About Alert Rules

Alert Rules define the types of alerts triggered by Temperature Monitoring, who is notified, and how they’re notified. Each rule monitors a specific condition for the Storage Units, Rooms, or Monitors it covers, such as a temperature or humidity excursion, a Monitor hardware error, or a Monitor going offline.

Without an active Alert Rule, Temperature Monitoring can still detect and record excursions or monitor device issues, but no notification is sent and no alert appears in the Alerts list. The Alert Rule is what turns a detected condition into an alert that notifies the right people.

Types of Alert Rules

Temperature Monitoring has five Alert Rule types, each detecting a different condition. Create a separate rule for each condition you want to monitor.

• Threshold alert for Storage Unit: a Storage Unit reading goes outside its assigned Threshold Setting.
• Threshold alert for Room: a Room's ambient temperature or humidity goes outside its assigned Threshold Setting.
• Hardware error alert: a Monitor reports a hardware problem, such as a disconnected probe.
• Monitor offline alert: a Monitor stops reporting to Temperature Monitoring.
• Data out of sync alert: a Monitor has not synced its recorded data within 7, 14, or 21 days.

A separate Escalation Alert Rule notifies an additional Group when an alert goes unaddressed; you add an Escalation with the Escalation Alert Rule to other rules rather than monitoring a condition of its own (described in How Escalation Alert Rules work, below). For additional details, see Alert types.

What an Alert Rule defines

An Alert Rule defines what to monitor, where to monitor it, and who to notify when an alert triggers.

• Alert type: the condition the rule monitors, such as a Storage Unit threshold excursion, Room threshold excursion, Monitor hardware error, or Monitor offline event.
• The location it applies to: either the Campuses, Buildings, and Floors the rule covers, or the Departments — a rule is scoped one way or the other, not both. Alert Rules never apply to an individual room.
• The Storage Units, Rooms, or Monitors it covers: what the rule applies to within that location.
• Who is notified, and how: the recipients — Kio Cloud users, User groups, or individual email addresses and phone numbers — and the notification methods used to reach them.

When the monitored condition occurs, the rule triggers an alert and sends notifications. For threshold alerts, the alert triggers only after the threshold alert delay has passed.

Notifications, reminders, and escalations

An Alert Rule's Actions decide how people and systems are notified when an alert is triggered. Recipients can be added as individual email addresses or phone numbers, or selected from Kio Cloud users and User groups. Reminders and escalations are set on the same step.

Every triggered alert is recorded in the Temperature Monitoring Alerts list whether or not any action is configured. Actions control who is notified — not whether the alert is listed.

For the notification methods, how recipients are added, and what each notification contains, see About Alert Rules actions and notification recipients.

How Escalation Alert Rules work

An Escalation Alert Rule is a separate Alert Rule. It defines which Group can act on an escalation alert and how that Group is notified.

After you create an Escalation Alert Rule, you can add it to one or more regular Alert Rules. This lets you reuse the same escalation behavior across multiple rules without setting it up each time.

Alert Rule  "Pharmacy Refrigerators: Threshold"
   │
   │  alert triggered, notifies its recipients
   │  reminders re-notify the same recipients
   │
   │  still not acknowledged or resolved or condition is active after the escalation wait time
   ▼
Escalation set in the "Pharmacy Refrigerators: Threshold"
   (Escalation configured to the Pharmacy Supervisor Escalation rule)
   triggers a NEW alert to a different Group (set in the Pharmacy Supervisor Escalation rule), who acknowledge and resolve it

The escalation alert and the original alert are linked in the alert's Escalation Chain. See About escalation alerts.

How Alert Rules relate to other configuration

• An Alert Rule relies on Threshold Settings to define what counts as an excursion. The rule does not set thresholds; it acts on excursions defined by the Threshold Setting.
• An Alert Rule can only cover a Room after a Monitor is installed for that Room, because the Room does not appear in Temperature Monitoring until then.