Gather ‘round for a Story

One day, Ethan, whose dad works at Altiscale, heard a sweet song. It was an infectious tune; he couldn’t get it out of his head. Over and over, he heard this song, wafting again and again from his father’s phone. What was this magnificent melody? When would it play again?

The song was, technically speaking, a PagerDuty alert: a jingle by the name of “You Made the Server Cry,” recorded Barbershop Quartet-style by some of PagerDuty’s more musical employees. Five-year-old Ethan thought the song was so amazing, he found himself singing it all the time. Pretty soon, he was making up his own PagerDuty alert sounds, and came up with a ditty called, “Something’s Broken,” sung to the tune of “Frère Jacques.” His dad decided to record it and submit it to us as a custom alert sound.

It was adorable, and we couldn’t resist the urge to include it in PagerDuty. So, as of the 4.0 release of the PagerDuty app, you can now choose it as a custom alert sound.

Ok, Cool. But What Are Custom Alert Sounds?

Last summer, PagerDuty introduced a feature allowing users to make their PagerDuty push notifications sound different from other alerts, to help users distinguish between a critical alert and a group text about their friend’s cat.

Push notifications are a great way to quickly acknowledge an alert. Opening the mobile app directly from the notification lets you see all relevant info for the incident, and you can tap to acknowledge, resolve or reassign it. However, we recommend setting a backup notification method (i.e. phone call or SMS message) since there are a few situations that could cause you to miss your alert.

Don’t already have the mobile app? You can download it for iOS or Android.

Are there any other features you would like to see in our mobile app? Shoot us an email at support@pagerduty.com or send us a tweet, @PagerDuty.