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Missing call-event visibility and escalation behavior for unanswered or unacknowledged calls

  • Oct 15, 2026 8:13 PM UTC
  • 1 reply
  • 13 views

We are looking for guidance on PagerDuty call-event visibility and escalation behavior.

We have already made several follow-ups with PagerDuty Support on this issue, but have not yet received a substantive response. As this is affecting operational monitoring and audit requirements, we would appreciate your help in treating it as a top priority.

In our environment, calls can be received by the on-call responder but may not be acknowledged through the IVR prompt. In these cases, we need to understand:

• Why the call attempt is not visible in the incident timeline or other reporting views.
• Whether there is a supported configuration, log, or reporting option to retain a record of all call attempts, including unanswered or unacknowledged calls.
• Whether an unanswered or dropped call can be routed to the next level of the escalation policy.
• Whether there is a recommended workaround or roadmap item for complete audit visibility of call attempts.

We would appreciate guidance on a supported solution or recommended best practice.

1 reply

danieljcafonso
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  • danieljcafonso
  • Community Manager đź’š
  • Oct 29, 2026 11:00 AM UTC

Hey there! đź‘‹

Thanks for laying this out so clearly, and sorry it’s taken a few rounds with Support without an answer. I understand this might be frustrating! If you DM me your support ticket number, I’ll make sure it gets in front of the right people. 🙏

Quick question first: which kind of call is this?

  • A. PagerDuty calls the on-call person about an incident that’s already open (“Press 4 to acknowledge...”)
  • B. Someone calls your Live Call Routing number and PagerDuty connects them to the on-call person (“Press 1 to accept...”)

They work a bit differently, so here’s a short version of each:

If it’s an incident call (A)

  • Visibility: these calls should always appear in the incident’s Timeline tab. If one’s missing, include an example in your ticket so Support can check it.
  • Picking up isn’t the same as acknowledging: the incident only counts as handled once someone presses the key to acknowledge (or acknowledges in the app). If nobody does, it escalates to the next level automatically once the escalation timeout runs out.
  • Escalating faster: you can shorten the escalation timeout and add more notification rules (for example a push notification, then a call a minute later), so one missed call doesn’t hold things up.

📖 Escalation policies · Notification rules

If it’s Live Call Routing (B)

Live Call Routing has its own escalation and answering behaviour, separate from regular incident calls. If people can hear the prompt but pressing 1 doesn’t work, it’s often down to phone system compatibility, and the docs have a troubleshooting section for exactly that.

đź“– Live Call Routing

If key presses aren’t working at all

Whichever type it is, if responders pick up but their key presses don’t register, the phone troubleshooting guide lists the most common causes and fixes.

đź“– Phone notification troubleshooting

Keeping a record for audits

You can pull a history of phone notifications and incident timelines through our API and store it in your own tools.

📖 Notifications API · Log Entries API

 

Let us know which type of call it is and we can dig in from there!

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