Raise a red flag when something cannot wait
Aim an urgent item at named people, see who has acknowledged it, and have it escalate to their phone when nobody answers.
A red flag is how you say "this cannot wait" and have it mean something. Unlike shouting in a channel, a flag is aimed at named people, records who acknowledged it, and reaches the people who did not.
Steps
- Find the message the flag is about — a customs hold, a missed cut-off, a re-book request — and select the flag action on it.
- Write the reason. This is what the acknowledgement record will say afterwards, so make it the sentence someone needs to read at 2am. Up to 280 characters.
- Choose who must acknowledge. Pick the people who actually owe an answer, not the whole channel. A flag aimed at nobody escalates to nobody, so at least one person is required.
- Choose how long they have before it escalates. A customs hold and a re-book do not deserve the same clock.
- Select Raise.
What happens next
A banner appears at the top of the conversation showing the reason and the count — for example Acked 2/3 · escalating in 6m.
- The denominator exists from the moment the flag is raised, so "0/3" is true immediately rather than counting up from nothing.
- The people who were asked are frozen at raise time. If channel membership changes afterwards, who owes an answer does not.
- Anyone in the conversation can see the flag; only the named people can acknowledge it.
Acknowledging
Select Acknowledge on the banner. Your row in the ledger is stamped with the time and the surface you answered from. The count moves, and once everyone has answered the flag stops counting down.
If you escalated to someone's phone, they can acknowledge straight from the WhatsApp message using the link in it. That link performs exactly one acknowledgement, works once, and expires — it is not a way into your account.
Escalation
When the clock runs out and someone still has not answered:
- An escalation is posted in the conversation, always. That is the durable record.
- Each missing person is additionally messaged on WhatsApp, when everything needed for that is actually true: your company has a verified WhatsApp connection, that person has a verified and enabled WhatsApp number, and the messaging window allows it. If any of that is missing, that one person is reached in-channel only.
A flag escalates once. A retry or a re-run never messages the same person about the same flag twice.
Resolving
When the underlying problem is handled, select Resolve on the banner. The flag closes and stops appearing in the Flags view.
The same reason can be raised again later — a customs hold really does recur — and that creates a new flag with its own roster and its own clock. Raising the same thing twice while the first is still open is treated as a double-click, not as a second flag.
Seeing what is waiting on you
The Flags view in the chat rail lists every open flag that is waiting for your acknowledgement. Those flags, plus your unread mentions, are what the badge on the Chat sidebar item counts — so a number there means a person is waiting for you.
Tips
- Name the fewest people who can actually act. A flag sent to twelve people is acknowledged by none of them.
- Put the record number in the message you flag, using
#. The person you woke up should not have to ask which shipment. - Set the clock honestly. An escalation window shorter than the time it takes to do the work trains people to ignore the flag.