Working with alerts

Actions for alerts can be accessed via the right-click context menu.

Click the navigation icon at the upper-left corner of the screen to go to the main navigation menu.
In the main navigation menu, click Operate > Incidents and alerts > Alerts.
Right-click any alert (or multiple alerts) in the Alert Viewer and select from the following actions:

Acknowledge

Acknowledge an alert when you want to work on that alert. The acknowledged status is recorded as true in the Alert details.
De-acknowledge

De-acknowledge an alert if you are no longer working on it. The acknowledged status is recorded as false in the Alert details.
Update severity

Select from the following alert severities:
- Indeterminate
- Informational
- Warning
- Minor
- Major
- Critical
Suppress

When an alert is suppressed in Cloud Pak for Watson AIOps, the alert.suppressed flag is set to true. The alert can still be viewed in the Alert Viewer, but the alert is filtered out of the view by default.
De-suppress

Changes the alert.suppressed flag from true to false. The alert is not filtered out of the view by default.
Take ownership

Take ownership of an alert if you want to work on resolving that alert.
Assign owner

Use this command to assign an alert to another user. That user then becomes the alert owner. You must select a user group the owner belongs to.
Assign user group

Use this command to assign an alert to a group.
Clear

Change the alert state to Clear.
Quick Filter

Use quick filters to display alerts that match a selected criteria. For more information, see Creating quick filters.

Menu customization

You can personalize the arrangement of right-click menu items. The arrangement is only visible to the user customizing the menu. That is, each user can define how their own menu looks. Users can control the following settings:

Menu items are hidden or visible
The order of menu items within the menu
Grouping menu items with dividers

To access menu configuration in the Alert Viewer, click User preferences > Configure alerts contextual menu.

The menu configuration page represents the layout of the menu. From here, you can click and drag menu items to re-arrange the order. You can also click the options menu (three vertical dots) to hide or show menu items, and group menu items with dividers.

If a user has access to shared menu items, initially these items are shown as disabled in the menu configuration page. To enable shared menu items, select Show in menu from the options menu.

Add menu items

To add custom menu items for use in your personal menu, or to share with everyone, click Add menu item + from the menu configuration page.

Configure the following properties for a custom menu item:

Details
- Display name
- Description
- Select who can use this menu item (Only me or Everyone).
Add menu item - Details
Action definition and parameter-mapping that includes the following options:
- Alert properties: based on the selected alert(s), set the desired properties as the action parameter value.
- Static value: set a fixed value for a parameter.
- Default value: use the default value specified in the Automation action definition.
- Choose at run time: input the value at the time the menu item is run.
Add menu item - Action
Conditions to define when a menu item should show on an alert right-click action:
- Columns: select specific columns for which the menu item will surface.
- Alert properties: select values of alert properties for which the menu item should show.
Add menu item - Conditions

Implementation

The actions that are associated with custom menu items are implemented as Automation Actions.

Actions are one of the following types:

HTTP
SSH
Client-side

One benefit of using the Automation action framework for implementation is that these actions can be used independenly of the right-click menu, either stand-alone or within a runbook. For more information, see Managing actions.

Menu item execution

Upon clicking a menu item, the actions will run in the background for each selected alert if there are no parameter mappings specified as Choose at run time. When all actions are completed, a notification is displayed with results for each selected alert.

Click the More information link in the notification to show the raw output from the action execution, which can be copied with the copy icon Copy .

An audit of all action executions is available on the Automations > Actions > Activities page.

If a menu item has a parameter mapping specified as Choose at run time, the user is directed to the Run action page to complete the parameter input and run the action when clicking a menu item.

In this scenario, when multiple alerts are selected the alert properties are combined into a comma-delimited list. The automation action can then process this list as required.

For menu items using an action of type Client-side, if there are no parameter mappings of Choose at run time, the parameter values are mapped to URL query parameters and a new browser tab opens with the resolved URL when running the menu item. These menu items are differentiated by the "launch" icon. Note, menu items of this type only work for single alerts. If multiple alerts are selected, properties of the context menu alert are used to resolve parameter mappings.

Access control

Access control is applied at the menu item level. The menu items available for a user's personal menu consist of items the user has authored themselves, or items set with "Everyone" access. Preset menu items are read-only for everyone. Custom menu items can be updated by anyone with access to the menu item.