Review duty changes

History is the record of who was on duty and when, up to the turns running now, with the messages each turn sent. Changes is the record of the decisions behind it: assignments, cover and swap decisions, and lane resets.

You need: access to the rotation.

Read served duty

Open the rotation’s History tab. Each row is one period of duty, listed under the date it started, newest start first. A period that ends on a later date shows that date beside its end time.

A turn that is still running sits in its place among the others. It reads start – now, carries the In progress badge, and shows no length until it ends.

Times in zone, beside the title, names the time zone every date and time on the tab is read in. Change it with the time zone button in the top bar: see Change the time zone or the clock format.

The header also holds:

Control	What it does
? (About History)	Explains the rows and daily totals, the two filter chips, Told and Status and reason.
Refresh (the circular arrow)	Loads the rows again. A rotate you make on this page shows at once. After a change made in Slack, through the API or by somebody else, select Refresh to see it.
Export	Saves the ended periods as CSV or JSON. See Export the history.

Daily totals count only the time inside coverage hours on that calendar day, including the part of a period that started the day before. So they are not the sum of the rows listed under the date. Overlapping periods count once: an hour is covered when at least one person is on duty.

A gap is time inside coverage hours with nobody on duty. The daily summary gives the total gap time, and <1m marks a gap shorter than a minute. Time outside coverage hours is never a gap.

Beside the list name, a row shows Handover by name when a person’s change ended the period. Otherwise it shows Coverage hours: times · zone, the hours recorded for that period. Later schedule edits do not change them.

Status and reason

A row’s badge is the period’s status, or the event that ended it. Select the badge for its explanation. The event that ended a period says nothing about what happened during it.

Badge	Meaning
In progress	The turn is still running.
Scheduled handover	The period ended at a scheduled handover.
Next person on duty	Duty passed to the next person in the rotation.
Coverage hours started	The period ended when coverage hours opened.
Coverage hours ended	The period ended when coverage hours closed.
Automatic duty change	Duty changed because of the schedule, cover, a swap or somebody’s availability. The record does not say which.
Manual assignment	A manual assignment ended the period.
Assignment changed	The period’s assignment changed.
Assignment override ended	An assignment override ended. Duty went back to the schedule and any remaining duty changes.
User removed	The person was removed from duty.
Duty cleared	The duty assignment was cleared.
Coverage changed	The rotation’s coverage changed.
External schedule change	The partner’s schedule changed who is on duty.
Rotation mention	A mention of the rotation changed who is on duty.
Coverage gap	Nobody was on duty during coverage hours.
Unassigned period	No assignment is recorded for the period.
Outside coverage hours	The period was planned outside coverage hours.

A row that reads Nobody on duty in place of a person had nobody holding duty. The name alone does not say why: read the badge.

Check which messages a turn sent

Told, on a History row, lists the duty messages that turn caused. Use it when somebody says they were never told they were on duty.

Select Told to open the list under the row. It has up to two groups, and a group with nothing in it is left out:

Start of duty: the reminder sent before the turn began, first, then the messages sent when it began.
End of duty: the reminder sent before the turn ended, first, then the messages sent when it ended.

A turn still running has Start of duty only, with the messages sent so far. End of duty joins it once the turn ends.

A reminder line is marked Reminder before start or Reminder before end. Reminders show only on rotations that send them: see Remind people before a shift.

Each line names where the message went, a channel or DM to person, and its outcome. Times are in the time zone you read the dashboard in.

Outcome	Meaning
Posted time, Sent time	Slack accepted the message at that time. It does not mean anybody read it.
Not posted, Not sent	The message did not go out. The cause is under the line.
Not needed	Replaced by a later change. A later change made the message unnecessary. For a reminder, that means the rotation was switched off, the reminder was turned off, the shift moved, or somebody else is now due.
Pending	The message is waiting to go out.
Unconfirmed	Slack never confirmed whether the message went out.

A channel or person cause reads the same as on the rotation page, for example Round Robin was removed from this channel. or Slack account deactivated. To fix one, see Fix a delivery problem. Three causes come from Round Robin itself:

Cause	Meaning
No earlier message to update.	The message would have updated an earlier one, and there was none to update.
An earlier message is unconfirmed.	An earlier message to the same place is still unconfirmed, so this one was held back.
Slack gave no answer in time.	Nobody knows whether the message arrived.

Other lines can also say what the message was: Warning: nobody can go on duty, Assignment change, Cover or Swap.

When a message failed, the closed button counts it beside Told, as in 1 not sent for people, 1 not posted for channels, or 1 not sent, 1 not posted when both failed.

