SunChaser.io Documentation

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<aside> 📣 We’d love to hear from you: Our indie team is working to enable “Painless On-Call” so development teams and engineers can do what they do best - build. We’d love to hear from you on how we can help make PagerDuty work better for you and your team.

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<aside> ☎️ General support, questions, or feedback: [email protected] Or, let’s talk: Pick a time for a call from our calendar

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Welcome 👋

SunChaser helps teams manage on-call more collaboratively in Slack.

It’s the missing Slack tools you’ve always wanted for PagerDuty. 💚 📟

Requirements note: Our PagerDuty integration requires an Admin base role for account authorization. If you do not have this role, please contact an Admin or Account Owner within your organization to configure the integration. All active users must have Slack and PagerDuty accounts using the same email addresses.

⌚ A note on dates & times: SunChaser shows all dates & times in your timezone. Please enter any date/time request in your time zone. Any time zones added to commands will be stripped out.

Examples of accepted date formats (via Chronic):
- Sept 15
- 2023-09-27
- tomorrow
- November
- friday 13:00
- mon 2:35pm

Install SunChaser and connect to PagerDuty

Sign up for an account on SunChaser.io (via Slack authentication).
Follow the prompts to add the SunChaser App for Slack to your Slack workspace, and connect your PagerDuty account via 1-click integration.
Choose the escalation policies you want to enable.
When prompted, choose a default channel; we suggest your developer channel.

All done. Everyone on the team has access to SunChaser. Try /sc oncall in any channel. 😎

Note: You must have an Admin base role for PagerDuty to authorize the integration.

You must have a Slack Workspace account (& you may need to be an account admin). Please contact your Slack account administrator if you cannot add apps to your Slack workspace. For more information about installing apps, see [Slack’s help documentation](https://slack.com/help/articles/360001537467-Guide-to-apps-in-Slack#:~:text=Add apps to your workspace,submit an app request instead.).

Link a channel for shift change notifications 🤝

Link any channel to an escalation policy to get shift change notifications and to show who’s currently on-call in the channel description.

/sunchaser link-channel ESCALATION_POLICY_ID

/sunchaser escalation-policies

/sunchaser unlink-channel

ESCALATION_POLICY_ID is the ID from PagerDuty and can be looked up with the command /sunchaser escalation-policies
To unlink a channel type: /sunchaser unlink-channel
The command for coverage requests /sunchaser coverage is enabled within linked channels; the connected escalation policy routes the override.
NOTE: The information about who is on-call is added to the front of existing topic content. If adding the on-call message to the topic means truncating your existing topic message, then the insert doesn’t happen.

See who’s on-call

From any channel, see who’s on call for all escalation policies enabled for SunChaser via a private message.

/sunchaser oncall [DATE] [@USER]

The basic command will show who is currently on call across all escalation policies in a private message.
All times are displayed in your time zone.
DATE is optional, and the default DATE is now. DATE format examples: 11/01 (MM/DD), Nov 1st, Fri 1, November, tomorrow, etc.
Note: Schedules are only available within a 90-day window.
USER is optional; this person must have a PagerDuty account.

Check your on-call schedule

View your next 5 upcoming shifts from any channel within 90 days via a private message. Check your shifts in the future by including a date.

/sunchaser my-schedule [DATE]

DATE is optional, and the default DATE is now. DATE format examples: 11/01 (MM/DD), Nov 1st, Fri 1, November, tomorrow, etc.

Upcoming shift notifications

Get notifications in Slack about your upcoming shifts.

From the SunChaser app home scroll to :reminder_ribbon: “Receive reminders for your upcoming shifts via a Slack DM from SunChaser”. Select your notification timing from the drop-down (1 day, 1 week or 4 weeks notice). SunChaser will DM you your notification setting and your notification ahead of time. Remove notifications by selecting “No notifications” from the drop-down menu.

Request shift coverage

Need help covering all or part of a shift? Share a shift coverage request. You can optionally specify which schedule by including the schedule ID.

/sunchaser coverage [SCHEDULE_ID] START – END

/sunchaser my-schedule

In a 🤝 linked channel the command will assume the first-tier schedule in the escalation policy (e.g., Primary schedule) unless you enter a SCHEDULE_ID.
Add a SCHEDULE_ID to your command to request coverage for a specific tier (e.g., Secondary schedule). This is required in un-linked channels, or channels linked to a different escalation policy.
Tip: look up your schedule with /sc my-schedule to copy and paste exact times.
The message assumes the person entering the command is the one in need of coverage.
Response: Sends a help request message to the channel with instructions on creating an override to fulfill this request. When a teammate accepts the request, an override will be created in PagerDuty, and SunChaser will publicly thank the helpful teammate. 🎉

Create an override

Make a one-time adjustment to a PagerDuty schedule by creating an override from any channel in Slack that SunChaser has been invited to.

