Iphone app - bypass DND mode

#14

There’s a good (but not obvious) workaround in iOS. You can set Emergency Bypass on contacts for both SMS and phone calls, which allow those contacts to bypass Do Not Disturb.

First, ensure that you have a PagerDuty contact set up in your contacts list, and add the phone numbers that PagerDuty calls and texts from to that contact.

Second, follow the instructions here to enable Emergency Bypass on that contact’s ring tone and contact tone. https://www.tekrevue.com/tip/iphone-emergency-bypass/

Then you want to ensure that you have PagerDuty’s notification rules configured to notify you via text and/or phone call. My preference is:

  • Immediately: send a push notification via the app. This will use whatever sound you have configured in PagerDuty, but will honor Do Not Disturb.

  • After 1 minute (and again after 2 minutes): text me via SMS on my phone. I have a custom text tone for the PagerDuty contact which is a quick, subtle sound and vibration. This will bypass Do Not Disturb, but if it goes off sometime where silence is preferred, it’s really subtle. You could even set this to no sound, JUST vibrate. So you can get a very subtle notification even in Do Not Disturb.

  • After 3 minutes (and again after 4 minutes): call me on my phone. I have a custom ring tone for the PagerDuty contact which is a distinct sound and vibration. This will bypass Do Not Disturb. You could even set this to no sound, JUST vibrate. So you can get a very subtle (or not subtle) notification even in Do Not Disturb.

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#15

Unfortunately, for me the Emergency Bypass that is not an option. Half the time I receive a call from PagerDuty the number shows “unknown”, so those rules are not applied. This could be due to me being in Japan, or the phone carrier I’m on (AU), or whatever other local reason. I don’t know.

But I like your approach :slight_smile:

#17

Any news on the Critical Alerts entitlement?

Best,
-Pat

2 Likes
#18

Hey all! Leena here from the mobile team. Thank you for your patience with us as we try to figure out our limitations and possibilities here.

We’ve applied for permission to override Do Not Disturb, and have also been talking with Apple and unfortunately we will not be able to offer this functionality at this time. Their API is not available for our use case - they are currently limiting it to “medical- and health-related notifications, home- and security-related notifications, and public safety notifications”.
We’ve gone ahead and sent in an enhancement request with Apple to expand the use case, and we’re using all your requests to justify our ask. We’ll be checking in with them every few months to see if the use cases have expanded and we assure you we will be incorporating it as soon as we can.

We’ll keep you posted here in the future with any updates as well.

3 Likes
#19

Any new @rwalberg about the Critical Alerts entitlement ?

1 Like
#20

What is the update on the iphone DND topic? I noticed the other chat was closed as “not commented on” in X days. But this features needs to become a reality.

1 Like
#21

Hey Brian!
Leena here from the Mobile Team. Unfortunately we’re still not able to bypass Do Not Disturb. Trust me, we would also love for it to become a reality!
As of right now, Apple continues to have enforced limitations that only allows medical and health related notifications, home and security notifications, and public safety notifications to bypass DND.
We continue to stay in touch with Apple and provide our feedback, but you can help us out by providing Apple with your feedback here.

We’ll keep everybody posted if anything changes.

1 Like
#22

I just sent Apple some feedback:

Hi, I’m a software engineer at a health tech company. Like many similar companies, we use PagerDuty internally to alert us about problems with our systems – problems which can impact our patients’ health and our security among other important concerns.

Given the critical nature of these alerts, I’d like to request that Apple allow the PagerDuty iOS app to override Do Not Disturb mode and the system mute switch. If I understand correctly, that requires a special entitlement which Apple has chosen not to enable in the past. I hope you’ll reconsider! Our engineers with Android phones already have this ability, and those of us with iPhones wish we could silence them without missing emergency alerts.

Thanks for your consideration, and happy holidays!

Hopefully others will send in their own feedback and get Apple’s attention. I know there must be plenty of other people out there who want this to happen.

Add your own feedback at the link Leena posted: https://www.apple.com/feedback/iphone.html

2 Likes
#23

This is actually viable and available now by using critical alerts in iOS. Can this now be added to the roadmap considering the devices and OS support the ability?

#24

Pushover just added critical notifications into beta version. Any updates for PagerDuty?

#25

I am so glad this is still getting attention, I am also glad I am no longer on call as of January 1st :slight_smile:

#26

More and more apps are being approved in the Critical Alerts program from Apple. Surely PagerDuty can be part of it too, now.

#27

Pushover now in AppStore:

3.5.2:

  • Add option to play high-priority and emergency notification sounds as Critical Alerts, bypassing device mute switch and Quiet Hours

What about PagerDuty?

2 Likes
#28

I’m an IOS user and I really need this. Help!

#29

Hi Abraham,

We do have an existing feature request with our product team to override the system volume on the iOS app and I’ll go ahead and add your vote to that request. However, since Apple’s API does not allow us to build features that can override a device’s volume at the moment, we will need to look into this feature request after Apple exposes that part of their API to developers.

For iOS users, we recommend using overriding DND via phone notifications instead.

#30

Hi,
what about Critical Notifications volume? (https://community.pagerduty.com/forum/t/configurable-ios-high-urgency-critical-alerts-volume/1996)
There is no info about it. This is really annoying that the notifications are so loud.
I have just started using PD on iOS and already thinking about going back to Android…

#31

I was facing this issue untill i fixed it by turning off the Do No Disturb mode manually.

#32

Unfortunately, for me, the Emergency Bypass is not a viable option. When I receive calls from PagerDuty, the caller ID often appears as “unknown,” rendering those rules ineffective. This could be attributed to my location in Japan or my choice of the AU phone carrier, among other local factors. The precise reason remains unclear. If you have any solutions or recommendations ios development company, I’d greatly appreciate them. Thank you for your assistance.

#33

Hello Alicia,

Have you tried PagerDuty vCard? It contains all numbers that PagerDuty notifications can come from, and you can import it into your computer or smartphone contacts.

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#34

I looked for this on various websites including youtube and solved it using to allow calls from the same person within a short time frame to come through even when Do Not Disturb mode is activated. If you want to turn off the option to allow repeated calls to bypass Do Not Disturb, you can follow these steps:-

  1. Open the “Settings” app on your iPhone.
  2. Scroll down and tap on “Do Not Disturb.”
  3. Find the “Repeated Calls” option. It is located under the “Silence” section.
  4. Toggle the switch next to “Repeated Calls” to turn it off. When the switch is gray, it means that repeated calls will not bypass Do Not Disturb.
    Follow for more details instruction below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9F-xZmFxHk&ab_channel=TheGeekPage