Adding Rules - Rule tab
The rule page is used to determine description and activity settings.
Rule Settings section
Description
Enter a description to accurately describe the purpose of this rule. The rule description is displayed in the summary page at Monitor level.
Interval
For rules where the check interval is not undertaken at Monitor level, these settings specify how frequently this individual rule runs, unless the rule is held. The time period can be defined in seconds, minutes, hours or days.
Rule Active section
Days Active
Select the days on which the rule is active. The default setting is to run on all days.
Times Active
Select the times of day between which the rule is active. The default setting is 24 hours from 00:00:00 to 23:59:59.
Invert Time Range
If a specific time range has been entered in the Times Active parameters, check this box to indicate the rule is active outside the time range indicated in the ‘From’ and ‘To’ parameters.
Using Inverse Time Ranges
Using Inverse Time Ranges allows the setting of different actions for the same alert or specify different criteria that cause the alert to be generated. By copying a rule it is possible to quickly create a duplicate of an existing rule and then set the inverse time range option on the copied rule.
With the Inverse Time Range set, it is possible to specify a different action when the rule criteria is activated. A possible use for this would be to send an alert to the Enterprise Console during working hours and then send an email/SMS message to an on-call support group if the rule criteria was met during the Inverse Time Range period.
Alternatively, the rule criteria can be edited, such as extending the number of times a threshold has to be broken in order for the alert to be generated. This may be required if the importance of being notified about a threshold being breached or a device being unavailable, such as a printer being offline, diminishes after the official working day has ended.