Escalation Policy Overview

An Escalation Policy is the plotted pathway between user roles that guide alert deliveries. 

Each alert has an Escalation Policy assigned to answer to whom, where, and when an alert is delivered. 

Escalation Policies not only let us know exactly which user to contact, but also when to escalate an alert to the next user.  

Pre-Built Escalation Policies 

AlertOps comes with pre-built escalation policies to make sending alerts quick and easy. 

Escalate after 5 minutes if an alert is not Assigned/Closed according to User Preference 

Notify users at 5-minute intervals before escalating to the next member. Notifications will be delivered according to user-preferred contact methods which are set up in a user's profile.  

Escalate after 30 minutes with 5 retries if an alert is not Assigned/Closed according to Centralized Preferences  

Notify a member, and then retry every 5 minutes 5 additional times before escalating to the next member (total of 6 notifications per user). Notifications will be delivered according to admin centralized settings and supersede user-preferred contact methods. 

This escalation will follow the notification path until the alert has been assigned to a user or marked closed. 

All Hands All Contacts 

Notify all on-call Primary and Secondary members and Managers across all configured devices and saved contact methods. 

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.

Create a New Escalation Policy  

AlertOps has pre-built escalation policies for ease of use, but admins can build their own customized escalation policies as well.  

To create a new escalation policy: 

1. Click on Configuration and select Escalation Policies in the Menu bar 
2. Click Add Escalation Policy Button in the top right corner 
3. Add Rule Name, Priority, and Description into the empty fields.
4. Click Submit to save.

Cloning Escalation Policies 

You can easily clone or make a copy of an Escalation Policy that can be used as a template when creating a new Escalation Policy. 

1. From the Escalation Policies page, select an Escalation Policy  
2. Click the Clone button in the top right corner  
3. Add Details 
4. Click Submit to save the clone 

Escalation Policy Page 

Click on an existing escalation rule to view its detail page. 

Here you can edit the escalation policy name, priority, and description by clicking the Update button in the top right corner. 

Check the Enabled box to enable/disable the escalation rule. 

Check the Quick Launch box to make the Escalation Rule available for Manual Alerts from the Create Alert menu.                    

Rules Tab 

Notify Using Setting 

In the Rules Tab, toggle the Notify Using setting between centralized or user.  

The User setting will escalate alerts using contact methods and escalation policies which are set up by each user in their user profile. The Centralized setting overrides user preferences with admin preferences.

Add Member Role 

The Add Member button allows you to plot the notification chain. By default, a primary member role will be included in the escalation. You can add as many member roles as needed.  

Wait Time Between Roles

Set the interval in minutes next to each role to establish a wait time before escalating to the next member role in the sequence. 

Number of Retries 

Define the number of retries for each member before moving on to the next member in the sequence. This can be set when adding a member role or by selecting a member role to edit. 

Retry Interval 

Set the interval in minutes after each alert. This feature will not be shown if Number of Retries is set at zero as shown in the example above. 

Contact Sequence 

When editing a member role, you can set the sequence of contact methods in the escalation rule as well as a time interval between each contact types. 

You can also set number of retries, and retry interval. You can add additional contact types by clicking the Add Contact Method button 

AlertOps will start the sequence from the top and work its way down the list. 

In the example below, the alert will notify the primary by email first. It will continue to send emails 5 more times every 2 minutes.  If there is still no answer, it will escalate to notify via phone call to the user's personal phone. 

Preview

To preview the escalation process with an actual group, simply click on the "Preview" button:

From here, you can select the desired group to test the Escalation Policy against. Additionally, you have the option to specify a date and time for a more detailed simulation of how the escalation would unfold in real-time.

Automation Tab 

Workflows 

Add Workflows to the Escalation Rule. These workflows will trigger to check if the conditions are satisfied when this escalation rule is launched.

Outbound Integrations 

An Outbound Integration allows you trigger actions in third party systems such as Salesforce, Statuspage, ServiceNow, or JIRA. These actions are not conditional like workflows and will always be executed when the escalation rule is launched. 

Outbound Actions 

Outbound Actions, like outbound integrations, allow you to trigger actions in third party systems. These actions will all be available to execute on demand with the push of a button via web app or mobile app.

Communication Tab 

When an alert is sent, users can respond in by acknowledging, assigning, escalating, or closing an alert. In the Communications tab, you can configure the actions that can be taken in response to an alert. In the example above, this alert can be acknowledged by text message, assigned by text message, escalated by email, and closed by email. 

Alert Type 

Alert Type houses all of the custom fields available to map data and access within Integrations and Workflows. Alert Types are explicitly set at the level of Escalation Rules and Workflows.

Escalation Policy for Reply

When replying to an alert you have the option to specify how you would like to notify users.

SLA 

Select the service level agreement in hours for any alert using this escalation rule. SLAs set at the escalation rule can be used for building SLA based alerting, as well as reporting.  

Usage Tab 

Here you can view which integrations and workflows are using the escalation rule.  This example escalation rule is being used in two workflows and has no associated integrations.