Use an on-duty group

An on-duty group is a Slack user group that Round Robin keeps in sync with your rotation: whenever duty changes, the group’s members are updated to the current on-duty users. Anyone can then mention a stable handle (for example @support-operator) without knowing who is on call right now. You can also reference the group in messages and topics with the %DUTYHANDLE% template token (see Templating).

Prerequisites

The feature depends on Slack user groups, so it requires:

• A Slack plan where user groups are available.
• Slack permissions that let the app work with user groups.

What each permission gives you

Slack controls user groups with two separate permissions, and what Round Robin can do depends on which ones it has.

Round Robin has	What you can do	What the card shows
“Create and disable” and “modify”	Round Robin creates the group and keeps it in sync.	Both options.
“Modify” only	Someone else creates the group in Slack, then you connect it as an existing group.	The existing-group option, and a note that creating is unavailable.
Neither	The on-duty group cannot be used.	A note saying so, and the switch cannot be turned on.

“Modify” is the one that matters most: without it Round Robin cannot update the group’s members, which is the whole feature. If your workspace only allows one of the two, ask for that one.

The card reads both permissions when the settings page opens, so it shows what your workspace can actually do before you fill anything in.

Setting the permissions

A workspace admin opens Workspace Settings & Permissions and sets the user group permissions to Everyone, except guests.

On Enterprise Grid, these permissions are set for the whole organization rather than per workspace, so an org owner or org admin changes them in the organization’s settings. Round Robin does not need to be installed org-wide: a workspace-level install can manage user groups once the organization allows it.

If you cannot change these settings yourself, ask an administrator.

Connect a group from the dashboard

1. Sign in at app.roundrobinbot.eu and open your rotation.
2. Go to the People & Groups tab and find the Who gets notified section. It only offers the options your Slack workspace allows.
3. Click Set up group. If the rotation already has a group, click Change group instead.
4. Choose create a new group or link an existing one.
   • For a new group, keep the suggested handle (rotation-name-operator) or type your own. Handles must be lowercase with no spaces, and Slack’s own naming limits apply.
   • To link an existing group, pick it from the list. If Slack will not let Round Robin update that group, the form tells you at once and you can pick another.
5. Click Save.

If Slack does not let Round Robin update user groups at all, the section says so and you cannot set up a group. A rotation that already has one can still unlink it.

Once connected, the section shows the group’s handle and who is in it right now.

An on-duty group is optional

An on-duty group is optional: a rotation works fine without one.

If you want the people themselves moved in and out of a channel rather than a handle kept up to date, see Sync a channel’s membership.

How membership is synced

On every duty change, Round Robin updates the group so it contains the current on-duty users (all of them, if more than one user is on duty at a time). Users that cannot be members of a Slack user group (deactivated accounts, bots, and guest users) are skipped automatically.

Two team-wide settings control the details, under Settings → Team settings in the dashboard:

Setting	Behavior
Clean on-duty group on duty change (default: on)	The group’s membership is replaced with the new on-duty users. Turn it off to have the bot only add and remove the users going on and off duty, leaving any other members in place.
When the last user group member is removed	Slack requires a user group to have at least one member. Choose what happens when everyone goes off duty (for example when every coverage window is shut overnight): see below.

For the last-member setting:

• Leave the group active and keep the last member in (default): the last on-duty user stays in the group and is removed as soon as someone else goes on duty.
• Disable the user group: the app disables the group and re-enables it when the next user goes on duty. This requires permission to disable user groups.

Losing access disconnects the group

If the app loses access to the group (it can no longer read it, re-enable it, or update its members), it disconnects the group from the rotation rather than leaving it out of sync. If someone deletes the group in Slack, the app first tries to restore (re-enable) it, and only disconnects it if that fails.

Disabling the rotation

Turning off a rotation removes its on-duty group connection, and it is not restored when you re-enable the rotation. Reconnect the group manually afterward.

Removing the group

Click Unlink in the Who gets notified section on the People & Groups tab. If Round Robin created the group, it is disabled in Slack; if you linked an existing group, syncing stops and the group itself is left untouched.

To point the rotation at a different group, unlink the current one, then click Set up group and choose the new group.

Next steps

• Sync a channel’s membership: move the people themselves in and out of a channel instead of updating a handle.
• Templating: use %DUTYHANDLE% in your duty messages and channel topics.
• Round Robin in Slack: what the bot does in Slack, and what lives in the dashboard.