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Setting up notifications on Android

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When you are paged, we'll try and contact you according to your notification rules. By default, assuming you've enabled them, this will include:

  • Email
  • Slack
  • Push notifications to your phone
  • SMS messages
  • Phone calls

Ensuring you receive notifications during Do Not Disturb​

For both push notifications, phone calls and SMS messages, there are steps you can take to ensure you get notified, regardless of what your phone's silent mode and do-not-disturb settings are set up like.

Save the Harness On-Call contact to your phone​

  1. Download and save this contact card to your contacts
  2. Open the Contacts app and find the contact you've just saved
  3. Favorite the contact by tapping on the star icon ⭐

Configure Do Not Disturb exceptions​

  1. Open the Settings app and search for Do Not Disturb
  2. If you have Do Not Disturb enabled, make sure you go under Exceptions > Calls and/or Messages and ensure you allow DND exceptions for Favorite contacts only (this should have been done in step 3 above)

Note: Depending on your Android version, you may need to:

  • Tap on People and then for both Message and Calls, ensure that Starred contacts can interrupt

Grant Do Not Disturb access to Harness On-Call​

The Harness On-Call app can temporarily unmute your phone when sending critical notifications if you grant it Do Not Disturb access:

  1. Open the Settings app
  2. Go to Apps or Applications
  3. Find and tap Harness On-Call
  4. Tap Notifications
  5. Look for Do Not Disturb access or Override Do Not Disturb and enable it
  6. If prompted, allow Harness On-Call to access Do Not Disturb settings

How this works: When you receive a critical notification, provided we have Do Not Disturb access, we'll temporarily unmute your phone and then send the notification. We'll re-mute your phone 60 seconds later.

Note: If we don't have Do Not Disturb access, we'll fall back to playing the sound using your alarm volume.

Samsung Focus Modes​

Some Samsung devices have a feature called Focus modes which can add additional rules to your do-not-disturb settings. If you're not receiving notifications whilst in a Focus mode (such as "Work" or "Sleep"), then you need to:

  1. Go to Settings > Modes and Routines
  2. Select the Focus mode you use (e.g., "Sleep" or "Work")
  3. Edit the Do Not Disturb settings for that specific Focus mode
  4. Add Harness On-Call to the Allowed Apps section

Work Profile Setup​

If you're using Harness On-Call in a work profile and want to use the mute switch bypass feature, there's a workaround available:

  1. Install Harness On-Call in a personal profile (outside the work profile)
  2. Grant Do Not Disturb access to the app in the personal profile
  3. You don't need to sign in on the personal profile
  4. This should allow the work profile to get that permission as well

Customizing notification sounds​

You can customize sounds for each notification channel through your device settings from ringtones installed on your phone. To do this:

  1. Open Settings
  2. Go to Apps or Applications
  3. Find and tap Harness On-Call
  4. Tap Notifications
  5. Select the notification channel you want to customize (e.g., "Incident Alerts", "Escalations")
  6. Tap Sound and choose your preferred ringtone

If you want a notification to make a sound for a long time, consider using longer ringtones or custom alert tones.

Testing your setup​

After configuring these settings, test your notification setup:

  1. Open the Harness AI SRE module on the web
  2. Go to On-Call from the menu, the contact settings
  3. Tap Test
  4. Enable Do Not Disturb mode on your phone
  5. Send a test notification to confirm it comes through with sound

Important: If the test notification doesn't make a sound while in Do Not Disturb, double-check that you've:

  • Starred/favorited the Harness contact
  • Allowed starred contacts to bypass DND in your DND exceptions
  • Granted Do Not Disturb access to the Harness On-Call app

Important notes about Android behavior​

Please note:

  • If your phone was on silent before receiving a notification, Harness On-Call will revert it to vibrate mode rather than silent. This is due to an Android system limitation where we cannot set your phone back to silent without inadvertently enabling Do Not Disturb
  • Battery optimization settings can interfere with notification delivery. Make sure Harness On-Call is exempt from battery optimization in your phone's settings
  • Some manufacturers (Samsung, Xiaomi, Huawei, OnePlus) have aggressive background process management that may affect notifications. You may need to add Harness On-Call to protected/allowed apps

Device-specific instructions​

Samsung devices​

  1. Go to Settings > Apps > Harness On-Call > Battery
  2. Select Unrestricted for background battery usage
  3. Go to Settings > Device care > Battery > Background usage limits
  4. Ensure Harness On-Call is NOT in the "Sleeping apps" or "Deep sleeping apps" lists

Xiaomi/MIUI devices​

  1. Go to Settings > Apps > Manage apps > Harness On-Call
  2. Enable Autostart
  3. Under Battery saver, select No restrictions
  4. Go to Settings > Notifications > Harness On-Call and ensure all channels are enabled

OnePlus devices​

  1. Go to Settings > Apps > Harness On-Call > Battery
  2. Select Don't optimize
  3. Enable Allow background activity

Google Pixel devices​

  1. Go to Settings > Apps > Harness On-Call > Battery
  2. Select Unrestricted

Troubleshooting​

If you're not receiving notifications:

  1. Verify notification permissions are enabled for Harness On-Call
  2. Check that the Harness contact is starred/favorited
  3. Ensure starred contacts are allowed to bypass Do Not Disturb
  4. Verify Harness On-Call has Do Not Disturb access permission
  5. Check battery optimization settings
  6. Ensure your device has an active internet connection
  7. Try restarting the Harness On-Call app
  8. Check your Focus mode/Modes and Routines settings if using Samsung
  9. Verify you're logged into the correct Harness organization in the app

If issues persist, contact support through the app or email support@harness.io.