Notifying the right person is not the same as reaching them. Phones are on chargers, shifts end, people are driving. Escalation is the answer to the case that actually hurts: the alert was delivered correctly and still nobody acted.
A chain is an ordered list of steps. Each step says how long to wait and who to contact if the alert is still unacknowledged by then.
- A Danger alert fires and the store's usual recipients are contacted.
- Nobody acknowledges. After the first step's delay — 15 minutes, say — the people on that step are contacted.
- Still nobody. The next step fires after its delay, and so on down the chain.
- Any acknowledgment, by anyone, stops the whole chain for that cycle.
One org-wide chain arms your entire fleet, so this is not per-store work. A single step reading "after 15 minutes, notify every District Manager covering the store" is enough to close the gap. Individual stores can override the chain when they genuinely differ.
You start with one rather than with nothing. An organisation with no chain at all is given a starter one built from the roles it actually has, so an unacknowledged Danger alert escalates even if nobody has opened this page.
| After | Notifies | For |
|---|---|---|
| 10 minutes | District Managers covering the store | Danger only |
| 25 minutes | Safety Managers | Danger only |
| 45 minutes | Regional VPs | Danger only |
- If you have renamed your roles, your own are used instead — in your own order. The three above are only a preference, not a requirement, so a company that calls them something else still gets a working chain.
- Only roles that can acknowledge and that actually have members are used. A step aimed at an empty role looks armed and reaches nobody, which is the very thing this is here to prevent.
- It is created only when there is no chain at all, and it is checked hourly rather than at sign-up alone — so an account nobody has logged into this week is still covered.
- It will not reappear if you delete or rewrite it. The starter is a floor, not a default that keeps coming back.
- Edit it freely. The delays and the roles are yours; these are a starting point chosen to escalate before a Danger hour has passed.
- When one is created for you it is recorded in your audit trail, so a chain you did not write is always explainable.
In the dashboard: Readiness — Answers one question for your whole fleet: if a store hit Danger right now, would a human find out?