OnCalli News

What is OnCalli and who is it for?

 OnCalli is an intuitive online application designed to automate on-call scheduling for companies that provide 24/7 emergency response services. Specifically tailored for the building trades including; HVAC, plumbing, electrical, elevators, fire protection, controls, generators and building operators. OnCalli eliminates the hassle of creating and managing after-hours schedules. 

Traditionally, on-call scheduling falls to a service manager or dispatch coordinator. However, with OnCalli’s Office Team feature, authorized team members can log in and make adjustments, provided the primary account holder has granted them required permissions. 

One of OnCalli’s standout features is the Autofill, which intelligently assigns shifts based on predefined criteria. By ensuring fair and unbiased scheduling, this feature helps prevent disputes and eliminates concerns about favoritism. 

Creating an on-call schedule is challenging enough, but maintaining it throughout the year can be even more cumbersome due to vacation requests, new hires, scheduling conflicts, and unforeseen issues. OnCalli simplifies this process by allowing seamless updates, ensuring your schedule remains accurate and hassle-free. 

With OnCalli, managing on-call schedules has never been easier. By automating the process, reducing conflicts, and ensuring fairness, OnCalli allows businesses to focus on what truly matters—providing reliable, around-the-clock service without the headache of manual scheduling. 

-          The OnCalli Team 

What kind of on-call shift structure do you use?

Balancing 24/7 coverage while keeping employees happy is no easy task. To provide exceptional service, businesses must ensure they can respond to emergencies quickly, even after hours. However, this can take a toll on employees, especially those assigned to a demanding on-call week. Burnout is a real concern, so is there a better way to structure shifts to prevent it?

If your company has been using the same on-call rotation since day one, switching to a new system may seem daunting. After all, you can’t please everyone. While experimenting with different schedules might seem ideal, for a busy service company, that’s not always the best use of time.

Across the various trades, on-call schedules tend to follow similar patterns, there are only so many ways to structure them. However, OnCalli offers a wide range of customizable shift structures, allowing companies to test different setups and gather feedback from field staff effortlessly.

Choose from multiple 7-day scheduling structures that cover different start and end days, or opt for a 5-day weekday rotation while assigning separate weekend coverage with a 2-day Saturday-Sunday schedule. No matter your needs, OnCalli has you covered. And if you don’t see the exact structure you need, let us know, we’ll add it. Not a problem.

-The OnCalli Team

How do you handle holidays?

Assigning holiday shifts can be one of the trickiest parts of creating an on-call schedule. To ensure fairness, keeping records of each employee’s previous holiday shifts is crucial—this prevents the same people from getting assigned the same holidays year after year.

With OnCalli, this process is automated. The system keeps track of holiday shifts assigned to each employee, along with their total regular shifts for the same year.

When you use the autofill feature for a new schedule, OnCalli automatically factors in past holiday assignments, ensuring employees aren’t repeatedly assigned to the same holidays. If you prefer a more hands-on approach, the autofill also allows you to exclude holiday assignments entirely, giving you the flexibility to assign them manually.

For separate weekday and weekend schedules, OnCalli offers another useful feature: you can force the Monday and Friday holidays to either one of the schedules while creating them. These thoughtful details make OnCalli an essential tool for seamless and fair scheduling.

-The OnCalli Team

Deciding how many shifts each employee gets.

Is there a standard formula for distributing shifts in a fair and logical way? With OnCalli’s Autofill feature, you don’t have to guess. The Suggested Limits function helps allocate shifts based on two key factors:

Length of employment

Previous year’s regular and holiday shift counts

This approach ensures that experienced, long-term employees receive priority while newer employees take on extra shifts when needed. For example, a dedicated employee with 20+ years at the company may be given preference over a fifth-year apprentice still proving themselves. The same logic applies to holiday shifts—prioritizing committed employees helps recognize their loyalty and contribution.

That said, these limits are only recommendations. You have full control to manually adjust regular and holiday shifts as needed. OnCalli’s flexibility allows you to manually assign shifts or let the system handle everything for you.

At OnCalli, our goal is to simplify scheduling and take one more task off your plate. Based on user feedback, managing the on-call schedule is something most people would rather avoid—so we’re excited to make it easier. Could there come a day when all you need to do is add or remove employees, and the rest is handled automatically? We certainly think so.