When a turn has no Told

When any row on the page has Told, About History adds a Told section: Delivery details are kept for 30 days. Sent and posted mean Slack accepted the message.

A row has no Told when:

its messages finished more than 30 days ago (the start and the end are dated separately, so a long turn can show its end and not its start)
the turn sent nothing, for example a stretch nobody covered
the turn is still running and no start message is on record for it

Narrow what History shows

The filters sit under the title. Changing any of them takes you back to the first page.

Filter	What it does
Date range	Current month, the default, Last month, All history or Custom range. A custom range needs both a start and an end date.
List	All lists, or one lane in one window. Shown on a rotation with more than one lane or window.
Person	Everyone, or one person. Shown when the rows name more than one person.
Coverage hours only	On by default. Hides rows marked Outside coverage hours. Rows with nobody on duty during coverage hours, and rows whose coverage hours are unknown, stay.
Include overlapping shifts	Off by default. Also shows shifts that started before or ended after the selected dates.

A chip shows a tick while it is on. Select it again to switch it off.

A turn still running shows when it matches the filters like any other row. Coverage hours only never hides it. If it started before the selected dates, switch on Include overlapping shifts to see it.

On a rotation that follows a PagerDuty or Jira Service Management schedule, an assignment shows on History once it ends.

If No matching history appears, widen the date range, set the list and person back to All lists and Everyone, or switch off Coverage hours only in case it is hiding the rows you need. Select both start and end dates to view history means a custom range has only one date.

Export the history

Set the filters to the rows you want.
Select Export, then CSV or JSON.

The file holds the ended periods the filters select, across every page. A turn still running is not in it: it joins the file once it ends. Export complete confirms the download.

A period that ended when coverage hours closed reads Cover ended in the CSV Reason column and in the JSON.

What you see	What to do
Select both start and end dates to export.	Pick the missing date of the custom range.
Export failed: Could not export history. Try again.	Select Export again.

Find a change

Open the rotation’s Changes tab, between History and Activity.
Under Duty changes, choose a date range to narrow the feed. Entries are newest first. Load more fetches older ones.
Read Changed, Affected period, Window · Lane and Assignments and people. A missing actor, lane or window stays blank.

One change can affect several periods. A swap shows both turns under one entry, with the before and after for each. Repeated periods with the same hours and people can share a date range and an Affected hours summary. Expand Affected periods for the exact records. The summary covers those recorded dates, not a schedule that repeats.

The feed date is when the change was recorded. Affected period is the duty it concerns, and the two can differ. Dates follow the time zone you read the dashboard in.

History and its export show the time actually served. Changes shows decisions, including decisions about duty still to come.

State	What to do
No duty changes	Select View plan to see the scheduled duty. A rotation can have a schedule ahead and no changes or history yet.
No matching changes	Select Clear filters to see every recorded change.
Duty changes could not be loaded	Select Retry before you read the feed as empty.

Read the people involved

Label	Meaning
Assignment before / after	Who was assigned before and after the change, with an arrow between them when both are known.
Previous assignment	The assignment a reset removed. No replacement is guessed.
No one	Nobody is assigned to the period.
Previous assignment unavailable	Who was assigned before is not known.
Resulting assignment unavailable	Who was assigned after is not known.
Assignment override removed	A change to a list removed an assignment. The record does not name who took over.
Requester and Recipients	The people in the request.
Accepted by	The member who accepted the cover, when recorded.
Other recipients	The people asked who did not accept.

A pending cover or swap request does not change who is assigned. Its entry lists the people in the request, not a replacement.

When the assignment is not known, the people in a request can still show. Accepted by names who accepted. It does not fill in a missing before or after. Somebody already named as the person who made the change is not listed twice.

An unknown assignment is not a gap. Plan shows who is on duty now, but it cannot tell you who held an older period.

Check a lane reset

Changing a list’s people, its groups or its turn order can reset assignments and requests in the lanes that use it. The entry reads Lane duty changes reset. A pending request shows Cover request cancelled or Swap request cancelled. An accepted one shows Cover cancelled or Swap cancelled.

A reset keeps duty already served. It cancels pending requests and accepted cover or swaps, both turns of a swap included. Check Plan before making another assignment or request.

When a reset recorded nobody taking over, the entry says Assignment override removed. Open Plan to see duty under the updated schedule.

Missing details

An older entry can lack its assignment details. A change with no recorded time is left out. Nothing missing is filled in from today’s schedule. Use History for the duty served so far, and Plan for duty ahead.

Next steps

Fix a delivery problem: a channel or person the rotation no longer reaches
Change an assignment: assign a replacement or restore scheduled duty
Request cover: ask another member to take a period
Swap duty: exchange two turns