Delivering information about system problems to the right people at the right time is the key to rapid problem resolution.
Business Integration Connect's alerts are used to notify key personnel of unusual fluctuations in the volume of transmissions you receive, or when business document processing errors occur.
A companion option in the Viewer module, Event Viewer, helps you further identify, troubleshoot, and resolve processing errors.
An alert consists of a text-based e-mail message sent to subscribed contacts or a distribution list of key personnel. Alerts are based on the occurrence of a system event (event-based alert) or expected document flow volume (volume-based alert).
For example, if you are a participant, you can create a volume-based alert that notifies you if you do not receive any transmissions from the Community Manager on any business day (set Volume to Zero Volume, set frequency to Daily, and select Mon through Fri in the Days of Week option). This alert can highlight Community Manager network transmission difficulties.
If you are a participant, you can also create a volume-based alert that warns you when the number of transmissions from the Community Manager exceeds the normal rate. For example, if you normally receive approximately 1000 transmissions a day, you can set the Expected Volume at 1000 and the Percent Deviation at 25%. The alert will notify you when you receive more than 1250 transmissions a day (it will also notify you when the volume of transmissions falls below 750). This alert can identify increased demand on the part of the Community Manager, which might, over time, require you to add more servers to your environment.
Note that volume-based alerts monitor volume with respect to the document flow that you select when you create the alert. Business Integration Connect only looks at documents that contain the document flow selected in your alert, and generates alerts only when all of the alert criteria are met.
You will use Business Integration Connect predefined event codes to create event-based alerts. There are five event types: Debug, Information, Warning, Error, Critical. Within each event type, there are many events. You can view and select predefined events on the Alert: Events screen. For example, 240601 AS Retry Failure, or 108001 Not a Certificate.
The selected Package, Protocol, and Document Flow must match the Package, Protocol, and Document Flow of the source Community participant.
If the contact that you want to add is not listed in the Contacts text box, click Add New Entry to Contacts. The system displays the Create New Contact pop-up window.
Note that the Add New Entry to Contacts option is only presented to the Alert Owner to create contacts associated with the Alert Owner. This feature does not allow the Alert Owner to add contacts for Alert participants.
Select the Any Participant option to associate the alert with all the participants in the system. When you perform an alert search and select Any participant as the Alert Participant, the system displays all alerts that are not associated with a specific participant.
If the contact that you want to add is not listed in the Contacts text box, click Add New Entry to Contacts. The system displays the Create New Contact pop-up window.
Note that the Add New Entry to Contacts option is only presented to the Alert Owner to create contacts associated with the Alert Owner. This feature does not allow the Alert Owner to add contacts for Alert Participants.
The two options in this section, Count and Time, are not mutually exclusive.
If you select the Count option, you must always select the Time option.
The Time option can be used without the Count option, but the Count option must always be associated with a time limit (Time).
Here's an example of how these two options work together:
In our example, Batch Alerts By options are set to 10 for Count (10 alerts) and 2 for Time (2 hour period). The system retains all notifications for this alert until 10 occur in a two hour period or until the end of the time period is reached.
When the alert count reaches 10 in a 2 hour period, the system sends all alert notifications for this alert to the contact.
If an alert occurs but 10 alerts do not occur during the time limit (two hours), the system will send an alert notification to the alert's contact at the end of the time limit.
For example, if you enter 2, the system retains all notifications for this alert that occur in each two hour interval. When the two hour interval expires, the system sends all alert notifications for this alert to the contact.
If the contact that you want to add is not listed in the Contacts text box, click Add New Entry to Contacts. The system displays the Create New Contact pop-up window.
Note that the Add New Entry to Contacts option is only presented to the Alert Owner to create contacts associated with the Alert Owner. This feature does not allow the Alert Owner to add contacts for Alert Participants.