Actions and notifications associated with escalation points

When records meet the conditions in an escalation, an action or notification is triggered. An action is an event, such as changing status, and a notification is an e-mail message. Escalation points are the component of an escalation that represent a monitored condition or threshold, such as measuring elapsed time.

To activate an escalation, you must associate at least one action or notification.

Actions

An action is an event that is triggered when records meet the conditions that are defined in an escalation point. When you associate multiple actions, you can assign a preexisting action a sequence number. Default values for the description and the action type are provided based on the record and the action that you chose. You can also use the Actions application to create an action to use with an escalation point.

Action types define categories of actions. You can use a predefined action type, such as set owner, status change, and create ticket, or you can create an action type.

When you associate actions in the Escalations application, action groups can be created automatically or you can add action groups in the Actions application. Action groups are predefined sets of actions that are grouped in a specific sequence. Escalations are associated with actions through the action group. If you associate a predefined action, an action group is created for that action, and the predefined action becomes a member of that action group. Only the action group with the escalation point is associated, not the action itself.

Notifications

A notification is an e-mail message that you want to send when records that meet the condition defined in the escalation are found. You can create two types of notifications: free-form notifications or template-based notifications. Free-form notifications require that you define only a role or recipient, subject, and message. You can also use communication templates to add or create a predefined, template-based notification for an escalation point.

For example, if you do not respond to an assignment within two hours, the assignment is escalated to your supervisor and an e-mail notification is sent to your supervisor.



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