/sunchaser override SCHEDULE_ID START – END @USER

/sunchaser schedules

SCHEDULE_ID is required. But, if this command is run in a 🤝 linked channel, it is optional and assumed to be the first-tier schedule.
Tip: Schedule IDs can be looked up with /sunchaser schedules
START – END is required; format examples: Monday 2 pm – 5 pm, 11/01 – 11/08, Nov 1st 3pm – 8th 3pm PDT, Tomorrow.
@USER is the Slack name for the person who will be added to the schedule; this person must have a PagerDuty account.
Response: Sends a thank you message to the channel thanking the teammate for taking the override, and an override is created in PagerDuty. 🎉 (Note: The message assumes the person entering the command is the one in need of coverage.)

Oncall User Groups (aka @mention the current on-call)

Oncall User Groups create an @mention that always mentions the current person on call.

To set up Oncall User Groups:

Allow SunChaser to update user groups in permissions for User Group Restrictions by selecting "Everyone, except guests" for both "People who can create and disable user groups" and "People who can modify user groups" and tap save. User Group permissions are located here: YourWorkSpace.slack.com/admin/settings#user_group_restrictions
Sync an existing @mention User Group with an escalation policy from the App Home View:
1. Find SunChaser in your apps, click the Home tab, scroll to Oncall User Groups.
2. Click “Setup a user group”.
3. Choose an existing user group, escalation policy, and escalation policy levels (or schedule) to notify. Optionally, add a specific person to notify as well.
  
  Note: The option to “Setup a user group” won’t be available if all User Groups have been assigned and/or you haven’t created any User Groups. Create a User Group from the Slack workspace sidebar menu by selecting More (“...“) / People / User Groups / Create User Groups.

All SunChaser commands in Slack

All commands can be entered as either /sunchaser or just /sc

/sc help
/sc oncall [DATE] [@USER]
/sc my-schedule [DATE]
/sc escalation-policies
/sc schedules
/sc link-channel ESCALATION_POLICY_ID
/sc unlink-channel (only 🤝 in a linked channel)
/sc override SCHEDULE_ID START – END @USER
/sc coverage [SCHEDULE_ID] START – END  (only 🤝 in a linked channel)

If you’re new to using apps in Slack here’s a few tips:

If you’ve installed the SunChaser App for Slack but can’t find it in Slack, start by searching for “sunchaser” in the Slack search bar. If you have the application installed, it will show towards the end of the search results with the APP label.
Alternatively, find the SunChaser app in Slack’s left sidebar by navigating to Apps. You may need to select the dropdown, navigate through Manage and Browse Apps, and locate the SunChaser app from your list of Slack apps.
Use “@sunchaser” to invite the application to a channel. To make the app do something for you use slash commands, for example, “/sunchaser oncall” to have the application tell you who is on-call.
A Slash Command can be invoked from a message thread, but Slack does not allow apps to respond within that thread.

SunChaser.io accounts

The person who initially signed up for SunChaser.io will start as the organization's owner and have access to admin tools and payment information. There can be only one owner at a time.

After the initial person signs up on SunChaser.io with their Slack Workplace, everyone from the same Slack Workspace will have access to SunChaser on Slack.

To transfer ownership, click your user icon in the upper right corner, and click Organizations. Locate the person you want to transfer the account to, and click Edit. Choose to make them an owner and click Update user. You will no longer be the owner. The new owner can link PagerDuty and manage payments).

We will be expanding admin capabilities and roles in the future.

Pricing

Our pricing reflects our belief that SunChaser saves engineering teams and managers time and frustration, and teams empowered to help each other out can better address on-call pains.

SunChaser charges per rotation team. A rotation team is equivalent to an Escalation Policy in PagerDuty. Not to be confused with escalation paths or Rules (which defines who should be pinged next if a notification isn’t ack’d), or even Teams (a PagerDuty permissions & access concept only available as an add-on for Business and Digital Operations plans). Pager Duty Escalation Policies sit at the crux of schedules, rules, and systems and thus give us the best proxy for the group working together to support the on-call schedules for related systems. You can read more about PagerDuty Escalation Policies here.

Uninstall

To uninstall SunChaser from Slack, navigate to the application in Slack (search for it by name or find it under the Apps sidebar). Click About, and then click the Configuration button. On the Slack app directory view, choose the configuration tab and scroll down to click Remove App.

<aside> 🗣 We’d love to hear your thoughts on any of this; reach out to us here: [email protected]

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