Managing escalation policies

Overview

An escalation policy decides who is notified when a Tenant Manager alert raises an incident, in what order, and after what delay. A policy has up to five escalation rules. The first rule is notified immediately, and later rules are notified in turn if nobody acknowledges or closes the incident.

Escalation policies are account level, so one policy can serve alerts on many tenants. You manage them from the gear icon in the sidebar header.

Business value

Escalation policies make sure an incident reaches the right people at the right time. The first responders hear about it first, and a manager is brought in only if nobody responds within the time you set.

Prerequisites

Before you create a policy, set up the notification channels you want to use under Settings > Notification channels. Custom email templates are under Settings > Email templates.

Required permissions

You need the Manage escalation policies permission to open the Escalation policies page; without it the gear entry is disabled. The same permission lets you add, edit, or delete a policy. For details, see Roles and permissions in Tenant Manager.

Dependencies

• Notification channels: each escalation rule needs at least one channel or a recipient email address (a channel on private hosting) before it can be saved.
• Alerts: a policy does nothing until an alert uses it. See Alert types and thresholds.

How it works

Select the gear icon in the Tenant Manager sidebar header, and then select Escalation policies. The page lists each policy with its Name, Description, and Action. A Default Escalation Policy exists from the start. You can view it, but you cannot edit or delete it.

Escalation rules and repeating

Each rule has these settings: Recipient email address, Email template, a grid of notification channels, and an escalates after time in days, hours, and minutes. Recipient email address and Email template are shown on SaaS only. The channels in the first rule are notified as soon as the incident is raised. If the incident is neither acknowledged nor closed, Tenant Manager notifies the channels in the next rule after the escalates after time. A new policy starts with one rule that escalates after 5 minutes.

You can select If no one acknowledges, repeat this policy and choose 1 to 5 times. When the last rule has been notified and nobody has responded, Tenant Manager starts again at the first rule.

How alerts use a policy

When you pick a policy in an alert's Configure dialog, the alert copies the policy's channels, recipients, and template for each rule, and you can change them for that alert. When a default recipient and template are set in Notification defaults, the dialog of a new alert also fills every escalation step that has no recipient with them. The alert keeps its own copy, so editing a policy's channels, recipients, or template does not change alerts that already use the policy. The steps of the policy are read from the policy itself, so a change to the steps applies to every alert that uses it from its next alert. The Apply to existing checkbox in the Edit escalation policy dialog has no effect on Tenant Manager alerts. An acknowledged incident is not escalated. If you change the policy of an alert, an open incident raised under the old policy stays open but is not escalated further.

Choosing Update existing configurations in Settings > Email templates > Notification defaults also updates the recipient and template on every step of each module's Default Escalation Policy, including steps that had none. It does not change the steps of custom escalation policies or the later steps of existing alerts.

When you delete a policy, the alerts that use it are moved to the Default Escalation Policy first. The confirmation lists those alerts.

Steps

The steps below cover creating, editing, and deleting escalation policies. You start on the Escalation policies page, which you open from the gear icon in the sidebar header.

Create an escalation policy

This procedure adds a policy that alerts can then use.

1. Select Add escalation policy.
2. Enter a Name and an optional Description, and then select Next. The name must be unique.
3. Set up the first rule. On SaaS, enter Recipient email address values and choose an Email template if you want to. Tick the channels to notify. Each rule needs at least one channel or a recipient email address (a channel on private hosting).
4. Set the escalates after days, hours, and minutes for the rule.
5. To add another rule, select Add a new escalation rule. You can add up to five rules.
6. If you want the policy to start again when nobody responds, select If no one acknowledges, repeat this policy, and choose the number of times.
7. Select Save, read the confirmation "Create this escalation policy?", and select Create.

Nothing uses the policy until you choose it for an alert. Separate recipient addresses with commas to send each person their own email. Use semicolons to send one email to everyone.

Edit an escalation policy

This procedure changes the rules of an existing policy.

1. In the Action column of the policy, select Edit.
2. Change the name, description, or rules, and then select Next and Save.
3. Read the confirmation "Update this escalation policy?", and select Update.

