# What is Escalation Path?

> The defined route a ticket follows when the current owner can't resolve it.

Canonical: https://www.decimal.app/glossary/escalation-path · Last reviewed: 2026-09-23

An escalation path spells out who takes a ticket next, in what order, and under what conditions: for example L1 to L2 support, then to the owning engineering team, then to the on-call engineer for urgent issues.

## Why it matters

Without a clear path, escalations go to whoever the support agent knows, which overloads a few engineers and leaves others' areas unowned.

## Best practices

1. Map paths to code ownership. Route by product area to the team that owns that code.
2. Set time limits per step. If a tier hasn't responded in time, it moves up automatically.
3. Publish it. Support and engineering should read the same document.

## How Decimal helps

Decimal identifies the likely owning area from the code path involved, so escalations land with the right team the first time.

## Related terms

- [Engineering Escalation](https://www.decimal.app/glossary/engineering-escalation): A ticket support hands to engineering because it needs code-level investigation.
- [Tiered Support (L1, L2, L3)](https://www.decimal.app/glossary/tiered-support): A support structure where harder issues move up through levels of expertise.
- [On-Call](https://www.decimal.app/glossary/on-call): The rotation of engineers responsible for responding to urgent issues.
- [Ticket Routing](https://www.decimal.app/glossary/ticket-routing): Automatically sending each ticket to the right queue, team, or person.

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