Alerting

Overview

Receive alerts when you can't view heat tiles (GIF)

Alerts are immediate notification if there are issues with your network or services. Alerts are set up and customised by you. You define when, how and who to be notified. You set the criteria including which specific metrics are key, whether you want notifying outside business hours, who should be informed (mailing lists or multiple email addresses can be configured) and which folders or locations are included in the alert. You can create as many alerts as needed. Watch the alerting video

This page covers email alerts, our most common alert method. Refer to other pages for information on alerting via webhook or SNMP trap.

All information collected by Highlight is compared with thresholds to ensure things are running smoothly. Some thresholds can be set by Admin users. Find out more: alerting thresholds.

The Create/Edit/Inherited Alert dialog behaves differently if you are creating a new alert, editing an existing alert or viewing an inherited alert. See details for each dialog type on this page.

Alerting table

: Use to create a new alert
Search alerts: You can search on name, ID, the contents of the Send to field and the path shown in Defined in. The search icon turns bright blue to indicate a filter is applied. click to clear the search
Show in subfolders: If checked then all alerts that are defined in folders or locations below the current one will be shown, this setting will be remembered when you next log in

If there are existing alerts, the table shows the columns below. By default, the table is sorted by ID number. Click on a column header to sort by another column or reverse the order .

: Click on the cog or anywhere on an existing alert row to edit or delete it
Name: Name alerts to differentiate them. The first 20 characters of the name are displayed. The name is red if the alert is disabled or suppressed at the current folder
Type: All alerts are watch alerts currently
ID: Shows the number which uniquely identifies each alert. Any alert change will appear in the Reporting Audit Log against this number
Method: Email, Webhook or SNMP Trap
Send to: Shows one or more email addresses, a webhook URL or an IP address for SNMP traps
React on: Stability, Load, Health or any combination of these, in black if selected, greyed out if not selected
React when: Amber or Red and Issue starts, Issue clears or both, in black if selected, greyed out if not selected
Defined in: Shows the Inheritance Icon and path to the alert's folder with three possible options:

: The alert is defined in a folder above
: The alert is defined in the current folder
: The alert is defined in a subfolder, if Show in subfolders is checked then all alerts that are defined in folders or locations below the current one will be shown with a compressed path to the subfolder or location, hover to view the full path
Status: Alert enabled or disabled/suppressed

Create alerts

To create an alert, first, select the folder from the Network Explorer tree. From the Status area, click Alerting then . The following dialog box slides in from the right:

Status: Enabled By default a new alert is enabled and Status in the table is
: Disabled Toggle to disabled which means no alerts are sent and Status in the table is
Name: Alerts can optionally be given a name of up 100 characters, this is useful to identify different alerts

Defined in: This level shows on create
Method: Email, Webhook or SNMP Trap
Send to: This field is required but what is entered differs by alert method
: Email: shows your email address by default but can be changed, separate multiple addresses with commas
: Webhook: enter a URL generated by the webhook receiver, see alerting via webhook for more details
: SNMP Trap: enter the DNS name or IP Address of the SNMP trap receiver, see alerting via SNMP trap for more details

Alert on type: By default, send alert for all watch types or deselect some to stop them sending an alert.
Notes: deselecting all means no alerts will be sent

Alert on type — In this example, alerts will ONLY be sent for Wireless Access Points

React on: Check to select which type(s) of issue will cause an alert to be raised Stability (default), Load, Health or any combination of these. If none are selected, no alerts will be generated.
When issue: Check to select Issue starts, Issue clears or both (default)
If watch turns: Choose either Amber when first seeing an issue (default) or Red when an issue has continued for a period of time
During: Choose either All hours for alerts which happen at any time (default) or Business hours. Find out more: Business hours

Visibility: Shown only if you are a service provider and determines if the alert will be visible to all users and customers, or just to service provider internal staff. There are two options:
: Customer: any user can view, edit and delete this alert
: Internal: customers cannot view, edit or delete this alert as it is only seen by service providers

: On save, a unique ID number is created for each alert allowing you to track who made changes to an alert. The ID is visible in the alerting table, when editing an alert and in Reporting Audit Log as the item name.

Edit alerts

If you are at or above the folder or location where an alert was originally created, you may edit it. Under the Status area, click Alerting then click on an existing alert to edit or delete it. A dialog like this one slides in from the right:

Alerts cannot be moved. During edit, all the fields described in the Create alerts section above can be changed. The options listed here are only available in edit mode.

Defined in: Shows the Inheritance Icon and path to where the alert was created with two possible options:
: "This level" the alert is defined in the current folder
: The alert is defined in a subfolder

Shown for alerts with suppressed subfolders only:

Suppressed: N: If any subfolders are suppressed for this alert, view the total number (N); otherwise, this text is not shown
: Expand the list to view the path to each subfolder that has this alert suppressed, long paths are shortened with an ellipsis
: Use to remove the suppression on a subfolder

Watch the alerting video including how to disable alerts on subfolders

: Only available in edit mode

Inherited alerts

If you are in a folder or location below where an alert was originally created, you may view an alert but not edit it. Using the Status field, you may be able to suppress the alert which stops all alerts being sent for the folder you are in and any subfolders.

Alerting Inherited Alert — Alert viewed at a folder below where it was originally created

Status: Enabled By default an inherited alert is enabled and Status in the table is
: Disabled Toggle to Alert suppressed at this level and below to disable the alert at this folder and for all subfolders. The alert status in the table is "Suppressed" when viewed in a suppressed folder
: Alert suppressed at this level and below This message is shown if the alert you've opened is suppressed at a folder above your current position in the tree (see example below)
: Enabled This message is shown if your current position in the tree is a location and the alert you've opened is enabled at a folder above (see example below)
Defined in: shown with path to where the alert was created

Suppression is available at the folder level not at the location level
Watch the alerting video including how to disable alerts on subfolders

Alerting Tree Structure Example — Example tree structure

In this example, the alert ID: 55322 to support@kfv-services.com was created in the KFV Services folder. Thus it can only be edited in that folder.
In the subfolder Datacentre the alert is read-only but can be disabled, as shown in the above image.
In the next level down, Subfolder, the alert is fully read-only with no save button available. Since it is suppressed in the parent folder (Datacentre) it's not available for suppression in this folder, as shown in the following example.

Alerting Inherited Alert Subfolder — Alert viewed at the subfolder level, alert is disabled in a parent folder

If you view an inherited alert at the location level, no changes can be made. It cannot be disabled or enabled and the save button is disabled, as shown below.

Alerting Inherited Alert Location — Alert viewed at the location level, alert is enabled in a parent folder

Navigation message

: The confirmation message below shows if you have made any changes on the create/edit alert and then click Cancel or click on another location or folder in the tree without first saving changes

: Closing the Confirm navigation dialog with is the same as clicking this button