# 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](https://1743514643-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-x-prod.appspot.com/o/spaces%2F-Ln3jS1bJTTsE3yoEcOu%2Fuploads%2Fgit-blob-419cdd2fd71297cae9d172e997d3b401ea1c1b67%2Fimage.png?alt=media\&token=72267ab1-6c55-44cf-9b9c-4b069a26151e)

### 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](https://1743514643-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-x-prod.appspot.com/o/spaces%2F-Ln3jS1bJTTsE3yoEcOu%2Fuploads%2Fgit-blob-b6c8a1bed1d269f6b60f578524fdb7d44ea4769c%2Fimage.png?alt=media\&token=4e48983b-9d7b-4920-b1cc-a15eca115f49)

### 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](https://1743514643-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-x-prod.appspot.com/o/spaces%2F-Ln3jS1bJTTsE3yoEcOu%2Fuploads%2Fgit-blob-bea9b44c711c9b8c256f14d61dc72fde29e7ece2%2Fimage.png?alt=media\&token=208a629a-0ed7-47e1-b699-bb764376788d)

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 %}