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Use Case: On-Call Rota Next to Time Off, With Reminders

This use case shows how to keep an on-call rota in a SharePoint list, see it next to the team’s time-off requests in one calendar, and let reminders tell the engineer, the team and the rota coordinator what they need to know. It continues the vacation approval use case: the time-off list and its Approval Status are the same.

What you need

  • Virto Calendar App and Virto Alerts & Reminder App in your Microsoft 365 tenant.
  • An On-call rota list: one item per person and week, with the columns On-call engineer (a person), Start, End, Role (for example Primary or Backup) and Service.
  • A Time off requests list with content approval switched on, as described in the vacation approval use case.
  • Optionally, the iCal address of a public-holiday calendar for your country.

Step 1. Put both lists on one calendar

  1. Open the calendar settings by clicking the calendar name.
  2. Add the On-call rota list as a SharePoint data source, mapping Start and End to the event dates. See Adding a New Data Source.
  3. Add the Time off requests list the same way.
  4. Add the public-holiday feed as an internet calendar.

Each list keeps its own permissions; the calendar only draws them together.

Step 2. Colour the rota by role and the leave by status

  1. Edit the On-call rota data source, open the Color code tab, select the Role field and give Primary and Backup their own colours.
  2. Edit the Time off requests data source, open the Color code tab, select Approval Status and colour Approved, Pending and Rejected.

A week in which the primary engineer is also on leave now stands out in Month, Year Quarter and Flat Year views, and holidays from the feed sit on the same days.

Step 3. Remind the engineer before the shift

Create a reminder on the On-call rota list (how to create a reminder):

  • Recipients: the On-call engineer column, so each person in the rota gets their own email and next quarter’s rota needs no new rule.
  • Options: Send on date depending on a field value, field Start, Before 3 days, Send separate e-mail for each item ticked, and the hour to send at.

A new reminder does not send on the day it is created, so set it up at least a day before the first shift it should catch.

Step 4. Tell the team channel who is on call next week

Create a second reminder on the same list with the same timing, and paste a Microsoft Teams Workflows link into MS Teams Workflow URL in Recipients. The link is created in Teams with the Send webhook alerts to a channel workflow; see How to send alerts from SharePoint to Microsoft Teams.

Step 5. Tell the coordinator when leave is approved

Create an alert on the Time off requests list with the change type Existing items are modified and two conditions in Options: Approval Status has been changed, and Approval Status equals Approved. Send it immediately to the rota coordinator. Managers approve or reject the request on the calendar itself, and the request’s colour changes with its status.

What the apps do not do

The calendar and the reminders keep the rota visible and remembered. Paging an engineer when an incident fires, escalation chains, and building or balancing the rotation belong to an incident or shift-scheduling tool: the coordinator fills the rota list.

Updated on October 23, 2026