Creating
alerts and adding contacts
Delivering information about system problems to the right
people at the right time is the key to rapid problem resolution.
WebSphere Partner Gateway'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).
- Use a volume-based alert to receive notification of an increase
or decrease in the volume of transmissions.
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. WebSphere
Partner Gateway 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.
- Use an event-based alert to receive notification when errors
in document processing occur. For example, you might want to create
an alert that notifies you if your documents fail processing due
to validation errors or because duplicate documents were received.
You can also create alerts that let you know when a certificate
is about to expire.
You will use WebSphere Partner Gateway 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.
Note:
The Community participant can only create a volume-based
alert on the volume of documents sent to the Community Manager.
For the participant to set up a volume-based alert on the volume
of documents sent from the Community Manager to the participant,
the participant would request the Community Operator to set up a
volume-based alert on the participant's behalf, specifying the participant
as the alert owner.
Tip:
- Use a volume-based alert to receive notification if expected
participant or Community Manager transmission volume falls below
operating limits. This alert can highlight participant or Community
Manager network transmission difficulties.
- Use an event-based alert to receive notification of errors in
document processing. For example, you can create an event-based
alert that notifies you if your documents have failed processing
due to validation errors.
Creating
a volume-based alert
- Click Account Admin > Alerts.
The system displays the Alert Search screen.
- Click Create in the upper right corner
of the screen. The system displays the Alerts Define tab.
- Select Volume Alert for Alert Type (this
is the default setting). The system displays the appropriate text
boxes for a volume alert.
- Enter a name for the alert in the text box.
- Select a participant with rights to create a volume-based alert
(Community Manager and Community Operator only).
- Select Package, Protocol,
and Document Flow from the drop-down lists.
The selected Package, Protocol, and Document Flow must match
the Package, Protocol, and Document Flow of the source Community
participant.
- Select one of three volume options (Expected, Range, or Zero
Volume), then proceed to 8:
- Expected - Select Expected if you want
an alert generated when document flow volume deviates from an exact
quantity. Use the following steps to create an alert on expected
document flow volume:
- In the Volume text box, enter the number of document flows you
expect to receive within a time frame selected in 8. Enter a positive number only; the alert will not
function if you enter a negative number.
- In the Percent Deviation text box, enter a number that defines
the limit the document flow volume can deviate from before the alert
is activated. For example:
- If Volume = 20 and Percent Deviation = 10, a document flow volume less
than 18 or greater then 22 will trigger an alert.
- If Volume = 20 and Percent Deviation = 0, any document flow volume
other than 20 will trigger an alert.
- Range. Select Range to generate an alert
if document flow volume falls outside a minimum-maximum range. Use
the following steps to create an alert based on a range of values:
- In the Min text box, enter the minimum number of document flows
you expect to receive within a time frame selected in 8. An alert is triggered only if document flow volume
falls below this amount.
- In the Max text box, enter the maximum number of document flows
you expect to receive within a time frame selected in 8.
Note:
Both Min and Max text boxes must be filled in when
creating an alert based on volume range.
- Zero Volume. Select Zero Volume to trigger
an alert if no document flows occur within a time frame selected
in 8.
-
Select either Daily or Range
for the time frame (Frequency) that the system will use to monitor
document flow volume for alert generation.
- Daily. Select Daily to monitor document
flow volume on one or more actual days of the week or month. For
example, select Daily if you are going to monitor document flow
volume only on one or more specific days of the week (for example,
Mondays, or Mondays and Thursdays), or month (for example, the 1st
and the 15th).
- Range. Select Range to monitor document
flow volume between two days of the week or month. For example,
select Range to monitor document flow volume on all days between
Monday and Friday, or all days between the 5th and 20th of each
month.
- Select the Starting and Ending time (24-hour day) that the system
will monitor document flow volume for the days selected in the next
step. Note that when a Range frequency is selected, the document
flow volume is monitored from the Starting time of the first day
of the range through the Ending time on the last day of the range.
- Select the appropriate days during the week or month that alert
monitoring will occur. If you selected Daily as a frequency, select
either the actual days of the week or days of the month for alert
monitoring. If you selected Range as a frequency, select two days
during the week, or two days during the month that alert monitoring
will fall between.
- Select the status of this alert: Enabled or Disabled.
- Click Save.
- Click the Notify tab.
- Click the Edit icon.
- Select a participant (Community Manager and Community Operator
only).
- If the contact that you want to add is listed in the Contacts
text box, select the contact and click Subscribe.
Go to 21.
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.
- Enter the contact's name, e-mail address, telephone
and fax numbers.
- Select the contact's Alert Status.
- Select Enabled to begin sending e-mail
messages to this contact when the system generates this alert.