-          The OnCalli Team

How early should apprentices be on call?

Confidence comes with experience, but when is the right time to let an apprentice handle the pressures of being on call? For seasoned veterans, many after hours calls can be deferred to the next day with the right communication skills. But for a newcomer eager to prove themselves, the unpredictability of on-call work can feel overwhelming.

Once the training wheels come off, the real learning begins. Many in the trades believe that you don’t truly earn the title of journeyman until you’ve spent at least ten years in the field and been through your fair share of tough situations. The beauty of after-hours calls is that they challenge you to think on your feet. Quick decision-making and troubleshooting under pressure will only sharpen your skills and accelerate your growth.

The High-Stakes Nature of On-Call Work

Not all service calls are created equal. Standard troubleshooting is one thing, but production environments, such as data centers, manufacturing plants, and storage facilities raise the stakes significantly. These critical sites may require 24/7 heating and cooling, meaning downtime isn’t an option. In these high-pressure situations, experienced personnel must be available to respond quickly. Fortunately, most companies ensure that a supervisor or senior technician is on standby as backup if an apprentice or newer technician encounters a problem they can't handle alone.

Smarter Scheduling with OnCalli

Managing on-call schedules effectively is key to balancing workload and support. OnCalli simplifies this process by giving the manager the option to pair employees together for shifts. When an employee is scheduled as the primary on-call technician, their assigned partner automatically acts as the secondary backup. The system’s autofill feature ensures that shifts rotate fairly if there are multiple pairings, making it easier to pair team members who work well together while ensuring coverage when it's needed most.

By introducing apprentices to on-call work gradually and providing the right support, companies can help them gain confidence without feeling overwhelmed. With time, experience, and the right scheduling tools, apprentices can transition smoothly into the demands of the trade—until one day, they’re the ones mentoring the next generation.

-          The OnCalli Team

Last minute shift coverage sucks.

Most companies provide their field staff with an on-call schedule at the start of the year, every quarter, or every six months. When managers and service coordinators first create the schedule, they consider all the necessary variables to ensure full coverage. But as we all know, things change.

Even with the best intentions, keeping up with on-call updates can be challenging—especially when business demands increase. No manager enjoys sending out that dreaded last-minute email, scrambling to find coverage for an unfilled shift.

Maybe an employee leaves unexpectedly. Maybe someone books a vacation but forgets to notify the right people. If the schedule isn’t updated in real time, the entire team is left scrambling to fill the gaps.

That’s where OnCalli comes in. We eliminate the stress of last-minute coverage by providing seamless updates and continuously monitoring schedules for any gaps. And as we grow, our system will only get smarter—thanks to valuable feedback from users like you.

Last-minute coverage shouldn’t be a crisis. With OnCalli, it won’t be.

-          The OnCalli Team

Should employees book time off in advance?

We touched on this topic in a previous article, but there's no denying that having employees' planned vacation time in advance makes scheduling much smoother—especially when creating the on-call schedule. However, many employees may prefer to plan their time off around the shifts they’re assigned.

With OnCalli, employees can easily request shift changes among themselves, ensuring that most adjustments are handled before reaching the manager for final approval. The process is simple:

An employee selects a shift or a specific day within a shift and requests a change from a colleague.

The requested employee reviews the swap and can either propose a different shift or day in return or agree to cover it outright.

Once the original employee accepts the change, it moves to the manager for final approval.

Managers have the authority to decline requests if they suspect unfair exchanges or if certain qualifications are required for a shift.

Coming back to the main question—should employees book time off in advance? Absolutely. Whether it’s for vacation, career training, family obligations, or religious commitments, advance notice helps with efficient scheduling. However, OnCalli also provides flexibility by accommodating last-minute changes and offering real-time schedule monitoring.

By combining structured time-off planning with an adaptable shift-swapping system, OnCalli helps employees and managers maintain a balanced, well-organized schedule.

-          The OnCalli Team

How much time do you spend scheduling?

Depending on the size of your team and the dynamics of your operation, scheduling after-hours service can be both complex and time-consuming. If a single person is responsible for creating and maintaining the schedule year-round, how much manpower do you think is spent on this task?

