Configuring individual alerts and recommendations

When you view a raised alert, you may decide that the particular alert raised for that job, database, disk drive or SQL Server is not behaving as you want. You can:

• disable it altogether, so it is never raised again
• change the level at which it is raised in future
• change the thresholds that trigger the alert to be raised
• set up an email recipient for the alert

To configure a raised alert, select the alert in the main list and click Edit Alert Configuration.

Changing the configuration of a raised alert

In this example, a Job did not start alert has been raised for the Planned Execution 33 job on the SALESLIVE server at medium level. Suppose you want to raise this type of alert as a high level alert in future.

Clicking Edit Alert Configuration displays the Configuration dialog box at the Configure a Server page for the SALESLIVE server:

In the lower pane you can see the current settings for this alert, and the scope of the changes you are making.

When you edit a raised alert, by default you change the settings at the most specific level, as indicated by the breadcrumbs (the path shown in bold text) above the alert options. These breadcrumbs are in the format:

Template\ SQL Server \ Alert type \ Job

When you edit the alert settings, a message confirming the scope of the changes is displayed in the bottom right of the pane:

This message confirms that you are editing the settings for a single job only on the SQL Server. When you change the alert settings for an individual job, an override icon indicates that the settings for the specific job (changed to high level) are now different from the settings on the SQL Server (medium level):

Note that not all alert types can be expanded to show more detail. For example, Long running query alerts or Blocked SQL process alerts cannot be expanded to list individual alerts or queries.

The level of the existing alert will not be altered; when the alert is next raised, its level will be high.

Configuring all jobs on a SQL Server

If you want to change the settings for all jobs on the SQL Server, click the Job did not start alert type above the list of individual jobs in the upper pane of the Configuration dialog box:

The breadcrumbs in the lower pane now indicate that you are editing the settings for the Job did not start alert type on the SALESLIVE server only, but a specific job is not listed. The changes will be applied to all jobs on this SQL Server.

When you edit the alert settings, a message confirming the scope of the changes is displayed:

When you change the alert settings on a SQL Server, an override icon indicates that the setting for the SQL Server (in this case, high level) is now different from the setting in the template (medium level):

Editing the email recipient

To edit the email recipient setting for an alert, you first need to enter your Mail Server settings. If you have not yet set up your Mail Server in SQL Response, the Send email to box is unavailable. You can apply an email recipient to a single alert, or to all alerts in a template.

Emails are not sent for recommendations.

See Setting up email.

Configuring recommendations

Recommendations are configured in the same way as alerts:

• Each type of recommendation can be configured for a specific database on a SQL Server, or for all databases on the SQL Server, or at the template level
• Most recommendations do not have configurable thresholds
• Recommendations do not have different levels
• Recommendations do not send emails

Configuring several SQL Servers

If you want to edit the settings of an alert or recommendation for several SQL Servers, then you need to edit the template. Editing the template applies the configuration to all SQL Servers that use the template.