# Slots in schedules

## What are Slots?

Slots are easy, flexible way to make sure your team is only on-call during specific times of day or week. This helps avoid alert fatigue since a member doesn't have to be on-call 24 \* 7.

You can choose one of the 2 types of slots to add - Slots for day and for week. You can configure them while creating or editing an on-call schedule. Different slots can be applied to different layers.

We will learn how to add slots but before that let's look at some examples of different slots.

### Slots for specific times of day

If your team members don't wish to be on-call 24 hours of the day then you can add a slot like below wherein the person will only be on-call from **6 PM to 9 AM everyday for Layer 1**

![On-call every from 6 PM to 9 AM](/files/-MVaTChJjCgy3caz7_bj)

### Slots for specific times and days of week

Alternatively, you can choose for your team members to be on-call on specific times and days of week. In the example below, we have chosen for members to be on-call every **Monday 6 PM to Tuesday 9 AM and then Thursday 6 PM to Friday 6 PM for Layer 1**

![On-call every Monday 6 PM to Tuesday 9 AM and then Thursday 6 PM to Friday 6 PM](/files/-MVaTqoGUk2YRm0qWXuB)

### How to add slots?

While creating or editing an on-call schedule, you will find the option to add slots in every layer.

![Add slots on each layer](/files/-MVaVAOJpOSvKKHc3jSq)

While slots can be added to each layer, please bear in mind that it will affect the entire on-call schedule.

### Use cases

Here are some use cases you might helpful.

**Slots for specific times of day**

1. Slots for non-office hours, like the one above.
2. Different slots for each layer like 12 AM to 8 AM in Layer 1, 8 AM to 4 PM for Layer 2 and then 4 PM to 12 AM for Layer 3. This ensures rotation among your members with 8 hour duties to be rotated on a weekly or daily basis.

**Slots for specific times and days of week**

1. Slots to be on-call only for weekdays i.e. Monday 9 AM to Friday 6 PM.
2. Let's assume we have maintenance scheduled for the entire day on Thursday and want no-one to be on-call. Here's how you could do it - multiple slots across the week - Monday 9 AM to Thursday 12 AM and then Friday 12 AM to Monday 9 AM.

{% hint style="danger" %}
Avoid overlapping when selecting days and times of week. For ex: Monday 9 AM to Thursday 9 AM and then another condition for Tuesday 9 AM to Friday 9 AM. **In this case, you are overlapping both conditions for Tuesday and Wednesday**. **Please avoid this.**
{% endhint %}


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