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Communication Rules

In 1stLine by Burava, Communication Rules define how a responder should be contacted during Escalation.

A Communication Rule is attached to a Line Member. When that Line Member becomes active, 1stLine uses the rule to decide what to send, when to send it, and which Communication Integration should be used.

What a Communication Rule contains

Each Communication Rule contains one or more Communication Routines.

A Communication Routine answers four practical questions:

  • which Integration should send the message
  • whether the action is Send SMS, Make Call, or both
  • whether the message should wait for a Delay
  • whether the routine should run only when its Routine Conditions match

This means one Line Member can have a simple call-first rule, a call-then-SMS rule, or a more selective rule that only runs for specific alerts.

How Communication Routines work

Think of Communication Routines as steps inside one Communication Rule.

For example, one rule can contain:

  1. a call immediately
  2. an SMS after a short delay
  3. a second call only for high-priority alerts

That lets you keep one Communication Rule attached to the Line Member while still shaping how the contact happens.

Communication Conditions

Communication Routines can use Routine Conditions. These conditions use the same extracted alert fields that you already use in Routing Rules and other Escalation conditions.

Typical examples:

  • only call when priority is P1
  • only send SMS when service contains payments
  • only run a routine for alerts from one schema

If you compare values such as P1, P2, or P3, enable Is Priority on that condition. That allows greater than and less than operators to compare priority levels instead of plain text.

In-call actions

If a routine includes Make Call, you can also enable In-call actions.

These actions let the responder press keys during the call:

  • 1 repeats the message
  • 2 resolves the alert
  • 3 acknowledges the alert
  • 4 unacknowledges the alert
  • 5 escalates further
  • 6 starts an incident
  • 7 escalate to AI

For incident-related alerts, the same 6 action can become Join incident instead of Start incident.

Use In-call actions only when the responder should be able to act directly from the call.

Default Rule for Organization

A Communication Rule can be marked as Default Rule for Organization.

When you create a new Line Member, 1stLine can pre-fill that rule as the default choice for the organization.

This is useful when most responders should follow the same contact pattern.

How Communication Rules connect to Escalation

Communication Rules do not decide who responds first. That is the job of Chains, Lines, Line Members, and Routing Rules.

Communication Rules decide how the selected responder is contacted after the escalation path reaches that responder.

That is why communication setup usually comes after:

  1. creating an Alert Schema
  2. creating Routing Rules
  3. creating Chains, Lines, and Line Members

Where to start

If you are setting up Communication for the first time, read in this order: