Clearing alerts and adding comments

Clearing a raised alert may be useful when you want to:

• categorise the alert as not currently a problem
• remove the alert from your checklist of issues requiring further investigation
• indicate that the problem raised by the alert is resolved
• temporarily hide the alert until the next time it is raised
• add a note to the alert to record the cause of the problem, or to describe any actions taken to resolve it

Cleared alerts can still be viewed; all the alert details (including performance snapshot data) are available for all cleared alerts.

To clear an alert

To clear an alert, click Clear Alert in the alert details pane.

You can also right-click the alert in the main list, and select Clear Alert.

Difference between active and cleared alerts

Active alerts are alerts that are not currently at cleared status. The image below shows an alert raised at high level:

The same alert after being cleared:

• All the alert details can still be viewed
• A comment has been added, displayed in the Comments section
• An Alert cleared at timestamp has been added; if the alert is raised again, this timestamp is removed

Clear or disable an alert?

A cleared alert will be raised again when the same problem re-occurs. For example, if you clear a Job failure alert for a particular job, and that job fails again an hour later, the alert is raised again, and the number of occurrences of the alert is increased by one.

Disable the alert when you do not want to be informed again about this particular job failing:

1. In the alert details pane for the selected alert, click Edit Alert Configuration.
2. Select Disabled.
3. Click Apply Changes.

By default, the alert is only disabled for the specific job; you can disable it for all jobs on the SQL Server, or for all Job failures on a number of SQL Servers. Disabling an alert stops it being raised in the future; it does not remove any historical alerts from SQL Response.

If you receive a large number of alerts for an issue, you may want to fine-tune the settings of the alert. Click Edit Alert Configuration to adjust the alert thresholds.

See Configuring alerts and recommendations.

Adding a comment when clearing an alert

To add a comment to an alert, you first need to clear the alert.

When you click Clear Alert, the Add Comment to Alert dialog box is displayed, in which you can enter the comment text.

Your user name is automatically entered in the Cleared by box; you can edit this name, if required.

• To add a comment, type the comment text and click OK.

  The comment is added to the Comments section of the alert details, and includes the time the alert was cleared and the user who cleared it. Each new comment is added to the top of the list.

• To add an entry to the Comments section indicating the time the alert was cleared and the user who cleared it, but without any comment text, click OK without typing anything in the Comment box.

  Note: Adding blank entries may not be allowed (the OK button is unavailable until some text is typed). You can change this behavior in the Options dialog box.

• To clear the alert without adding a comment, click Skip. No entry will be added to the Comments section of the alert details.

  Note: Skipping alerts may not be allowed (the Skip button is unavailable). You can change this behavior in the Options dialog box (see the next section, Turning off comments).

Comments are not specific to an individual occurrence of an alert. All comments added to the alert are always displayed in the Comments section of the alert details, for any selected occurrence.

In the example below, the Job did not start alert has been raised a total of 16 times for the Server Maintenance and Repair job on the DEVELOPMENT1 server. Three comments have been made, indicating the alert has been cleared three times. Note that the second time the alert was cleared, a blank comment was added.

There is no correlation between any specific comment and a particular occurrence of an alert. Clearing an alert changes its overall status, rather than clearing a selected occurrence only.

Changing comment options

When you first run SQL Response, adding comments when clearing an alert is enabled by default, and comment text is required before the alert can be cleared. To change options for adding comments:

From the Alert Repository menu, select Alert Repository Options, then:

• To disallow comments, clear Enable comments when clearing an alert.
• To require comment text in the Add Comment to Alert dialog box before the alert can be cleared, select Require comments.

  When this option is cleared, you can Skip the adding of a comment.

Viewing cleared alerts

Viewing cleared alerts allows you to review information about alerts, for example the number of times a particular problem occurred within the last month, and information about actions taken to resolve the problem.

To view cleared alerts:

1. In the Filter pane, clear the check box next to Alert levels to show to hide alerts at all levels.
2. Select Cleared alert.

   

   Only cleared alerts will be displayed in the main list.

3. Select any other filters you want, for example to view cleared alerts on selected SQL Servers only, or to view specific types of alert.
4. Select a timeframe in the From the last drop-down list. For example, select 1 week to view all cleared alerts from the last seven days:

   

5. Select the Group by server check box in the main toolbar to collapse the list into SQL Server groups, if required.

Select an alert, then review the details for any occurrence of the cleared alert. See Viewing alert details.