Follow-the-Sun Schedule

What Is Follow-the-Sun Schedule

Follow-the-Sun Schedule is an oncall management approach where responsibility for handling incidents transfers between teams in different time zones, creating 24/7 coverage without requiring night shifts. As one team ends their workday, they hand off ongoing incidents to a team in a different geographic location where the workday is just beginning.

Why Is Follow-the-Sun Schedule Important

This scheduling approach provides continuous incident management coverage without forcing teams to work overnight shifts. It improves response times for critical incidents, reduces team burnout, and creates a more sustainable on-call rotation. It's especially valuable for global organizations with users across multiple time zones.

Example Of Follow-the-Sun Schedule

A global financial services company maintains incident response teams in London, Singapore, and New York. When the London team ends their day at 5 PM GMT, they hand off active incidents to the Singapore team. Eight hours later, Singapore transfers to New York, and eventually, New York hands back to London, creating a continuous response cycle.

How To Create Follow-the-Sun Schedule With Spike

• Add all your teams and users in Spike, organizing them by time zone.
• Set up on-call rotations for each region using Spike’s schedule builder.
• Define handoff times so coverage passes smoothly between teams.
• Use Spike’s calendar view to spot overlaps or gaps in coverage.
• Customize notifications so only the active on-call team gets alerts.

Build your global, always-on incident response with Spike—set up your follow-the-sun schedule in minutes at Spike.