About Alert Rules

Alert Rules define the types of alerts triggered by Hand Hygiene, who is notified, and how they're notified. Each rule monitors a specific condition for the dispensers it covers — a dispenser's refill level dropping to the threshold you define.

Without an active Alert Rule, Hand Hygiene can still track dispenser refill levels and show a dispenser as low on refill in Dispensers Management, Dispensers Telemetry, and the dispenser details page, but no notification is sent and no alert appears in the Alerts list. The Alert Rule is what turns a low dispenser into an alert that notifies the right people.

Types of Alert Rules

Hand Hygiene has two Alert Rule types.

• Refill level: a dispenser's refill level drops to the defined threshold.
• Escalation: notifies an additional Group when an alert goes unaddressed.

An Escalation Alert Rule does not monitor a condition of its own — you add it to a Refill level rule rather than using it on its own (see How Escalation Alert Rules work).

Who works with Alert Rules

Alerts and Alert Rules are two different areas with two different levels of access.

• Alerts, in the menu, is available to Administrators, Users, Viewers, Limited Users, and Contact tracers.
• Alert Rules, under Settings, has access for the Administrator role only.

Those five roles can all see the alerts that have been triggered, but seeing an alert and acting on it are gated differently:

• Viewers and Limited Users can read alerts but cannot acknowledge or resolve them. Those two actions need the User role or higher.
• Only an Administrator can create, change, or delete the rules that generate the alerts.

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 — a dispenser refill level dropping to the defined threshold.
• The location it applies to: either the Campuses, Buildings, and Floors the rule covers, or the Departments — a rule uses one or the other, not both.
• The dispensers it covers: all dispensers within that location, only the selected Dispenser Types, or individually selected dispensers.
• The refill level that triggers the alert: a percentage from 5% to 95%.
• 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.

The alert refill level is separate from the Low Refill Threshold

Hand Hygiene has two refill percentages, and setting one does not change the other.

• The Low Refill Threshold, in Settings > Dispensers Configuration, controls when a dispenser is flagged as low on refill in Dispensers Management, Dispensers Telemetry, and the dispenser details page.
• The refill level on an Alert Rule's Conditions step controls when an alert is triggered and notifications are sent.

The separation is deliberate. A threshold that is right for a page you review daily may be too early to notify someone every time. Flagging at 25% and alerting at 10% gives an early visual warning on the page and a notification only when a dispenser needs attention that day.

The Conditions step shows the current Low Refill Threshold for reference, with a link to the Settings page, and states the same on screen: "The alert threshold is set independently and will not affect Dispenser Low Refill status."

See About dispenser management for the Low Refill Threshold setting.

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 Hand Hygiene 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 Refill level Alert Rules. This lets you reuse the same escalation behavior across multiple rules without setting it up each time.

Alert Rule  "ICU dispensers: Refill level"
   │
   │  alert triggered, notifies its recipients
   │  reminders re-notify the same recipients
   │
   │  still not acknowledged or resolved after the escalation wait time
   ▼
Escalation set in the "ICU dispensers: Refill level" rule
   (Escalation configured to the Supply Chain Supervisor Escalation rule)
   triggers a NEW alert to a different Group (set in the Supply Chain Supervisor Escalation rule), who acknowledge and resolve it

If the Escalations section reports that no escalation rules are available, none have been created in this account yet. Create the Escalation rule first, then add it to the Alert Rule. See About escalation alerts.

How Alert Rules relate to other configuration

• An Alert Rule can only cover a dispenser that already exists in Hand Hygiene, with a Dispenser Beacon linked to it. See About dispenser management.
• Selecting dispensers by Dispenser Type keeps a rule current as dispensers are added and removed, because the rule covers the type rather than a fixed list.
• Departments come from Smart Location. If a department is missing from the Locations step, it has not been created there yet.