Adding Actions

You should first know that some monitors are State monitors and some are Event monitors. The type of monitor (state or event) is determined by the type of monitor itself.

State and Event Monitors

The following describes how State and Event monitors differ.

With these differences in mind, the dialog below shows the action configuration dialog for a State monitor.  Notice that the top left list is a set of actions to run when an error is detected, and a separate set at the bottom left for when the error is fixed (in the example below, the an email isn't sent when the problem is fixed). 

Setting Up Actions

On the right side of the dialog is the list of all existing actions that may be tied to the monitor as either "Error Actions" or "Error Resolved Actions". Initially, in a new monitor, no actions are tied to the monitor. A set of recommended actions is created every time you create a new monitor. You can use these existing actions, which saves configuration time. You can also easily create a new action if you need an action that is not in the list. PA Server Monitor allows you to easily edit an action in one place and have all existing monitors use the new settings of the changed action. 

To add an action to a monitor, select the desired action in the list on the right, and press the appropriate << button to move it to the desired list on the left.

The list for Error Actions on the left consists of two basic types of activation, which are represented visually as Windows Explorer like tree branches.

Actions are run in the order shown in each group (immediate or escalation).  You can click on an action in the list and press the up arrow and down arrow buttons to control its position within the action list.

You are free to only have "Do Immediately" actions or only event escalation actions, or a combination of the two.

More About Event Escalation

State monitors (like the one shown below) support event escalation. This means that after a specified amount of time, additional actions will be run if the monitor is still in an error state.

When you attach the first action to an escalation item, a new escalation item will be added below the current escalation item, which you are free to use or ignore (that is, leave empty). The delay time that is preset for this action depends on the delay time in the escalation group node that is currently selected. Usually, the next available minute value is set. This allows groups of actions to be performed in sequence as an error state persists.

You may configure a particular escalation group by first clicking on the Escalation node to select it. This configuration may consist of changing the time at which the escalation group's actions are activated. You can configure an escalation period by hand editing the time shown in it. To do so, press the F2 key or click on the node a second time after selecting it, to "open" the node for renaming (exactly as you would with a file or folder name in Windows Explorer.) You can then hand enter a time value, which consists of a whole decimal number (no decimal point) followed by one of these time units: minutes, hours, or days. You do not need to type the "after the first error" portion.

Examples of correct escalation time setting text:

PA Server Monitor will always revise the text to read "XX minutes after the first error:" once you close the editing of the node. A non-minutes value will be normalized to the correct number of minutes (for instance, "1 hour" becomes "60 minutes after the first error.") The escalation groups will be visually re-sorted in the order of the times that they contain when you complete your editing.

PA Server Monitor