Create a notification

Create a notification to alert your administrators or users of an issue occurring on the network. Notifications provide a means of staying on top of issues so that they can be resolved quickly with the minimum amount of downtime.

A notification is made up of a notification profile and one or more triggers. A notification profile is where you set up who is to be notified when a status changes, and if the alert escalates. That is, if it is not rectified after a certain time. Depending on the size and structure of your organization, you can have one notification profile and use it for all the notifications you create, or customize profiles for different combinations of monitored services and devices.

For notifications at the Service Organization level that apply to all customers, notification triggers are associated to rules. At individual customer level they can also be associated to specific devices and probes.

See Notification example: create a notification profile for the steps to create a notification profile.

Notifications created at the Customer level will not propagate down to the Sites under the customer. You need to create the notification for each site as well.

A notification cannot be added until a notification method has been set up for an account. To set up a notification method, click Administration > User Management > Users. Edit a user account and click User Details > Notification Method.

1. Click Configuration > Monitoring > Notifications.
2. Click Add Notifications.
3. Enter a name for the profile.
4. Select the notification type.

A service must first enter a normal state to trigger a notification. For example, a newly added service which first enters No Data, then Failed state will not trigger a notification.

• Single Device, Single Service Notifications: This is the recommended notification type. N-able N-central generates a notification for each service on each device, regardless of any notifications currently active. Use this option unless you need to suppress multiple tickets on a device.
• Single Device, Multiple Service Notifications: .This triggers an alert for the first of the services covered in the notification and suppress alerts for any other services that are included in the same notification.

  This type is useful for application monitoring.

  An example for using this type is Exchange. You might monitor four Exchange services, and only want to be alerted if one of them are down. You do not want to be alerted if the three other failed 20 minutes later.

Notifications will not be sent until the services are selected.

In the Trigger Details of the Notification Profile is a Require all services to be active checkbox. If selected, notifications will not be sent until the selected services in the Services section are selected.

• Multiple Device, Single Service Notifications: This produces a single notification for each service, regardless of how many devices running this service fail. This means that if a service fails, no further alerts will be created for this service on any other device until the problem is resolved. This should be used with care, and is not recommended.
  Notifications will not be sent until the devices are selected.

  In the Trigger Details of the Notification Profile is a Require all devices to be active checkbox. If selected, notifications will not be sent until the selected devices in the Rules section are selected.

5. Set a delay for the Primary Notification between when the status changes and when N-able N-central sends the alert.

   The delay ensures that the status change is not a temporary fluctuation a component's operation, such as CPU usage, and only want to be notified if the change continues for longer than a specified period.

6. Select the recipients and time interval for an escalation of a notification and how many escalations are needed. Notifications repeat until the issue is acknowledged or the status returns to Normal. Repeat notifications will not be sent if the time interval is set to repeat every 0 minutes. Choose a time greater than 0 minutes.

When a notification moves to the First Escalation, the Primary recipient will no longer receive notifications. Similarly, if the notification moves to the Secondary recipient, the Primary and First recipients will not receive further notifications. If you want the Primary recipient to still receive the notification when it escalates, you need to add that user to the list of recipients in subsequent escalation notifications.

7. Click Save and Continue.
8. On the Trigger Details tab, click Add and enter a name for the trigger.
9. Configure the details on what conditions and services trigger the notification. You can create as many triggers for a profile as required.
10. Click OK, then Save.

You are returned to the Notifications page with the new notification appearing in the list. Notifications are sent when the trigger on the service has been activated.