Receive and respond to alerts
Once you have configured and validated your devices, and your group supervisor or administrator has created groups, teams, and schedules, you are ready to receive alerts.
An alert is any message or notification the system sends to a device to inform you that an event requires your attention. Alerts include information about the event, such as the time and location that it occurred. Some alerts ask you to acknowledge that you have received the notification, or take another action.
Depending on the situation and the device, the alert might require you to provide a more detailed response, such as:
- OK – I’ll be there in 10 minutes.
- OK – I’ll be there in 30 minutes.
- I cannot respond to this situation.
xMatters administrators (or other users with the appropriate permissions) determine the response options available in each alert.
Understand how xMatters handles duplicate notifications
xMatters removes (or suppresses or 'de-duplicates') multiple notifications for a single event that are targeted at the same user within a group. For example, assume that UserZ is a member of GroupA and GroupB, and GroupB is a member of GroupA. As a result, notifications that target GroupA will target UserZ twice: once as a member of GroupA, and again as a member of GroupB. However, xMatters includes logic that de-duplicates the additional notification and UserZ will be notified only once, unless there is a delay or escalation between the two notifications.
While the latter is true for nested groups with common users, the situation is different when a user is also targeted individually (i.e., not as part of a group). For example, assume that UserZ is a member of GroupC, and that a notification targets GroupC as well as UserZ separately. In this case, UserZ will receive two notifications: one as a member of GroupC, and one as an individually-targeted user.
xMatters also suppresses duplicate subscription notifications. For example, if you're targeted directly as a recipient for an event, any duplicate messages you would have received via a subscription are suppressed. If you have multiple subscriptions that would send you notifications about the same event (which is really not a good idea anyway), you'll receive only one notification for the event. For more information about how xMatters handles subscription notifications, see How to use subscriptions.