View and manage people

The People tab of the group user interface displays information about the Group Admins, Members, and Observers of the group. Use this tab to review and update the users, devices, and groups associated with the group.

Manage broadcast group members

For broadcast groups, the Members section of the People tab displays the name and status of all users and groups that are members of the group. Click the name of a member to view the user ID, site, time zone, devices, and other groups they are part of. To manage their devices, click Edit Devices to view the Devices tab of their user profile.

Manage dynamic group members

For dynamic groups, members are users based on specific search criteria. Group members don't need updating, as xMatters uses the specified criteria to determine who should belong to the dynamic group at the time of an alert. Like broadcast groups, all members of dynamic groups are notified at the same time when targeted by a notification. Current members of the group can be viewed by clicking Refresh on the Members section of the People tab or Overview. To learn more about setting the criteria for dynamic groups, see Manage Criteria.

Manage on-call group members

For on-call groups, the Members section of the People tab displays the roster and shift information for each member of the group. This allows you to review and adjust which members belong to each shift. You can use this view to verify that team members are assigned to the correct shifts and that no member has accidentally been overbooked. Group members may be users, devices, and other groups.

You can also add and remove members from the timeline view of an individual shift. You may prefer to work with the timeline view when you want to add a member to a specific location in a shift's timeline. For more information about working with the escalation timeline, see Escalate alerts within a shift.

Manage group admins

Group admins have permission to manage the group, including adding and removing group members, adjusting shifts, and defining the shift escalation timeline. Admins of a group can also locate the group in searches and add it as a recipient to notifications.

Group admins are often real-world supervisors who are responsible for managing their team's performance. When groups do not follow a real-world hierarchy (such as groups that are used to broadcast emergency messages to large numbers of people), a senior xMatters user such as a company supervisor is typically assigned to be the group supervisor.

If you do not define a group admin when you create a group, you become the group admin. You can later add and remove group admins. For an xMatters user to be a group admin, they must be able to access the Groups page in the user interface. This means that they must have the Group Supervisor role (or the appropriate customized permissions). Groups must have at least one admin.

Group supervisors do not automatically receive notifications sent to the groups they supervise. To inform a group supervisor about all messages sent to a group, add them to a 24x7 shift. Alternatively, you can use subscriptions to notify a group supervisor about specific alerts.  For more information about subscriptions, see Subscribe to alerts.

Manage observers

Observers are roles who can see this group when searching for recipients and target it for notification. If a group observer has permission to view groups in xMatters they can also view the group's details from the Groups tab. They cannot modify the group unless they are also an admin of the group.

You define group observers by selecting the xMatters roles that are allowed to access the group. If a user is assigned any of the corresponding roles then they are able access and notify the group.

By default, new groups are configured to be observed by all roles. You may want to modify observers of sensitive groups to limit who is able to view group details and send notifications to the group; for example, you may want to allow all users to send notifications to the IT group but you may want to limit who can send notifications to the Company Executives group.

If you select “Observed by Selected” and do not select any roles, the group becomes 'Private', this means only the group's members and admins can search for and target it for notification.