Based on our research, the average time required is about 16 hours per year. This includes initial scheduling, finding shift coverage, and making adjustments as needed. While this number may vary, one thing is certain—with OnCalli, your scheduling time is reduced from hours to minutes.

Reducing Disruptions from Employee Turnover

One often-overlooked challenge is employee turnover. If the designated on-call scheduler leaves the company, their replacement may need time to get up to speed, causing potential disruptions.

With OnCalli’s Office Team feature, this transition becomes seamless. A single primary account holder can add or remove permissions for office personnel, ensuring that multiple team members stay informed. If one person is unavailable, scheduling remains uninterrupted thanks to built-in redundancy.

Automate Your On-Call Schedule with OnCalli

Once your OnCalli account is set up, it automates every aspect of your on-call schedule. No more manual updates or last-minute scrambling—just a streamlined, efficient system that saves you time and effort.

-          The OnCalli Team

Are supervisors always on call?

The chain of command is crucial in any organization, but when a single person is on rotation, who do they turn to when a situation exceeds their authority? Supervisors, foremen, and lead hands are people too—they have lives outside of work. While serious crises are rare, important decisions still need to be made, and someone should be available to assist.

Often, authorizing additional resources is beyond the capabilities of the on-call employee. This leaves them scrambling to contact an office employee or their direct supervisor to keep things moving. But if a smaller company has only one supervisor, is that person expected to be available 24/7, no matter the circumstances? That’s a heavy burden to carry.

This is where OnCalli can help. With OnCalli, you can create office employee schedules and assign them as a supervisor’s point of contact. Of course, expectations should be set in advance, but having a designated person available can make on-call shifts run much more smoothly.

Once an office employee’s schedule is assigned as a supervisor’s schedule, their name and contact information will be displayed at the top of the calendar view for each day. Field staff, who have their own accounts through the standard subscription, can then access all active schedules effortlessly.

Alternatively, you could structure supervision differently—for example, by assigning a foreman for every ten workers and creating a monthly rotation. Whatever your approach, OnCalli offers flexible scheduling solutions that can help lighten the load and keep operations running smoothly.

-          The OnCalli Team

When should a company have divisions?

For a multi-trade company, the need for divisions is obvious. But what about a company that specializes in a single discipline? Take HVAC/R, for example—when does it make sense to establish divisions? Should it be based on geography, customer needs, or something else? Perhaps certain contracts, like those requiring cascade cooling for scientific applications, demand specialized mechanics who are available 24/7.

As a company grows, so does its workforce. Managing on-call schedules can become increasingly complex, especially when multiple variables come into play. By creating divisions, you can assign employees to dedicated schedules with their own structured rotations. If needed, you can refine this further by introducing subdivisions to handle even more specific demands.

This is where OnCalli excels. With OnCalli, you can create divisions and add as many subdivisions as necessary. While divisions remain completely separate, subdivisions within them are flexible, allowing for seamless scheduling adjustments—whether assigning secondary backups or accommodating shift-change requests.

Like many of OnCalli’s features, creating divisions and subdivisions is entirely optional. The decision depends on how structured you want your after-hours service to be. Our goal is to offer a range of solutions while keeping the application simple—saving you time and eliminating headaches.

-          The OnCalli Team

What is your on-call policy?

Unionized workplaces typically have collective agreements that outline expectations and compensation for after-hours service, ensuring transparency and fairness for both employees and employers. But what about non-union companies? Is there a standard policy based on industry, trade, or type of work?

In a given region, you’d expect on-call compensation to remain competitive to attract and retain skilled employees. Other factors that may influence an on-call policy include consecutive working hours, transportation costs, work zones, show-up pay, and holiday considerations. Without a union agreement, companies may need an internal system for employee-employer discussions to establish a fair and reasonable policy.

With OnCalli, managers can add an on-call policy directly to their dashboard, ensuring employees have easy access to key details alongside their schedules. While most companies likely have formal policies in place, displaying them next to work schedules can help prevent misunderstandings.

Additionally, managers can use the Manager Message feature to share non-urgent reminders with field staff. For example:

"Hi everyone, just a reminder to request all shift changes through the OnCalli app. This keeps everything organized and makes it easy for the office staff to update schedules. Thanks for your cooperation!"

