The escalation chain

1. Operators. The moment an alert opens, a push notification goes out to everyone registered for them on the mobile app.
2. Supervisor. If the line has a supervisor email set, they’re emailed next.
3. Site contacts, in order. If there’s no supervisor email, or the supervisor stage also goes unacknowledged, KeepSpec emails the site’s contacts one at a time, in the order they’re listed under the site’s Contacts.
4. Exhausted. Once every contact has had a turn with no acknowledgment, the chain stops. The alert stays open and visible — it just won’t generate any more emails on its own.

Normally, 15 minutes between steps — enough time for whoever’s on shift to notice and acknowledge before it escalates further. Outside the site’s business hours, there’s nobody there to notice, so each step fires immediately instead of waiting: the whole chain runs straight through to a human rather than sitting idle overnight. See Creating sites for setting business hours.

Acknowledging the alert at any point — from any stage — stops the chain entirely. It doesn’t matter who acknowledges it or which stage it had reached.