To create a rule to manage incident escalation, perform the following steps:

1. From the Setup menu, select Incidents, then select Incident Rules.

2. Determine whether there is an existing rule set that contains a rule that manages the incident. You can add it to any of your existing rule sets on incidents.

   Note: In the case where there is no existing rule set, create a rule set by clicking Create Rule Set... You then create the rule as part of creating the rule set.

3. Select the rule set that will contain the new rule. Click Edit... in the Rules tab of the Edit Rule Set page, and then:

   1. Click Create ...

   2. Select "Newly created incidents or updates to incidents"

   3. Click Continue.

4. For demonstration purposes, the escalation is in regards to a production database.

   As per the organization's policy, the DBA manager is notified for escalation level 1 incidents where a fatal incident is open for 48 hours. Similarly, the DBA director is paged if the incident has been escalated to level 2, the severity is fatal and it has been open for 72 hours. If the fatal incident is still open after 96 hours, then it is escalated to level 3 and the operations VP is notified.

   Provide the rule details using the Create New Rule wizard.

   1. To set up the rule to apply to all newly created incidents or when the incident is updated with fatal severity, select the Specific Incidents option and add the condition Severity is Fatal .

   2. In the Conditions for Actions region located on the Add Actions page, select Only execute the actions if specified conditions match.

      Select Incident has been open for some time and is in a particular state (select time and optional expressions).

      Select the time to be 48 hours and Status is not resolved or closed.

   3. In the Notification region, type the name of the administrator to be notified by email or page. Click Continue to save the current set of conditions and actions.

   4. Repeat steps b and c to page the DBA director (Time in this state is 72 hours, Status is Not Resolved or Closed). If open for more than 96 hours, set escalation level to 3, page Operations VP.

   5. After reviewing added actions sets, click Next. Click Next to go to the Summary screen. Review the summary information and click Continue to save the rule.

5. Review the sequence of existing enterprise rules and position the newly created rule in the sequence.

   In Edit Rule Set page, click on the desired rule from the Rules table and select Reorder Rules from the Actions menu to reorder rules within the rule set, then click Save to save the rule sequence changes.

Example Scenario

To facilitate the incident escalation process, the administration manager creates a rule to escalate unresolved incidents based on their age:

• To level 1 if the incident is open for 30 minutes

• To level 2 if the incident is open for 1 hour

• To level 3 if the incident is open for 90 minutes

As per the organization's policy, the DBA manager is notified for escalation level 1. Similarly, the DBA director and operations VP are paged for incidents escalated to levels "2" and "3" respectively.

Accordingly, the administration manager inputs the above logic and the respective Enterprise Manager administrator IDs in a separate rule to achieve the above notification requirement. Enterprise Manager administrator IDs represents the respective users with required target privileges and notification preferences (that is, email addresses and schedule).