---
title: "Create an escalation chain | Grafana Labs"
description: "Build a simple escalation chain that notifies a team and escalates if unacknowledged, then test it using direct paging."
---

> For a curated documentation index, see [llms.txt](/llms.txt). For the complete documentation index, see [llms-full.txt](/llms-full.txt).

# Create an escalation chain

In this milestone, you create a basic escalation chain as the next step of your alert flow.

Escalation chains define a sequence of notification steps for Alert groups: who gets notified, when they get notified, and what to do if an Alert group remains unacknowledged. A well-designed escalation chain ensures timely attention from the right people while avoiding unnecessary noise.

For this example, you configure an escalation chain that notifies the current on-call user, then escalates to the broader team after 5 minutes if the alert remains unacknowledged:

To create the escalation chain, complete the following steps:

1. Create a new escalation chain.
   
   1. Open the escalation chains list from the IRM navigation menu.
   2. Start creating a new chain.
   3. Enter a descriptive name (for example, `Production - Default`).
   4. Save the chain so you can add steps to it.

Now add the notification, wait, and escalation steps. The first step pages the on-call user from your schedule, the second waits 5 minutes, and the third escalates to the broader team.

1. Add steps to your escalation chain.
   
   1. Add the first escalation step.
   2. Choose to notify users from an on-call schedule.
   3. Select the schedule you created in the previous milestone.
   4. Add a second step to introduce a wait.
   5. Choose Wait, then set the wait time to `5 minutes`.
   6. Add a third step to escalate when no one acknowledges.
   7. Choose Notify users, then select the broader team to escalate to.

> **Note:** For each notification step, you can choose **Default** or **Important** notification rules. **Important** is for critical, time-sensitive alerts. If you’re not sure which to pick, set **Default** for now and update later. Make sure team members configure their [personal notification rules](/docs/grafana-cloud/alerting-and-irm/irm/notify-responders/personal-notification-rules/) for both rule sets.

Your escalation chain now routes Alert groups to the current on-call responder from your schedule, waits 5 minutes, then escalates to the broader team if unacknowledged.

In the next milestone, you connect Grafana Alerting as the alert source that feeds this escalation chain.