At work, we have a rotation of who is on call at a given time. We have few calls, but they do happen and so it’s important to ensure both that a person is available, but also that they’re aware they are on call (so they don’t stray too far from their phone or a computer).
In the grand tradition of abusing spreadsheets, we are using google docs for the roster. It’s basically just two columns, one with date and one with user name. Since the volume is so low, people tend to be on call for about a week at a time, 24 hours a day.
Up until now, we’ve just had a pretty old and dumb phone that people have carried around, but that’s not really swish, so I have implemented a small system which grabs the current data, looks up the support person in LDAP and sends SMSes when people go on and off duty as well as reminding the person who’s on duty once a day.
If you’re interested, you can look at the (slightly redacted) script.