Alerts management overview

Any number of alerts can be set to notify the end user about information pertinent to an asset or contact that will not only help them to provide the best service but also make them aware of potential safety considerations. For ease of use, all alert types are displayed in the same place and each is allocated a severity - Information, Warning, High or High with confirmation. Such alerts are displayed not just within the record itself but also within any associated records that are linked to it. Thus, an alert can be created for, say, an asset, which will also be displayed when viewing a related contact or contact group. On assigning an alert categorised as 'High with confirmation', notification messages are also triggered at regular intervals, which must be acknowledged by the end user before further processes can be undertaken. The severity of each alert is also emphasised visually through the use of a colour-coded warning triangle – Green, Amber or Red.

All categories of alerts can be catered for on the system and managed for each separate entity – Asset, Contact or Contact Group. For example, construction material alerts can be created for assets where asbestos is present. Similarly, personal safety alerts can be created for contacts with a history of violence. As well as maintaining and assigning static alert types, there is also the option to create conditional alerts that are automatically assigned to records based on custom criteria.

Both alert types – standard (static) and conditional – are created via a consistent configuration form. For standard alert types, it is possible to link multiple entities to an individual record, allowing the same alert to be added separately to, say, a contact and an asset, and then contextual data managed independently for each instance. Once created, a standard alert type can be linked manually to any number of individual records, at the end user's discretion. For conditional alert types, only one entity can be selected – Asset, Contact or Contact Group – and its inclusion within records of that entity type is carefully controlled through the creation of custom criteria. Rather than adding an individual alert to each record manually, criteria rules specified by the end user determine the intended target records automatically. Such rules can either be constructed using the integral Advanced Statement Builder or, for more complex expressions, these can be captured within a SQL stored procedure which is then linked to the alert type. Naturally, where a stored procedure has been linked to the alert, a criteria statement cannot also be employed, and vice versa. Once a conditional alert has been created, including custom criteria specified for the target records – achieved using either the integral Advanced Statement Builder or an external SQL stored procedure – there are two options available for cascading it to all relevant records: (1) Clicking on the Evaluate Now button within a specific alert will launch an asynchronous routine to incorporate it within the target records, or (2) The cascading process can be managed for all alert types through the creation of a scheduled task.

Separate help articles have been created for each key aspect of alerts management, including:

• To create a new standard alert
• To create a new conditional alert
• To add entity criteria to a conditional alert
• To assign a conditional alert to matching entity records
• To update the outcome of an alert review cycle
• To analyse the alert review history of a linked entity