- Select Disabled if you do not want to
send e-mail messages to this contact when the system generates this
alert.
- Select the contact's visibility.
- Select Local to make the contact only
visible to your organization.
- Select Global to make the contact visible
to the Community Operator and Community Manager. Both of these parties
can subscribe the contact to alerts.
- Click Save to save the contact; click Save & Subscribe to
add the contact to the list of contacts for this alert.
-
Click Save.
Note:
Changes made to volume-based alerts, after the original
monitoring period, become effective on the next monitoring period
day. For example, an alert monitors from 1-3 PM on Wednesdays and
Thursdays. On Wednesday at 4 PM, the alert is changed to monitor
from 5-7 PM. The alert will not monitor twice on Wednesday; the
change will become effective on Thursday.
Creating
an event-based alert
- Click Account Admin > Alerts.
The system displays the Alert Search screen.
- Click Create in the upper right corner
of the screen. The system displays the Alerts Define tab.
- Select Event Alert for Alert Type. The
system displays the appropriate text boxes for an event-based alert.
- Enter a name for the alert in the text box.
- Select a participant that will trigger the alert (this option
is only available to the Community Manager and Community Operator).
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.
- Select the event type: Debug, Information, Warning, Error, Critical,
or All.
- Select
the event that will activate the alert, for example, BCG240601 AS
Retry Failure, or 108001 Not a Certificate. To create an alert that
notifies you when a certificate is about to expire, select one of
the following:
- BCG108005 Certificate Expiration in 60 Days
- BCG108006 Certificate Expiration in 30 Days
- BCG108007 Certificate Expiration in 15 Days
- BCG108008 Certificate Expiration in 7 Days
- BCG108009 Certificate Expiration in 2 Days
- Select the status of this alert: Enabled or Disabled.
- Click Save.
- Click the Notify tab.
- Click the Edit icon.
- Select a participant (Community Manager and Community Operator
only).
- If the contact that you want to add is listed in the Contacts
text box, select the contact and click Subscribe.
Go to 18.
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.
- Enter the contact's name, e-mail address, telephone
and fax numbers.
- Select the contact's Alert Status.
- Select Enabled to begin sending e-mail
messages to this contact when the system generates this alert.
- Select Disabled if you do not want to
send e-mail messages to this contact when the system generates this
alert.
- Select the contact's visibility.
- Select Local to make the contact only
visible to your organization.
- Select Global to make the contact visible
to the Community Operator and Community Manager. Both of these parties
can subscribe the contact to alerts.
- Click Save to save the contact. Click Save and Subscribe to
save the contact and add the contact to the list of contacts for
this alert.
-
Select the Mode of Delivery:
- Send alerts immediately. When you select
this option, the system sends alert notifications to the contact
when the alert occurs. Use this option for critical alerts.
- Batch Alerts By. When you select this
option, you can specify when you want the contact to receive alert
notifications. Use this option for non-critical alerts.
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.
- If the number of alerts (Count) is reached during the time limit
that you have selected (Time), the system generates an alert notification.
- If an alert occurs but the number of alerts (Count) is not reached
during the time limit that you have selected (Time), the system
will generate an alert notification at the end of the time limit.
The Time option can be used without the Count option, but the
Count option must always be associated with a time limit (Time).
- Count. Must also use Time option when
you select this option. Enter a number (n). This is the number of
alerts that must occur during the selected time period (Time) before
the system will send an alert notification to the alert's
contact.
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.
- Time. Select number of hours (n). The
system retains alert notification for n hours. Every n hours, the
system sends all retained alert notifications to the contact.
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.
-
Click Save.
Adding
a new contact to an existing alert
- Click Account Admin > Alerts.
The system displays the Alert Search screen.
- Enter the search criteria from the drop-down lists; enter the
Alert Name.
- Click Search. The system displays a list
of alerts that meet your search criteria, if any.
- Click the View details icon to view alert details.
- Click the Edit icon to edit alert details.
- Click the Notify tab.
- Select a participant (Community Manager and Community Operator
only).
- If the contact that you want to add is listed in the Contacts
text box, select the contact and click Subscribe.
Go to 13.
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.
- Enter the contact's name, e-mail address, telephone
and fax numbers.
- Select the contact's Alert Status.
- Select Enabled to begin sending e-mail
messages to this contact when the system generates this alert.
- Select Disabled if you do not want to
send e-mail messages to this contact when the system generates this
alert.
- Select the contact's visibility.
- Select Local to make the contact only
visible to your organization.
- Select Global to make the contact visible
to the Community Operator and Community Manager. Both of these parties
can subscribe the contact to alerts.
- Click Save to save the contact. Click Save and Subscribe to
save the contact and add the contact to the list of contacts for
this alert.
-
Click Save.
