Alerts
Practical
By Samson Tanimawo, PhD
Published Mar 2, 2026
4 min read
On-Call Reachability Testing
Verify the on-call gets pages. Test it.
Live workflow · 3 working · 1 queuedLive
Signal · gather Working
Decide · pick action Working
Apply · with verify Working
Learn · update playbook Queued
Test
Quarterly: send a test page. Verify it arrives.
Catches phone DND, app issues, network problems.
Review
Each test: did it arrive within target time?
Latency over 30 seconds: investigate.
Avoid
Skipping the test. The first time you discover it doesn't work is the wrong moment.
Build the discipline.