i4messenger introduction
For an easier overview of the i4messenger addon, check out this article and read the event handling workflow.
The i4messenger is an i4connected component that handles the flow of events, by enabling delivery of notifications to defined Response Teams, considering escalation policies, and priority filtering.
The Event handling workflow
The Event handling workflow is initiated as soon as an event occurrence is triggered, considering that the respective event definition has been configured for i4messenger, as described in the upcoming articles.
The workflow is designed to identify the response team(s) that will handle the event and if all conditions are favorable, the i4messenger pipeline will send out event notifications to all the members of that response team.
The i4messenger pipeline also checks the Response Teams assigned to higher authority entities, for Events having a Device, an Area, or a Sub-Organizational Unit as a source. Therefore, notifications will not be delivered only to the members of directly assigned Response Teams, but to the Response Teams assigned to the ancestors of the sourcing entities, as well.
Warning
The Response Team members need to have the View event occurrences permission enabled on hierarchical or global level.
If no user acts on the notification, the system can be enabled to retry sending out the notification several times and/or escalate the event.
The escalation is done by switching to the next response team and repeating the process. The system supports an unlimited chain of escalations which can be done either based on the number of retries or based on the event priority.
If any user interacts with the event, by acknowledging, taking ownership, or closing it, the process is interrupted. Changing an event's status can be done by any user having the appropriate rights and permissions. In case several users decide to act at the same time, the first one will win and the other ones will be informed that the event has already been processed.
Further on, Response Teams can be assigned to Sites, Areas, Organizational Units, and Devices. During the assignment step, the user can apply Event and Priority filters, therefore ensuring a more granular security model.