Issues triggers & alerts

Issue overview

Issues are what it’s all about in the Withthegrid platform. As long as there are no issues nothing needs your attention. The overview of issues is always visible on the right hand side of the screen. This shows the locations where something unexpected has occurred.

Setting issue triggers

Issues can be triggered automatically by setting issue triggers. Issue triggers are defined by setting thresholds on the measurement values coming in. There are 3 urgency levels of issues:

Critical (red)
Serious (orange)
Info (blue)

When setting thresholds there can be an upper bound level and a lower bound level. This creates 4 possible thresholds that can be crossed. The info severity level can only be added manually.

It is also possible to manually add an issue.

Device reports do not generate issues in the first hour after installation.

Issue delay

The Issue Delay feature allows users to control when new issues are created. This helps reduce the amount of newly created issues. Delays can be edited in the Issue Triggers section of the Settings menu.

Consequently, in the bottom row you are able to fill out after how many reports AND after how much time (set in seconds, minutes, hours or days) you want an issue to be generated. E.g. you could set reports at '2' and set a time for 2 days. Meaning that when the value for that quantity is exceeded for 2 consecutive reports AND for 2 days an issue will be created.

It is also possible to set an Issue Delay for an individual quantities on a port. Just click the three bullets button on the top right of the graph, select 'Edit issue triggers'. Toggle the quantities you want to override with an Issue Delay.

Issues dialog

Commenting on issues

Once an issue is triggered an issue can be analysed and commented on. Anybody who is subscribed to the group that the location is part of will receive a notification. You can communicate with your colleagues on what happened and what needs to be done. On basis of this you can leave the issue open or close it. You can always re-open it later.

Assign an issue to a user

Issues can be assigned to a specific user. You can also assign an issue to yourself.

Labels

Users can create and assign labels to issues. An overview of labels can be found under settings where new labels can be added and managed. The map color of a location or line is still determined by the priority of the issue as noted in Setting issue triggers.

Automation

The Automation feature allows users to control the way new issues on a location are created. This helps reduce the amount of newly created issues. The Automation feature allows for 3 options: 'No', 'For missing measurements', and 'For serious or critical measurements' which are further explained below.

'No' automation option will not re-use the currently generated issue. This means, that every new issue-trigger, even if repetitive, will generate a newly created issue. This is not the default and will likely not be used often.
'For missing measurements' automation means that the triggering process will re-use the original issue. The priority of the issue (serious/critical) will be automatically updated instead of opening a new issue.
'For serious or critical measurements' automation allows users to re-use the issue for certain quantities. If quantities within the list pass the set issue-triggers, no new issues are generated. If a quantity that is not listed triggers an issue, the application will create a new one. The priority of the issue (serious/critical) will be automatically updated.

If you do not adjust the Automation, updates of issues will continue to be made automatically.

Alerts

You can select to be notified of issues via e-mail in case you are subscribed to them. You can subscribe to issues on group level.

Search syntax

It is possible to search the issues with different constraints such as whether the issue was created manually or by a device, before a certain data, by a specific device etc.

It is possible to subscribe to all issues in an environment. With every new issue, or only with issues of a certain priority, you will receive an email. Go to issues and click 'subscribe':

Issues for missed reports

A critical (red) issue is now generated when the platform has not received 13 or more measurement reports from a sensor and the sensor has not come online for at least 30 minutes. A serious (orange) issue is generated when the platform has not received 2 or more measurement reports from a sensor and has not been online for 3 days or more. Lear more about issue triggers and alerts here or watch a short video!