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Create automatically updating @ceoc, @ceoc-next, @oncall-manager, @oncall-manager-next (or similar) Slack groups/handles analogous to @CMoC

Request for comments

Need

Pinging (and thus finding out who it is before that) either the current or upcoming CEOC or Manager On-Call for a variety of reasons is something we have to do pretty much every day.

Approach

Currently I usually look up on https://gitlab-com.gitlab.io/support/team/oncall.html, alternatively going directly to PagerDuty works too. However, these are constant manual lookups that cost time. I'll also freely admit that the current AMER model always makes me double and triple check before I'm at least 80% certain that I'll ping the right people.

On the CMOC side of things, there's a pretty simple way to do this – you can just ping @cmoc on Slack and it'll be the current CMOC (and Manager On-Call). I propose that we set this up for CEOC and only Manager On-Call as well, and also add -next versions to easily ping the next shift.

For Manager On-Call I'd suggest to even do region-specific ones: @oncall-manager-next-amer, @oncall-manager-next-apac, @oncall-manager-next-emea.

Benefit

  • Saved time from eliminating most manual lookups of this information
  • Increased certainty that the correct person will be pinged thanks to automation
  • The specific handle automatically gives context as to why I'm pinging a certain person. No more "cc @xyz, pinging you as $role here" required.

Specific tasks we frequently perform where this would be useful:

  • Hey @ceoc, ticket 123 will likely page, I just provided them the email.
  • Hey @ceoc-next, this will probably spill over into your shift, lmk if you're around for a handover.
  • Hi @spt-SGG-REGION, Ticket 456 needs an assignee in your region please. cc @oncall-manager-next-REGION

Competition / Alternatives

Don't implement this and keep looking things up manually like it's still 2022!