Set up live services escalations

Overview

An escalation is an emergency appointment primarily for after-hours services that alerts the assigned person. It appears in the Escalation Settings > Notifications after you sign to your Scheduleengine dashboard. Based on your escalation preferences, it may involve notifications only, notifications with job creation, or notifications with job creation and technician assignment.

To access Schedule Engine, go to provider.scheduleengine.net and log in with your credentials.

Things to know

• Escalation settings allow you to configure all necessary components before executing a plan.

Best Practices

To set up an effective schedule, it's best to create two shifts: one for weekdays after hours and one for weekends. You can name these shifts Weekday and Weekend, but be cautious as the shift name is just a label and does not determine which days they apply to. For the weekday shift, assign technicians to Monday through Friday on the scheduler and block Saturday and Sunday. For the weekend shift, do the opposite by assigning technicians to Saturday and Sunday and blocking weekdays (Monday through Friday) using the block escalations option.

View Escalations in Notifications board

To view an escalation, you can check the Notification Board. It provides key details about each escalation.

To go to the dashboard:

1. Go to the navigation menu and click Escalation Settings.

2. From the sidebar, click Notifications.

3. On the INCIDENTS screen you can see the following details:

   1. Number #: The ID number of the escalation.

   2. Plan: The plan the escalation came from.

   3. Service: The Service attached to the escalation.

   4. Status: How the escalation ended.

   5. Updated By: The person who updated the escalation.

   6. Launch Date: When the escalation was launched.
      
      

      Note: You can enable the Card View toggle to see the escalations in card format.

4. To open the notification details, click the escalation from the list or click .

5. In the Job Details screen on the escalation page, you can see the following details:  

   1. Map and Address: This section visually displays the escalation's location on the map, with the written address shown just below it.

   2. Total time: Shows the duration of the escalation from start to completion.

   3. Customer: The customer that triggered the escalation.

   4. Phone Number: Number of the employee.

   5. Email: Email of the customer.

   6. Notes: Notes regarding the escalation.

Step 1: Set up Contacts

Contacts are manually added and must be an existing user in SE Settings > Users. They can have the same or different contact methods as in ST. At least one notification step is required for a contact to be included in an escalation plan. The system pulls contact details from user settings to simplify the process.

Add a contact

1. Go to the navigation menu and click Escalation Settings.

2. Open the dropdown next to Escalation Settings, click Contacts.
   

3. Click  + to add a new contact.
   
   

   Note: You can edit or delete a contact by clicking on the bin and pencil icons next to each contact.

4. From the pop up window, select the users you want to add as contact and click Add.
   

Note: Contacts are added based on existing users in Settings > Users. To add a contact to Escalation Settings, they must first be an existing user in the Schedule Engine dashboard.

After you add a new contact, you need to set up at least one step in their notification plan, so the contact can also be added to a plan.

Edit a contact

1. Go to the navigation menu and click Escalation Settings.

2. Open the dropdown next to Escalation Settings, click Contacts.

3. Click the edit pencil icon next to the contact you want to edit.

4. Click + Add Notification.

5. Select the contact method and click Add.

Contact Notification Plans

The notification plan under each contact controls how and when that person is contacted during the alert process. It shows the contact methods, the order of contact methods to alert, and the time between notifications. Each time a contact is notified through an escalation plan, their personal notification plan runs in the background as the overall escalation plan continues to move forward. Personal notification plans can run for up to an hour unless the escalation is accepted or stopped. 

Note: Each person has at least one contact notification plan, which is separate from the notification plans in Escalation Settings > Plans > Escalation Setup. The contact notification plan and the escalation notification plan are tied together but can run in parallel.

After adding a contact method, you can further customize the notification plan by adding more notification methods and setting the interval between notifications using After Minutes.

Additionally, you can further customize the contact from the same screen:

• Add Contact Method: Add other contact methods as well.

• Edit and Delete: Edit or delete existing contact methods.

• Related Technician: Determines which Servicetitan technician should be assigned to the job when this contact accepts an escalation. This is only used when the escalation level is Notify, Book, and Assign. If this field is left blank, the contact will have to manually select from the list of Servicetitan technicians or choose to keep the job unassigned each time they accept an escalation.

• Removed Technician: Remove the assigned related technician.

Step 2: Set up Services

The Services section lists the after-hours services your company offers. Each service includes a name and description, visible to the CSR, to understand what the service includes and the type of escalation it is.

1. Go to the navigation menu and click Escalation Settings.

2. Open the dropdown next to Escalation Settings, click Services.
   

3. Click + to add a new service.

4. In the pop up window that opens, enter Service Name and Description and click Add.
   

5. After adding the service, turn on the toggle next to it to activate.

6. (Optional) To edit the service, click next to the one you want to edit.

Step 3: Set up Zones

These zones define the service areas for escalations. Unlike regular scheduler zones, they may cover smaller territories since not all businesses handle emergencies across their entire service area.

If your escalation zones are similar to your regular zones, you can use the bulk upload feature to save time and avoid setting them up one by one.

Note: Zones aren't imported from ServiceTitan, but you can export and import them into the Schedule Engine to align.

You have 3 options of setting up your zones:

• Upload your service zones in bulk

• Add your service zones manually

• Use the map feature

Option 1: Upload service zones in bulk

1. Go to the navigation menu and click Escalation Settings.

2. Open the dropdown next to Escalation Settings, click Zones.

3. Click upload on the Zones page.
   
   

   Note: You can click  Download Excel Template, if you want to add the service zones in bulk. After downloading the template, ensure to fill out the file with the zip codes before importing.

4. In the pop up window that opens, drag and drop the CSV file or click to select the file.

   Note: All zip codes uploaded in bulk are assigned to the same zone. To use different zones, upload separate files or enter zip codes manually.

   
   

5. After you select the file, click Upload.

Option 2: Add service zones manually

1. Go to the navigation menu and click Escalation Settings.

2. Open the dropdown next to Escalation Settings, click Zones.

3. Click + on the Zones screen.
   

4. In the Zones screen you can customize the following details:
   

   1. Label: Name of the service zone.

   2. Zip Codes: Zip codes you want to include in the zone.

   3. Clear all ZIP codes: Removes selected zip codes from ZIP Codes field.

   4. Revert: Reverts changes back to the set up.

   5. Show logs: To see the history of edits, errors and info regarding the zone.

5. After completing the set up, click Save.

Option 3: Use the map feature

1. Go to the navigation menu and click Escalation Settings.

2. Open the dropdown next to Escalation Settings, click Zones.

3. Click + on the Zones screen.
   

4. In the Zones screen, enter the name of the zones in the Label field.

5. Click the Location icon to add zip codes by selecting an area on the map.

   Note: If you use the map feature, ensure to double check the zip codes.

6. After completing the set up, click Save.

Step 4: Set up Schedules

The Schedules section displays your on-call schedule and determines who is contacted for escalations. It allows you to set up a weekly rotation in advance and assign contacts for different time slots. 

Note: If you do not use a schedule and only Plan, you cannot set start and end days or hours. The schedule defaults to 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

Note: If the schedule you have attached to your plan has no contact for the current day/time and it is not blocked off, the system uses the default contact listed in the plan section, see Set up plan.

Follow the section below to:

• Create a new schedule

• Add technicians

• Manage multiple technicians on shifts

• Manage escalations

Create a new schedule

1. Go to the navigation menu and click Escalation Settings.

2. Open the dropdown next to Escalation Settings, click Schedules.
   

3. Click + to add a new schedule.

4. In the pop up window that opens, enter the following details:
   

   1. Schedule name: Schedule’s name showing up on the left sidebar.

   2. Shift Name: Shift’s name showing up on the schedule.

   3. Start and End time: When the shift starts and ends.

   4. Shift color: Color of the shift.

5. When finished, click Add to create the schedule.

Note: You can add multiple shifts for the same schedule. If two shifts overlap for the same hours on any day, both shifts will be contacted if an escalation is sent through during the overlapping hours. Make sure to block off any shifts you don’t want to apply to a certain day.

After creating the schedule and shifts, assign technicians to specific days of the week or block out unavailable days.

Add technicians

1. Select a day on the shift schedule to assign a contact.

2. Click + to add a contact to the shift day. 

3. From the pop up window, select the technicians you want and click Add. 

4. To block out a day, click the Block icon to block escalation days.

Manage multiple technicians on shifts

When you assign multiple technicians to a single day, they will appear in the order they are listed in the popup window when adding them. Once added, numbers will appear next to their names on the schedule. These numbers indicate their priority and are important if you need to contact them in a specific order. You can click and drag their names to update the order as needed. If you do not want a specific order, you can ignore the numbers within the shift. More contact options are available within the plan page.

Manage escalations with blockers

Blockers are used to disable a specific shift on a certain day. They can be used when no service is provided or to avoid conflicts between shifts. If a shift has no blocker added or contacts listed, the default contact will be notified automatically to prevent missed job opportunities.

To avoid unnecessary escalations on days with no service, it's recommended to use blockers. You can avoid the use of blockers by also disabling the default contact on a plan, but this is not recommended. Having a default contact in your escalation plans ensures no jobs are lost if anyone ever forgets to update your schedule, while blockers prevent the default contact from being contacted on unserviced days, helping maintain an efficient and accurate escalation process.

Note: Default contact is set up in the Plan section.

Want to learn more?

• See Live Services