Preferences Hierarchy

Oppex settings are arranged in levels that follow the structure of your account. An organization contains workspaces, and each workspace contains services. Some settings exist only at one level. Others can be set at a broad level and then overridden at a narrower one, so a single workspace or a single person can differ from the rest.

Level	Applies to	Where you change it
Organization	Everyone in your Oppex account	Settings → Organization → Preferences
Workspace	Every service, incident, and member in one workspace	Settings → Workspace: name → Preferences
Service	Incidents on one service	Services → click the service's name
Personal	Only you	Settings → Personal

Which level wins

When a setting exists at more than one level, Oppex uses the most specific value that has been set:

1. Your personal setting, if you have chosen one.
2. The workspace setting, if the workspace has one.
3. The organization setting, if the organization has one.
4. Oppex's built-in default.

Leaving a narrower level unset means it follows the level above. For example, until a workspace changes its time zone, it uses the organization's.

Worked example: which time zone you see

InGen has a workspace called Isla Nublar Operations, and the organization's time zone is left at the default, Asia/Kolkata.

Situation	Time zone Ellie Sattler sees on incidents
Nobody has changed anything	Asia/Kolkata (Oppex default)
The workspace sets Default Timezone to America/Costa_Rica	America/Costa_Rica (workspace)
Ellie also sets her personal Timezone to Europe/London	Europe/London (personal)
Ellie switches to a workspace with no time zone of its own	Europe/London (her personal choice applies in every workspace)

Her personal choice changes only how times are shown to her. The workspace's business hours still follow America/Costa_Rica.

Organization-level settings

These settings exist only for the whole organization. No workspace, service, or person can override them.

Setting	What it controls
Sign-in methods (Google, Slack, JumpCloud)	How people can sign in to Oppex. Email and password are always available.
No-Op users	Whether placeholder users can be added to schedules and escalation policies
MCP server	Whether AI tools can connect to your Oppex data
Slack connection	The Slack workspace Oppex posts to. Channels are chosen per service.
User accounts and organization roles	Who belongs to the organization, and who is an Account Owner or Account Admin
Workspaces	Which workspaces exist. Multiple workspaces are turned on for you by Oppex.

See Organization Preferences.

Workspace-level settings

These settings apply to every service and member in one workspace, so different workspaces can run different rules. If a workspace has not changed a setting, it uses the organization's value, or Oppex's default.

Setting	What it controls
Allowed contact methods	Which of phone, SMS, WhatsApp, and email escalation policies can use
Default time zone	How incident times are shown to members without a personal time zone, and when business hours start and end
Acknowledge timeout, and escalating after it	How long an acknowledgement lasts, and what happens when it runs out
Maximum snooze duration	The longest snooze a responder can set
Auto-resolve aged incidents	Whether old open incidents close on their own
Call recording	Whether escalation calls can be recorded
Default grouping window	How long a group of related incidents stays open
SLA thresholds	The targets used in SLA reports
Members and their workspace roles	Who works in the workspace, as a Responder, Service Admin, or Workspace Admin
API keys, service routing, variables, and parsers	How alerts reach the workspace, and what Oppex extracts from them

See Workspace Preferences.

Organizations with one workspace

If your organization has a single workspace, most of these settings are shown on the Organization Preferences page, and they apply to the whole organization.

Service-level settings

These settings are configured on each service and affect only that service's incidents. They are separate settings, not overrides of workspace preferences: a service cannot, for example, have its own acknowledge timeout or its own time zone.

Setting	What it controls
Escalation by severity, or Notification only	Which escalation policy pages for each severity, or whether the service pages anyone at all
Business hours	Whether incidents that arrive out of hours escalate immediately or wait
Maintenance windows	When the service's incoming incidents are resolved automatically
Team notifications	Which email addresses and Slack channels receive the service's updates
Service Admins	Who can manage the service without being a Workspace Admin
Parsers limited to the service	A parser can run on every incident in the workspace, or only on incidents for services you pick

Service settings still work within the workspace's rules. Business hours use the workspace time zone, and a service's escalation policies can use only the contact methods the workspace allows.

Personal settings

These settings affect only you and apply in every workspace you belong to.

Setting	How it relates to the other levels
Time zone	Overrides the workspace time zone for the times shown to you
Record My Calls	Combines with the workspace setting: a call is recorded only when both are on
Phone dialect	Personal only; sets the voice that calls you
Default workspace	Personal only; sets where you land after signing in
Name, contact number, and password	Personal only

See Personal Preferences.

Who can change each level

Level	Who can change it
Organization	Account Owners and Account Admins. In an organization with one workspace, Service Admins can also open Organization Preferences.
Workspace	Workspace Admins of that workspace, Account Admins, and Account Owners
Service	Service Admins of that service, Workspace Admins, Account Admins, and Account Owners. Any workspace member can add or remove a service's Slack channels.
Personal	Each person, for themselves

FAQ

Can I give one service a different acknowledge timeout?

No. The acknowledge timeout, snooze limit, and other incident behaviour settings apply to the whole workspace. If a group of services needs different rules, put them in their own workspace.

If the organization and a workspace disagree, which value is used?

The workspace's value. The organization's value applies only to workspaces that have not set their own.

Does my personal time zone change when business hours start?

No. Business hours follow the workspace time zone. Your personal time zone changes only how times are displayed to you.

Can a Responder change workspace or organization settings?

No. Responders can change their own personal settings, and can add or remove the Slack channels that receive a service's team notifications, but not organization or workspace settings.