Smart Defaults

Pre-configured Rootly settings that automate Slack channel creation, notifications, bookmarks, and topic updates without manual workflow configuration.

Smart Defaults let you configure automatic Slack behaviors without building custom workflows. Enable channel creation, set up announcements, configure reminders, and manage archiving from a single settings panel.

New vs Existing Customers:

• New customers have Smart Defaults enabled by default and can manage incidents immediately
• Existing customers have Smart Defaults disabled to avoid disrupting existing workflow configurations

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How to Access

1. Go to Configuration → Integrations → Slack
2. Click Configure
3. You’ll see the Smart Defaults panel

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Workspace Setup

Select the Slack workspace where incident channels will be created.

Most users see one workspace. Enterprise Grid customers may see multiple workspaces.

The selected workspace determines which users, groups, and channels appear in Rootly dropdowns.

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Notifications

Configure what messages Rootly sends to Slack.

Team Notifications

Default Announcement Channel

Announces every new incident in a specified channel.

Rootly refreshes channels daily. Click Refresh channels if a channel doesn’t appear.

For private channels, the Rootly bot must be added first. Send @Rootly in the channel to invite the bot.

High Severity Notifications

Notify specific users, groups, or channels when high-severity incidents are declared.

See Severities to configure severity levels.

Default Alerts Channel

Announces new alerts in a specified channel. Messages auto-update as alerts are acknowledged, escalated, or resolved.

For conditional routing (e.g., different channels per team), use a Custom Workflow.

Smart Reminders

Reminder	What It Does
Unassigned roles	Notifies if no incident roles are assigned within a set time
Triage timeout	Notifies if incident stays in Triage state too long
Inactive incident	Notifies if no activity occurs within a set time
Empty summary	Notifies if incident summary remains blank
Status page update	Periodic reminder to update status pages
Leave feedback	Reminder to log feedback after resolution

What counts as “activity”?

• Updating the incident summary ✓
• Using 📌 emoji to log timeline events ✓
• Regular messages in the channel ✗ (does not count)

Updates

Setting	What It Does
Status change notifications	Post to channel when incident status changes
Status page notifications	Post when a status page is updated
Draft communication notifications	Post when a draft communication is created
Timeline pin reaction	Add ✅ emoji when events are pinned to timeline
Pin timeline events	Pin timeline updates to the Slack channel

Advanced

Setting	What It Does
Broadcast incident events	Post timeline updates as new messages instead of threading them. Noisier but harder to miss.
Mention and tag @user	Tag users mentioned by Rootly in timeline updates. Disable to reduce notification fatigue.

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Incident Channel

Configure how incident channels are created and managed.

Channel Settings

Setting	What It Does
Create incident channel	Auto-create a Slack channel for each new incident. Highly recommended.
Channel naming convention	Select from predefined formats or create custom names using Liquid variables
Auto-bookmark incident link	Add a bookmark linking to the incident in Rootly web UI
Auto-update channel topic	Update topic when severity, status, type, or environment changes

Slack doesn’t allow duplicate channel names. Predefined options ensure uniqueness. For custom names, include unique identifiers like {{ incident.sequential_id }}.

Example custom channel names:

• inc-{{ incident.sequential_id }}-{{ incident.title | slugify }}
• {{ incident.severity | downcase }}-{{ incident.created_at | date: '%Y%m%d' }}-{{ incident.title | truncate: 20 }}

Bypass Slack Permissions

Some workspaces restrict channel creation to admins. Enable this to let Rootly create channels on behalf of admin users.

Check with your Slack admin before enabling. This requires additional user scopes.

Emoji Shortcuts

Configure emoji reactions to trigger actions:

Default Emoji	Action
📌	Add message to incident timeline
🔧	Create a follow-up action item
⭐	Create a task

Choose uncommon emojis to avoid accidental triggers. Avoid 👍, 😄, or other frequently used reactions.

Archive Channels

Setting	What It Does
Auto-archive incident channels	Archive channels after resolution. Set a delay (1-2 days recommended) to allow cleanup.
Auto-archive test incidents	Archive test/tutorial channels 24 hours after creation

Member Tracking

Setting	What It Does
Require Slack connection	Force all Rootly users to connect their Slack accounts
Track joins	Log when users join incident channels to the timeline
Track leaves	Log when users leave incident channels to the timeline

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When to Use Custom Workflows Instead

Smart Defaults cover common scenarios, but use Custom Workflows when you need:

• Conditional logic — Different channels for different teams or severities
• Multi-step automations — Invite users, then send a message, then add a bookmark
• Integration actions — Create Jira tickets, page PagerDuty, update status pages
• Scheduled/delayed actions — Send reminders at specific intervals
• Custom message formatting — Use Block Kit for rich interactive messages