Escalation Rules Overview

Each alert in AlertOps is created using a Escalation Rule. Escalation Rules define the alert delivery rules and workflow actions essential to alert management. 

Pre-Built Escalation Rules

AlertOps comes with pre-built escalation rules to make sending alerts quick and easy. Get started by learning what the pre-built escalation rules do.  

Note: Pre-built escalation rules differ based on the type of AlertOps plan. 

Pre-Built Escalation Rule Descriptions 

• Escalate After 5 Mins (Pri -> Sec -> Mgr) if not Assigned/Closed - User Preference
  Notify users at 5 minute intervals (using user-preferred contact methods) before escalating to the next member
• Escalate After 30 Mins with 5 Retries (Pri -> Sec -> Mgr) if not Assigned/Closed - Centralized
  Retry every member 5 times at 5 minute intervals (using admin centralized settings) before escalating to the next member  
• All Hands All Contacts
  Notify all on-call Primary and Secondary members and Managers across all their configured devices.
• All Hands Email Only
  Notify all on-call Primary and Secondary members and Managers by email only.
• Email Manager
  Notify all Managers by email only.

Escalation Rule Details

Click on an existing escalation rule to view its details. 

Note: Escalation rule detail tabs differ based on the type of AlertOps plan. 

Detail

Edit the escalation rule name, description, and priority. Enable and disable the escalation rule. View which integrations and workflows are using the escalation rule. Quick Launch enabled means the Escalation Rule is available for Manual Alerts from the Create Alert menu. 

Escalations

Change the notification settings to centralized or user preference. 

The centralized notification setting escalates alerts by escalation policies defined in the escalation rule. Edit the member roles and wait times between notifications by clicking the edit button. Define which contact types are to be used for each role.

Wait Time Between Members
At the top of the configuration, set the interval in minutes after each member before escalating to the next member in the sequence.

Number of Retries
Define the number of retries for each member before moving on to the next member in the sequence.

Retry Interval
Set the interval in minutes after each alert

Contact Sequence
Set the sequence of contact methods in the escalation rule by clicking the up and down arrows under Contact Type.

The user preference notification setting escalates alerts by contact methods and escalation policies determined by each user. Click here to learn how to set up the user preference contact methods. 

Group Contact Notifications

You can send notifications to Group Contacts, such as a Slack Channel, or a HipChat Room, or simply a regular email, phone or SMS address.

You can control the time interval between each contact types.

When using intervals for Group Contacts, the contacts will be delivered in the order of the Group Contact Sequence. This sequence is created in the Group & Schedule Management page. 

Workflows

Add Message Workflows to the Escalation Rule to enable message-level actions and escalations.

Recipients

Add recipients to your escalation rule. 

Services

Add outbound services to your escalation rule. 

Outbound Actions

Trigger calls to systems on demand, such as creating a ticket in your help desk, or even restarting a system.

Message Options

Assignment is the key event in AlertOps. Alerts are assigned to no-one initially. A user can take assignment of an alert or assign the alert to another.

When a user takes assignment of an alert in the mobile app or web app, the alert is automatically acknowledged.

Acknowledgement in AlertOps simply means the user has acknowledged receiving the alert, not that the user has taken ownership (assignment).

AlertOps can measure Mean Time to Acknowledge (MTTA), so for that reason you can enabled acknowledgement actions on the various communication channels. You can also configure which channels allow assignment actions.

Communication Channel Settings control certain aspects of the channel, such as which alert text is used (Long Message Text or Short Message Text).

Communication Channel Settings are managed by the AlertOps support team.

Others

Select a message and thread template and manage message text and other options. 

Escalation Rule for Reply
You can specify which to be used for replies on alerts.

Message Template
Use the Standard Message Template or specify a custom Message Template.

Thread Template
The Thread Template is actually the main alert template. You can use the Standard Alert Template or use custom alert template, along with custom fields.

Priority and SLA
Select the Priority Level and use the global SLA setting for the Priority (Critical, High, Medium, Low, None).
You can override the SLA.

Create a New Escalation Rule

1. Click on Escalation Rules in the Menu bar. 
2. Click Add Escalation Rule in the top right corner. 
3. Add Details 
4. Click Add Rule.

Cloning Escalation Rules

You can easily clone or make a copy of a Escalation Rule to be used as a template when creating a new Escalation Rule.

1. Click on a Escalation Rule
2. Click Clone Escalation Rule
3. Add Details
4. Click Clone