Help:Alerts


<h1 align=center>Help:Alerts</h1>

<h2>Description</h2>
The <b>Alerts</b> pages displays the alerts associated with the currently logged in user.
By default, only unacknowledged alerts are displayed. Checkboxs above the alert listing
allow the user to view acknowledged alerts as well as all alerts.
<p>
A button to acknowledge all alerts is provided for convenience.
<p>
A user may acknowledge an alert that is associated with themselves by clicking on the checkbox.
Alerts <em>not</em> associated with the currently logged in user may not be changed.

<h2>Controlling the Display</h2>
The following options control the records displayed, each option is a logical AND with the others if used.
For example, filling out the 'From Date' will only show records created from the 
specified date to now. If, in addition, you also filled out 'To Date' then 
you will only see records created between the 'From' and 'To'
dates (inclusive):
<ul>
<li><b>Show Acknowledged</b>If checked show alerts that have been acknowleged by you.</li>
<li><b>Show All Users' Alerts</b>If checked show alerts from all users.</li>
<li><b>Search</b>If filled in only show alerts with substring like specified string.</li>
<li><b>From Date</b>If filled in only show alerts created equal to or after specified date.</li>
<li><b>To Date</b>If filled in only show alerts created equal to or before specified date.</li>
</ul>
You may also select the number of records per page from a drop down list.
<h2>How Alerts are Generated </h2>
Alerts are generated for an event (e.g., interface down) 
when the node related to the event has been associated with one or more a user groups.
The event will trigger a search for the user in the group that is first
in the escalation order and send that user an alert. A message
may be sent with an alert (e.g., email). The kind of message
depends on how the user's profile has been setup. 
If an alert has not been acknowledged
in 30 minutes, then the user next in the
escalation order is sent an alert and optionally a message.

<h2>Setting Up Alerts</h2>
There are three steps to generating alerts for users:
<ol>
<li>Enable Notification for Users: In the Admin screens, edit all the user profiles, enabling alerts
and selecting the alert notification type (e.g., email).
</li>
<li>Create User Groups: In the Admin screens, create groups that make sense for your organization. For
example, you might have a group of users that are responsible for a particular
set of machines or particular datacenters. Put users into these groups with
the Group Manager, change the escalation order with the arrow icons. The first
in the list will receive the alert first, if it is not acknowledged, then the
second will receive an alert, etc.
</li>
<li>Associate Nodes with User Groups: In the Nodes screens click on <b>[alerts]</b>
on either a group or node and associate with a user group. This will cause any
events associated with the node(s) to generate alerts to the associated user group.
</li>
</ol>