Section 9 - Setting Up Alerts
9.0 Setting up alerts
There are four main methods that can be used to set up Alerts for your nodes. We will cover these in order of simplicity.
9.1 Receive all alerts (with optional Track Views and Track Events)
See help article: 13000087793
This is by far the quickest and easiest way to receive Alerts. Some Contacts (for example, those set up for a helpdesk) may require all Alerts to be sent. At the top of a Contact’s settings screen you have the option to receive All Warning & Critical or Critical only, plus the option to use Track Views and Track Events.
If you enable Track Views, you will receive Alerts for any nodes that are contained in your selected views. This can be refined further by selecting [Track Events]. This approach is a great way to ensure you don’t miss Alerts from devices recently added to your Mutiny system.
9.2 Contact template method
This is the most configurable way to deploy Alert settings. A Contact is used to build a template of Alert settings, which can then be copied to nodes and/or views.
Navigate to the Event Alert Settings panel at the bottom of your Contact page:
Select Event Alert Settings to open the panel. Here you will see all available Alerts, grouped by property group.
Selecting any (OK), (Warning), or (Critical) button opens the detailed settings panel for that Alert property.
The Alert can be enabled or disabled using the On/Off selector at the top. The three shift options control the raising of Alerts (enabling the shifts on the Contact page controls the receiving of Alerts). The left-hand shift tick boxes control the sending of Email Alerts and the right-hand shift tick boxes control the sending of SMS Alerts.
Each type has a Delay field that can be used to extend the time before an Alert is sent. If a property returns to OK during the delay period, the Alert will be cancelled. The Repeat selection on the SMS type allows SMS Alerts to repeat while the Alert condition exists.
Use the Apply tick boxes to add your Contact to the specific property Alert. Ticking Remove will remove the Contact from that property if it already exists.
Once you are happy with your template, you can copy it to any combination of nodes and/or views using the selection panels at the bottom of the panel:
Use a combination of Shift-click and Ctrl-click, followed by the [Apply] button to add the Alerts to the selected nodes.
9.3 Copy to Nodes method
This method allows you to copy Alert settings from one node to one or more nodes or views. Copy to Nodes is only available in the Node Manager view.
First select a node that already has your desired Alert settings (or manually configure the Alerts), then either right-click the sample node and select Copy to Nodes, or select the Copy to Nodes button on the right of the Node Manager view.
This opens the Copy to Nodes panel for the selected node. Choose the Alert items at the top that you wish to copy, then select the nodes and/or views you wish to copy to.
Press [Apply] to make the changes. Please note that this will override any existing Event Alert settings on the selected nodes (and any nodes contained within selected views).
9.4 Manual setting of Alerts
In some cases you may wish to change a single Alert property, for example to have one Contact receive Alerts from one property on one node.
To do this, go directly to the property Alert you wish to edit. In this example we add an existing Contact to a Disk Usage (Critical) Alert on a Windows server.
Find your node and double-click to open the Status panel. Then select Disk Usage and then (Critical).
This opens the Disk Usage (Critical) Alert panel for the node and displays any Contacts already configured to receive this Alert.
Click the (Add/Remove Contact) button, select your Contact from the drop-down list, and press [Apply].
The Contact will be added to the list and you can edit shift rules, delays, and repeats to suit your requirements.
9.5 Time-based escalation
Some organisations operate an escalation process for dealing with reported issues. Mutiny can support this method using the Delay field in Alerts.
The following example assumes three escalation levels at 0, 60, and 90 minutes. When the node property Alert is created, three Alert items will be created in the Alert Queue – one for each Contact. The First Line Contact will be processed immediately (if they are On Shift). The other two will remain queued until their delay time is reached.
If the Event is Acknowledged by an operator, the remaining Alerts will remain in the Alert Queue until the Acknowledged timer expires. Queued items are cancelled if the property returns to OK.
Create three Contacts (e.g. First Line, Second Line, Third Line), then set:
- First Line Contact: Delay = 0 (default) for all Event Alert settings
- Second Line Contact: Delay = 60 for all Event Alert settings
- Third Line Contact: Delay = 90 for all Event Alert settings
For each Contact, copy their Alert template to the target nodes as described earlier.
To see how this looks on a node, select an Alert property from one of the target nodes. You should see Contacts configured like this:
9.6 Alert setting examples
Using a combination of shifts for receiving and shifts for raising Alerts you can build flexible alerting behaviours. Here are a few examples. Use the following as a key:
Contact Enabled
Shifts Enabled
Alert Shifts Enabled
Apply selected property
9.6.1 Receive all email Alerts
Contact enabled ---- YES
All shifts enabled ---- YES
All Alert shifts enabled for all properties ---- YES
Copied to “All Nodes”
9.6.2 No Alerts whilst on leave/vacation
Contact enabled ---- NO
9.6.3 Receive Alerts during working hours only
Contact enabled ---- YES
Shifts enabled ---- Shift 1 only
9.6.4 Send out-of-hours Alerts to a third party
Contact enabled ---- YES (create a new Contact with an external email address)
Shifts enabled ---- Out-of-hours shift(s) only
Copied to “Selected Nodes”
9.6.5 Ignore CPU Alerts out of business hours
Contact enabled ---- YES
Shifts enabled ---- YES
Alert shifts enabled ---- CPU Critical = Shift 1 only; remaining Alerts as desired
Copied to “Selected Nodes”
9.7 Acknowledging Alerts
Once a Contact has received an Alert, it may be desirable to acknowledge it so that other team members are aware action is being taken.
Once an Event is listed in the Event Log (or visible on the Open Events Wallboard) it can be acknowledged from the node Status panel.
Select the time period you wish to hold off Alerts for. This prevents any further Alerts from being sent until the acknowledgement timer expires. If the property returns to OK during this time, it will be removed from the Alert Queue.
