Automated Alert History and Troubleshooting Automated Alerts

Overview

For a few automated alert types, when opening the alert from SS&E Administration -> Alerts -> Automated Alerts Administration, the alert will include a "History" tab that displays the alert processing logic and how the system determined which students received an alert.

• The Alert History tab displays after the alert runs for the first time.

• For more information about automated alerting, click here.

Person Alerts Administration can be used to see if/when ALL automated alert types ran (as long as the alert was not deleted from the Person Alerts page).

Person Alerts Administration

The Person Alerts page listed under Alerts Administration displays all alerts of all alert types triggered by SS&E unless the alert was deleted by a user with an Administrator role.

• To delete an alert, select an alert(s) and then click on "Delete" from the secondary nav bar. For more information, click here.

Person Alerts can be filtered and searched on/selected by the following criteria:

• The person that created the alert (Created)
• The person targeted by the alert (Person)
• The name* of the alert (Alert)
• The date range within the alert was created
• The date range within the alert was closed
• Open alerts
• Closed alerts
• Both Open and Closed alerts

*Staff Initiated Alerts will all display under the "Staff Initiated Alert" alert name

Person Alert results include the following information for each record that matches the filter criteria:

• The alert record Id (Id)
• The person who created the alert (Created By)
• The person targeted by the alert (Person)
• The name of the alert (Alert)
• The date the alert was created (Created)
• The date the alert was closed (Closed)

The Created By and Person column results link to the person's People Administration Details record.

Automated Alert HIstory

Automated Alert History can be used to help determine why select recipients did not receive a past automated alert for the following alert types:

• Current Grade
• LMS Last Login
• Online First Assignment Submission

To help set up and/or troubleshoot any of the above alert types, the alert history tab includes:

• The alert processing steps
• The criteria used on each alert step used to determine which students receive an alert and where/which students are filtered out from receiving an alert.
  • • Select "View" from the automated alert Details column to view the exact criteria used to determine which students are included or excluded from receiving an alert.
    • If you click on "Items Returned" that will show you which items are included/have passed the criteria conditions on each step.
    • If you search for a student ID, you will be able to find the exact step that filtered out a specific student which explains why a student did not receive an alert; or understand why a student was found eligible to receive an alert and was not filtered out on any of the alert steps.
• At the end, on the very last alert process step, Items Returned will always represent which students received an alert.

To view information about different alert types, click here.

How to View Alert History

On the Alert History tab, there are different sections depending on the alert type.

• Each Alert Type can be triggered once a day.
• An alert history entry is added every time the alert job runs.
• The alert job only runs if at the time the alert type scheduled job time is reached, the system finds a matching alert type that is enabled, eg. set to Active "Yes".
• Any alert that is enabled in Automated Alerts Administration will run according to it's alert type scheduled runtime displayed on the Alert History tab.
  • • Every day the system will check for enabled alerts. When an enabled alert is found, the system will run the alert job that is associated with the enabled alert type and display the results on the Alert History tab.
    • If alerts are disabled, the alert will not run and nothing will be entered on the Alert History tab.

Current Grade Alert History Example

The example below demonstrates how to check "Current Grade" alert history:

1. From Automated Alerts Administration found here, select the "History" tab to see all past runs of the alert (starting after the feature release date).

2. Click on an "Id" to drill down to the details of the selected alert record.

On each alert stage/step, select "View" to see what criteria was used on each step.

• The "Items Returned" column displays a count of all the students/enrollment/record results as they are found and/or filtered out by the alert steps.
• The "Title" column contains the alert step description.
• The "Details" column allows users to view a detailed description of the alert step. *This is a very helpful troubleshooting tool as all criteria must be considered in order for the alert to include an expected student/enrollment/record result.
• Clicking on the "Id" column will display the actual records represented by the "Items Returned" count.

3. On the Current Grade alert, the following screenshot displays when clicking on Details View text from the "Get Current Course Sections" step:

4. For example, by selecting the "Get Current Course Sections" step "Id" the system will display the matching 27 records "items returned" on step 163: 

5. By viewing each of the step details and drilling down on each step by clicking on the Id, the system will explain exactly when and why the alert included/excluded certain students listed in the final alert step.