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Grafana Cloud

Automate shift swap requests

Grafana IRM can automatically generate shift swap requests based on your Google Calendar Out of Office events. This integration helps ensure coverage for your on-call shifts when you’re unavailable, without manual intervention.

Before you begin

To set up automatic shift swap requests, you need:

  • Access to Grafana IRM
  • SCHEDULES_WRITE permission if RBAC is enabled
  • On-call schedules where you’re an assigned user
  • A Google account with calendar access

Note

A Google account can only be linked to one Grafana Cloud instance at a time. To use the same account on a different instance, you must first disconnect it from the current instance.

How automatic shift swaps work

When you connect your Google Calendar to IRM:

  • IRM periodically checks your calendar for Out of Office events
  • If an Out of Office event overlaps with your on-call shifts, IRM automatically creates a shift swap request
  • Team members can volunteer to cover these shifts
  • If the Out of Office event changes, any related shift swap requests update to reflect the new times

IRM creates a shift swap request, it doesn’t automatically reassign the shift. The request appears in the Overrides section of the schedule timeline, and a teammate must volunteer to accept it before the coverage takes effect. To learn more about shift swap requests, refer to Manage shift swaps.

Connect your Google account

To link your Google Calendar with IRM:

  1. Navigate to the IRM tab of your Grafana user profile.
  2. Select the Google Calendar tab.
  3. Click Connect.
  4. Follow the on-screen prompts to authorize IRM to access your calendar.
  5. Select the on-call schedules to monitor for automatic shift swaps.
    • By default, all schedules you participate in are selected.
    • You can deselect any schedules you don’t want to include.
  6. Click Save to complete the setup.

Configure schedule selection

After connecting your Google account, you can modify which schedules are monitored for automatic shift swap requests:

  1. Navigate to the IRM tab of your Grafana user profile.
  2. Select the Google Calendar tab.
  3. Select or deselect schedules as needed.
  4. Click Save to apply your changes.

Manage Out of Office events

IRM responds to changes in your Google Calendar Out of Office events:

Create an Out of Office event

  1. In Google Calendar, create a new event.
  2. Mark the event as Out of office in the event type dropdown.
  3. Set the start and end times that cover your absence.
  4. Save the event.

IRM detects this event during its next sync cycle (typically within one hour) and creates shift swap requests for any overlapping shifts.

Update an existing Out of Office event

When you modify an Out of Office event in Google Calendar, IRM automatically updates any related shift swap requests to reflect the changes, including updates to the event duration and timing.

Delete an automated shift swap

If you delete a shift swap request that was automatically created from an Out of Office event, IRM doesn’t recreate it, even if the Out of Office event still exists.

Exclude specific events

To prevent an Out of Office event from generating a shift swap request:

  1. In Google Calendar, create or edit an Out of Office event.
  2. Add the tag #grafana-irm-ignore to the event title.
  3. Save the event.

IRM ignores this event when generating shift swap requests, even if it overlaps with your on-call shifts.

If you add this tag to an existing Out of Office event that already has a shift swap request, IRM automatically deletes it.

Disconnect Google Calendar

If you need to disconnect your Google Calendar:

  1. Navigate to IRM > Users > View My Profile.
  2. Select the Google Calendar tab.
  3. Click Disconnect.
  4. Confirm your decision when prompted.

Disconnecting stops all automatic shift swap generation based on your calendar events.

Troubleshooting

If automatic shift swap requests aren’t being created:

  • Verify your Google account is connected in your profile.
  • Confirm the affected schedule is selected for monitoring.
  • Check that your Out of Office events don’t contain the #grafana-irm-ignore tag.
  • Ensure your Out of Office events are marked as Out of office in Google Calendar, not as regular events.
  • Wait up to one hour for calendar sync.
  • Check whether you have overlapping shifts during your Out of Office period.
  • Check whether anyone has volunteered for your shift swap request.