Overview

Incident notification settings let you control how, when, and for which events you receive alerts. You can configure settings globally (for all teams) or customize them per team to match your role and responsibilities.

The notification system respects your preferences across all incident lifecycle events—from creation to resolution—helping you stay informed without being overwhelmed by noise.

💡 Tip: Start with the default settings and refine as you learn which notifications are most valuable for your workflow.

Accessing notification settings

There are two ways to access your notification settings:

  1. From the Incidents page: Click the "Notification Settings" button next to "Report incident" in the top-right corner.
  2. Direct URL: Navigate to /incidents/notification-settings

Notification channels

Choose how you want to receive incident notifications:

Channel Description Status
Email Receive detailed incident alerts to your registered email address. Best for non-urgent updates and audit trails. Available
In-App Get real-time notifications in the Sizemotion dashboard. Appears in your notification bell and activity feed. Available
SMS Critical alerts sent via text message for immediate attention. Coming Soon
Push Mobile push notifications for on-the-go incident response. Coming Soon
⚠️ Note: We recommend keeping at least one channel enabled to avoid missing critical incidents.

Event types

Control which incident events trigger notifications. Each event type can be individually toggled:

Event Description Default
Incident Created A new incident has been reported and assigned to you ✅ Enabled
Assignment Changed You've been assigned to an incident, or an incident was reassigned away from you ✅ Enabled
Severity Changed The incident's severity level was escalated or de-escalated ✅ Enabled
Status Changed The incident moved to a new status (acknowledged, mitigated, etc.) ✅ Enabled
Incident Resolved The incident has been marked as resolved ✅ Enabled
Note Added Someone added a note or update to the incident timeline ❌ Disabled

Severity filters

Reduce notification volume by filtering based on incident severity. These filters work in addition to your event type settings.

Available filters

  • Critical incidents only: Only receive notifications for SEV1 incidents. Use this if you're an escalation contact who should only be paged for major outages.
  • High severity and above: Receive notifications for SEV1 and SEV2 incidents. Good for senior engineers who need to stay informed about significant issues.
  • All severities (default): When neither filter is checked, you'll receive notifications for all severity levels (SEV1–SEV4).
Severity mapping:
• SEV1 = Critical (major outage, customer impact)
• SEV2 = High (significant degradation)
• SEV3 = Medium (partial impact, workaround available)
• SEV4 = Low (minor issue, no immediate impact)

Quiet hours

Configure time windows when non-critical notifications are silenced. This helps you maintain work-life balance while ensuring critical incidents still reach you.

Setting up quiet hours

  1. Enable the "Enable quiet hours" toggle
  2. Set your Start Time (e.g., 10:00 PM)
  3. Set your End Time (e.g., 8:00 AM)
  4. Select which days quiet hours should be active (e.g., weekdays only, or every day)
⚠️ Important: Quiet hours affect notification delivery but do not prevent you from being assigned to incidents. Check your incident queue when quiet hours end.

Example configurations

Scenario Start End Days
Overnight silence 10:00 PM 7:00 AM All days
Weekend respite 6:00 PM Friday 8:00 AM Monday Sat, Sun
Focus time 9:00 AM 12:00 PM Mon–Fri

Team-specific settings

If you work with multiple teams, you can customize notification settings for each team independently. Team-specific settings override your global settings for incidents in that team.

How it works

  1. Your Global settings apply to all teams by default
  2. When you configure settings for a specific team, those take precedence for that team's incidents
  3. Click "Reset to Global" on any team tab to revert to your global preferences

Example use cases

  • Primary on-call team: Enable all event types and channels for your main team
  • Advisory role: For teams where you're a consultant, enable only "Incident Created" and "Severity Changed" to stay informed without noise
  • Leadership visibility: Enable critical-only filters for teams you oversee but don't actively respond to

Best practices

For on-call responders

  • Enable Email + In-App for redundancy
  • Keep all event types enabled while on rotation
  • Consider disabling quiet hours during your on-call shift
  • Use team-specific settings to distinguish primary vs. backup responsibilities

For engineering managers

  • Enable "Incident Created" and "Incident Resolved" to track flow
  • Use "High severity and above" filter to focus on impactful incidents
  • Disable "Note Added" to reduce timeline noise

For leadership

  • Enable "Critical incidents only" for teams you don't directly manage
  • Keep "Incident Resolved" enabled to know when issues are closed
  • Use quiet hours during non-working hours—your team has it covered

General tips

  • Review your settings monthly as your role and responsibilities evolve
  • Coordinate with your team to ensure adequate coverage—avoid everyone filtering the same way
  • Test your settings by having a colleague create a test incident