By keeping policies and communications transparent, companies can minimize confusion and create a smoother workflow for everyone involved.

-          The OnCalli Team

I can’t get a hold of the site contact.

How many times has a technician received an after-hours call from the answering service, only to arrive on-site and be unable to reach the proper personnel? There could be several reasons for this, but the most common is incorrect information provided by the answering service. Few things are more frustrating than responding to a call in the middle of the night—only to find yourself locked out of the building with no way to proceed.

In some cases, the issue stems from inexperience on the customer’s side—they may not know the correct process for placing a service call. Other times, it could be an off-site property manager who lacks all the details but still requests service to ensure they’re exercising due diligence for their clients.

Regardless of the reason, technicians will log the hours spent on the call. However, ensuring up-to-date contact information seems like a reasonable expectation to avoid unnecessary delays.

To address this issue, OnCalli offers a feature that allows managers to provide customer details directly within the system. This gives field staff instant access to accurate contact information, increasing the chances of a smooth and efficient service call. While this feature is entirely optional—since sensitive information should always be handled with caution—it can be a valuable tool for improving after-hours response.

When utilized, the customer feature allows employees to quickly verify key details such as whether a contract is active, the correct site address, and the contact’s name and phone number. It’s just one more way OnCalli helps make after-hours service as seamless as possible.

-          The OnCalli Team

I’m new and nobody told me I was on call.

Managing an on-call schedule can be challenging, especially when new employees are added without proper communication. OnCalli’s ultimate goal is to automate the entire after-hours service process—except for adding and removing employees. Since people come and go, it’s difficult to predict how long someone will stay with a company. This unpredictability can throw a wrench into an already-established on-call schedule, leading to confusion and missed shifts.

If you've ever been in a situation where a new hire was placed into the rotation without being informed, you know how frustrating it can be. While it would be great if every new employee automatically carried the work phone after hours, that level of dedication usually has to be earned.

That's where OnCalli’s built-in notifications come in. Right out of the box, the system helps prevent oversights by sending automated shift reminders directly to employees via SMS and email. These timely alerts ensure that no one is caught off guard—keeping operations smooth and employees informed.

-          The OnCalli Team

Worried about providing company details?

Anything online can be vulnerable to attacks, so it’s natural to be cautious when sharing personal or company information. Whether it’s credit card numbers, company emails, or addresses, you never truly know how data is handled on the backend of an application.

Many companies try to reassure customers by promoting security audits, displaying testimonials, and offering other guarantees. While these are valuable, OnCalli is designed to minimize the need for personal details while still effectively automating your on-call schedule.

To get started with OnCalli, all you need is a valid email address—company, personal, or even a dummy email. If you prefer to keep company details private, you can create employees without setting up individual accounts. Simply enter a name and role (Field or Office), and our autofill feature will still work seamlessly. Once the schedule is complete, you can download it and manually share it with your team.

A credit card is required to download the schedule, but you can feel confident knowing we use Stripe, one of the world’s leading online payment services. Check them out here www.stripe.com

At OnCalli, we’re committed to security, transparency, and ease of use. Sign up today with just an email and see how effortlessly you can automate your on-call schedule. Learn more at www.oncalli.com

-          The OnCalli Team

Have any ideas that we've missed?

OnCalli was created to modernize after-hours service while introducing new tools to streamline the process. One of our co-founders—a licensed HVAC mechanic with 13 years of hands-on experience—developed OnCalli based on real-world challenges in the trade.

To ensure our platform truly addresses industry needs, we’ve collaborated with a select group of mechanical contracting companies to identify key pain points in on-call scheduling. We're incredibly grateful to those who have shared their insights, helping us shape an exceptional service. However, we want to hear from as many tradespeople as possible to refine even the smallest details for each specific industry.

We’ll be relying heavily on surveys via LinkedIn and other social media platforms, but we also welcome direct feedback. Whether it’s positive or constructive, your input matters. By building a brand that not only listens to users but actively implements their ideas, we aim to create a genuine community.

Have thoughts to share? Send us your ideas at [email protected]—we’d love to hear from you!

-          The OnCalli Team