Defining Alerts for a Jobstream
You add and edit alerts for a jobstream from the Deadlines & Rules tab of the jobstream details. On this tab you see which alerts have been activated to trigger notifications and you see any Start By alerts for individual SLAs that are defined for the jobstream. This topic explains how to define alerts for a jobstream.
When you activate a certain alert type, notifications are issued when the conditions of a jobstream run trigger the alert. There are many alert types, some for monitoring and alerting about the progress of the jobstream run in relation to meeting its SLA deadline, such as the Exceeded Deadline alert, and others about the progress of the run towards completion in general, such as Started and Complete alerts.
You can define and activate multiple alerts for any one jobstream and assign them severity levels to help identify and filter them according to criticality on jobstream views, data insights, and widgets. Be aware that although you can define and activate up to eight alert types, you want to consider an alert strategy that gives you meaningful feedback about your jobstream performance. Too many alerts lose significance when monitoring jobstreams, and if emails are issued, create alert storms in inboxes. Consider a jobstream alert strategy that can meaningfully support your teams' efforts towards SLA compliance and performance optimization.
This page includes the following:
Types of Alerts
AAI can issue the following types of jobstream alerts based on the events in the jobstream runs. Note that alert types need to be defined and activated on the Deadlines & Rules tab of the jobstream details. Jobstream alerts fall into three alert categories, which reflect their purpose:
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Start By Alerts
This alert type applies only when you have Start By alerts defined for SLAs in the jobstream.
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Late Start Time
This is tied to any Start By conditions that are set for the SLA that applies to a specific jobstream run. While the Start By conditions are defined with the SLA deadlines, this is where you define whether alert notifications are sent and how, as well as the severity. The settings here apply to all Start By conditions for all the SLAs defined for the jobstream. The default severity is Normal.
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SLA Alerts
These alert types monitor the progress of a jobstream run in relation to meeting its SLA deadline.
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Predicted Late (previously called "Late")
These alerts build early warning systems.
For long-running processes, the AAI prediction engine can determine that an SLA is in jeopardy long before the SLA is due. This is possible because AAI uses actual, real-time data to perform its calculations and this data come from the scheduler.
Late alerts are generated as soon as the AAI prediction engine determines that the SLA for this run will not be met. The default severity is Critical.
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Back on Track
After a Predicted Late alert has been sent, if a subsequent calculation of the prediction engine determines that with the most recent circumstances the run can be expected to finish by its SLA deadline, then this alert notifies that the jobstream is predicted to be back on track. A jobstreams anticipated end time can change between predictions due to any number of factors, such as an on-hold job is reset to run, key job executions run sooner or shorter than anticipated, or even that the processing path changes due to some logic. The default severity is Critical.
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Exceeded Deadline (previously called "Exceeded SLA")
AAI sends this alert when the jobstream run reaches the time of its SLA deadline and the target job has not yet completed successfully. The default severity is Critical.
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Run Alerts
These alert types monitor the progress of the jobstream run towards completion, irrespective of the impact to meeting the SLA deadline.
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Complete
This alert informs you that the jobstream run is complete. Like the Started and Target Job Started alerts, this can be a useful information alert for high-profile or critical business processes. It is sent every time a run of the jobstream cpmpletes. Its default severity is Normal.
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Not Predicted to Finish
A number of conditions during runtime could cause AAI to predict that the target job will not successfully complete (for example, an upstream job fails and the target job depends on the successful completion of that job and all of its downstream jobs). This alert is sent in these cases. The default severity is Critical.
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Started
This alert informs you that the jobstream run has started. Like the Complete and Target Job Started alerts, this can be a useful information alert for high-profile or critical business processes. It is sent every time a run of the jobstream starts. The default severity is Normal.
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Target Job Started
This alert informs that the target job of in the jobstream has started. Like the Started and Complete alerts, this can be a useful information alert for high-profile or critical business processes. It is sent every time the target job of a run of the jobstream starts. The default severity is Normal.
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Parts of a Jobstream Alert Definition
A jobstream alert in one of several types. Regardless of type, a jobstream alert definition consists of several elements that control whether and how the alerts are issued when the jobstream run events or states occur. These elements of a jobstream alert definition are as follows:
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Basic Settings: The alert type activation and handling, which includes what kind of notifications are issued and the severity of the event.
This is the only part of an alert definition that you must always define if you want alerts issued.
This is where you activate an alert type. If you define all other specifications but do not activate the alert type, no runs will be monitoring fro the alert conditions and no notifications are issued.
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Email Addresses that you only need to consider defining when you have alerts that trigger email notifications.
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A Blackout Period that you can optionally define if you want to silence alert notifications for some period of time during the week.
Instructions for defining each of these parts of an alert definition follow.
Activating and Configuring Alert Settings for a Jobstream
Defining email recipients for jobstream alerts
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From the Deadlines & Rules tab of a jobstream details, click the Settings button in the top right corner of the alert settings section below the SLA conditions for the jobstream.
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On the Settings tab of the Alerts dialog, provide the following for every alert type that you want to define for the jobstream:
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Click the checkbox in the Active column to activate the alert type and to activate the other options for the alert type.
After you finish defining settings for the alert type, you can deactivate it, and the other settings are kept, so you could reactivate it at a later date with those settings
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Optionally, select the kind of messages that you want AAI to send when this type of alert is triggered in one of the jobstream's runs.
You can choose to send either or both or none. If you select neither, triggered alerts for active alert types still appear on AAI jobstream run views and on the Alerts tab of the jobstream details.
