" toggle on the Roles page): its members receive every alert their notification policy grants, but their messages carry no acknowledgment link and the dashboard offers them no acknowledge control — stopping the escalation stays with roles that hold that authority. If a notify-only person still has an old link, it is refused with an explanation rather than silently accepted.
Every alert message carries a personal acknowledgment link. Tapping it is the whole action — no app, no password, and it works from a phone in a kitchen.
Anyone signed in can also acknowledge from the dashboard, if their role allows it.
- A link works once, and is tied to that one alert cycle.
- If the situation resolved before you tapped, the page says so rather than pretending you stopped something.
- If someone else got there first, the page tells you that too, and who.
Acknowledging is not agreeing that everything is fine. It means a person has seen it and is handling it — which is exactly what the escalation chain is waiting to hear.