# Escalation policies

### Escalation policy overview

An escalation policy is a custom set of rules for incident alerting, ideal for creating advanced incident alerting processes. It defines who will be alerted and in what order, continuing until the incident is acknowledged.

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[info] **You can also escalate incidents based on metadata** 
This allows you to route incidents based on its metadata, such as severity or ownership. You can find more details in [Metadata in escalation policies](https://betterstack.com/docs/uptime/incident-metadata/#use-metadata-in-escalation-policies).
[/info]

## Creating an escalation policy

1. Navigate to **[Escalation policies](https://uptime.betterstack.com/team/0/policies)**.
2. Click **Create escalation policy**.
3. Name your escalation policy.
4. Configure the settings as outlined below.
5. Click **Create escalation policy**.

## Escalation policy settings

### Alerting
Choose who to alert, including options like:

- Specific team members
- Current on-call team
- Slack or Microsoft Teams integrations
- Zapier and Webhook integrations

### Severities
Severities are customizable and allow for preset alerting methods applicable across multiple escalation policies. To create a new severity:

- Navigate to **Escalation policies** → **Create severity**.

### Time-based rules
Specify conditions to stop the escalation policy or escalate to another policy at specific times.

![escalations_time_based_rules.png](https://imagedelivery.net/xZXo0QFi-1_4Zimer-T0XQ/e0e3b497-a64c-45e9-9c8e-3b6d02a5b700/md1x =688x487)

### Delay
Set a time delay using **Wait for [ ] minutes before escalating to**. The alerting flow will begin after the defined period.

Delay the escalation step until a specific time by clicking **... -> Wait until…**

![escalations_wait_until.png](https://imagedelivery.net/xZXo0QFi-1_4Zimer-T0XQ/833e11ff-c5dd-48ce-5d68-0e7b23f1e900/md2x =684x358)

### Metadata-based rules
Use metadata to define custom notification flows. This allows incidents to be routed based on metadata like severity or ownership, providing greater flexibility.

![escalations_metadata_rules.png](https://imagedelivery.net/xZXo0QFi-1_4Zimer-T0XQ/72e506a4-f629-4485-ed8f-21e0d6027200/md2x =690x504)

You can find more details [in the Metadata in escalation policies](https://betterstack.com/docs/uptime/incident-metadata/#use-metadata-in-escalation-policies).

### Instructions & todo list
Insert a custom text with a list of tasks as a comment into the incident timeline automatically. This allows you to share a specific set of instructions or links, providing immediate context for on-call.

![Instructions & todo list](https://imagedelivery.net/xZXo0QFi-1_4Zimer-T0XQ/6b87f28c-21b6-4057-bcc2-00a84072b600/md2x =2034x1716)

You can read more details in [the Runbooks guide](https://betterstack.com/docs/uptime/runbooks/).

### Multi-step policy
To create multiple escalation steps:

1. Click **Add another step**.
2. Define the action for the next step if the previous step is not acknowledged.
3. Rearrange steps by dragging them to a new position.
4. Remove steps by clicking the **x** in the top-right corner.

### Repeating policy
Set the number of repetitions in the **Repeats** dropdown menu.