The confirmation says that every alert that uses the policy escalates this way from its next alert. Changes to channels, recipients, or the template do not reach alerts that already use the policy. Those alerts keep their own copy, which you change in the alert's Configure dialog.

View the default policy

This procedure shows the rules of the Default Escalation Policy.

1. In the Action column of the Default Escalation Policy, select View.

The fields are read only. The Default Escalation Policy has one rule, does not repeat, and lists every notification channel. A new alert still starts with no channel ticked, so add a recipient or tick a channel on the alert's own escalation step, or the alert cannot be switched on. On private hosting, tick a channel. Until a step has a channel, the switch says "Configure this alert first. Choose a notification channel, then enable it.", and each step without a channel shows a warning icon with "At least one notification channel must be added".

Delete an escalation policy

This procedure removes a policy that you no longer need. You cannot undo it.

1. In the Action column of the policy, select Remove.
2. Read the confirmation. It says either that no alert uses the policy, or it lists the alerts that use it by Name and Path and says they will move to the Default Escalation Policy.
3. Select Delete.

Open incidents that were raised under the deleted policy stay open, but they are no longer escalated.

Configuration

The options below are in the Add escalation policy and Edit escalation policy dialogs.

Permission behavior

What you can do on the page depends on your role.

• With Manage escalation policies, the Escalation policies entry in the gear menu opens the page, and Add escalation policy, Edit, and Remove are available.
• Without it, the Escalation policies entry in the gear menu is disabled. Hover over it to see "You are not authorized to perform this operation". You cannot open the page.
• Nobody can edit or delete the Default Escalation Policy.

Example scenario

Licensing alerts at Harbor Light Logistics should reach the licensing team first, and the head of IT only if nobody responds. Anika Sharma, a module owner, selects Add escalation policy and names it First response.

In the first rule she enters licensing@harborlightlogistics.com and ticks the Slack channel for her team. The rule escalates after 2 hours. In the second rule she enters the head of IT's address. She leaves the policy to repeat once, and saves it. She then opens Configure on her alerts and picks First response.

Limitations

• A policy has at most five rules, and can repeat at most five times.
• The Default Escalation Policy cannot be edited or deleted.
• Policies are account level. You cannot create a policy for one tenant only.
• Some labels on this page use the word monitor where Tenant Manager says alert.
• The Apply to existing checkbox has no effect on Tenant Manager alerts. Editing a policy's channels, recipients, or template does not change alerts that already use the policy.

Troubleshooting

1. The Escalation policies entry in the gear menu is disabled.
   Cause: your role does not include the Manage escalation policies permission.
   Fix: ask an administrator who can manage Tenant Manager access, such as a module owner, to turn the permission on for your role.

2. Save is disabled with a message about a notification channel.
   Cause: one of the rules has neither a notification channel nor a recipient email address. On private hosting, a rule needs a channel.
   Fix: tick at least one channel or enter a recipient email address in every rule. On private hosting, tick a channel. If the channel list is empty, add a channel under Settings > Notification channels.

3. The first step says "Escalation policy with this name is already available."
   Cause: another policy has the same name. Names must be unique.
   Fix: choose a different name.

4. Deleting a policy fails.
   Fix: check that the Default Escalation Policy exists, and contact Turbo360 support if it does not.

5. An alert says "There is no escalation policy for Tenant Manager yet."
   Cause: no Tenant Manager escalation policy exists.
   Fix: create a policy on the Escalation policies page, and save the alert again.

FAQs

1. What happens to my alerts if I delete a policy?
   Tenant Manager moves them to the Default Escalation Policy. The delete confirmation lists the alerts that will move.

2. Does acknowledging an incident stop escalation?
   Yes. An acknowledged incident is not escalated or sent again until it is reopened.

3. Can one policy serve several tenants?
   Yes. Policies are account level, so any alert on any tenant can use the same policy.

Related articles

• Alert types and thresholds
• Managing alert incidents
• Notification emails
• Alerts and incident escalation
• Roles and permissions in Tenant Manager