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Select SNMP when you want AAI to send SNMP messages to other applications in your environment that you integrate with.
The information available is defined by a set of managed objects referred to as the SNMP Management Information Base (MIB). All of the properties that are listed in the jobstream alerts are made available in the MIB. For more information, see SNMP Management Information Base (MIB) Details.
Note to AAI administrators:The SNMP manager must be configured for messages to be sent. For information, see Configuration Tool - Other Tab. or SNMP Configuration Commands.
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Select Email when you want emails to be sent about triggered alerts to certain recipients. The recipients are defined in the Email Addresses tab of the alert settings. For information, see Defining Email Recipients for Jobstream Alerts.
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Choose the notification types:
In the Type email addresses of recipients and then click Add Recipients. You can add them individually or enter multiple addresses separated with commas.
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In the Activate Alerts section you define which alerts you want AAI to send for this jobstream.
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In the Active column, select the checkboxes next to the alerts that you want AAI to send for the jobstream. This activates the Severity dropdown list.
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Select the kind of messages that you want AAI to send for each alert type. Each type of alert can send emails and SNMP messages.
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Email alerts
AAI sends emails to the addresses of the users that are defined in the business areas to which you have assigned this jobstream. Do the following to enter additional recipients:
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SNMP alerts
AAI can also send SNMP messages to other applications in your environment. The information available is defined by a set of managed objects referred to as the SNMP Management Information Base (MIB). All of the properties that are listed in the jobstream alerts are made available in the MIB. For more information, see SNMP Management Information Base (MIB) Details.
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In Severity, expand the dropdown list and select one of the values from Critical, Major, Minor, Warning, and Normal.
When triggered alert information appears on jobstream run views, the alerts are accompanied by a color-coded badge to indicate the severity level of the alert type. This helps you quickly identify the alerts that require your attention first. Every alert type has a default severity level, which you can override by selecting another one from the drop-down.
Depending on the type of alert that you activate, you might see different additional settings.
Defining Email Recipients for Jobstream Alerts
When you want notifications of triggered alerts to be sent by email to certain people who need to be informed of the state that triggered the alert, you can create a list of recipients. Email notifications are handled in the following way:
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If an alert type for a jobstream is defined in its alert Settings to issue emails notifications, when the alert condition occurs, AAI creates and sends emails to the recipients defined in the Email Addresses tab of the alert definition.
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You can define email recipients for a jobstream without activating any alerts for the jobstream. The email addresses become relevant when an alert that is defined to issue email notifications is activated and the alert condition occurs in a jobstream run.
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If there are no email addresses available in the jobstream Alerts definition, AAI uses email addresses in the business area that the jobstream run belongs to. If no addresses are defined for that business area, AAI checks the business areas in the hierarchy working its way to the root business area, All Jobstreams. If no email addresses are defined in that relationship chain, then no emails are sent.
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Even if you have everything defined in the jobstream and its business areas, emails can only be sent out if an AAI administrator has configured the email server for the AAI system.
Notes for AAI administrators:For email notifications for alerts, the following has to be configured for your AAI installation:
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Enabling emails: For email alerts to be sent, an email server must be configured by your AAI administrator.
AAI administrators: You configure the email server by configuring your SMTP server. You do this in one of two ways:
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In the AAI Configuration Tool. For information, see Configuration Tool - Other Tab.
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Using the related CLI code. For information, see SMTP Configuration Commands.
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Link to the jobstream run in the emails: If you want the alert notification emails to also contain a link to the Gantt view of the related jobstream run, the address of your instance must be specified in the system configurations by your AAI administrator.
AAI administrator: To enable links within alert notification emails, go to the Params tab of the AAI Configuration Tool, and under less commonly configured parameters, enter the hostname of the AAI instance as the value for the alertURL parameter.
For information, see Configuring Your AAI System.
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Defining email recipients for jobstream alerts
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From the Deadlines & Rules tab of a jobstream details, click the Settings button in the top right corner of the alert settings section below the SLA conditions for the jobstream.
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Open the Email Addresses tab in the left pane of the Alerts dialog
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In the Enter email addresses box, type email addresses of recipients and then click + Add Recipients. You can add them individually or enter multiple addresses separated with commas.
As you add email addresses, they appear under Email Recipients
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To remove an email address, click the X to the far right of the address.
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Click Save. The email recipients are saved with the jobstream definition even if no alerts are defined to trigger email notifications.
Defining an Alert Blackout Period for a Jobstream
Triggered jobstream alerts are always displayed on views showing jobstream runs. However, you may want to silence alerts to minimize email traffic at certain times to avoid email alert "noise" at inconvenient time periods. This could be during business hours, since the operations teams will be monitoring the views anyway. Or this could be during weekends so people don't start their work week with a full inbox.
In the Blackout Period of a jobstream's alert settings, you can define when you want to suppress sending email alert notifications.
A blackout period applies to all email notifications for all active alert types in the jobstream.
Defining email recipients for jobstream alerts
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From the Deadlines & Rules tab of a jobstream details, click the Settings button in the top right corner of the alert settings section below the SLA conditions for the jobstream.
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Open the Blackout Period tab in the left pane of the Alerts dialog.
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Select the Don't send alerts between checkbox.
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Select the start and end weekdays and times for the blackout period.
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Select the day of the week from the drop down.
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Enter the time in hh:mm format, and then select AM or PM.
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Select the Time Zone that the times you entered refer to.
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Click Save. The Blackout Period settings are saved with the jobstream definition and will apply to all triggered active alert types.
See also: