Alert Management - improving monitoring of your landscape

[Former Member]

The basic functionality of Alert Management is to provide framework for informing administrators and/or users about business-critical problems. Alerts can be triggered from user applications using simple ABAP code, from CCMS if proper AutoReaction method is selected and from external applications (SAP and nonSAP). For example - XI can trigger alerts if an error occurs during message processing.

Important prerequisite for effective use of alerts is the configuration of SAPconnect. User communication data like phone number and email address has to be customized in transaction SU01. Besides, you must have implemented SAP note 750287, check that ICF is working in transaction SICF and check that ICF services in /sap/bc/bsp/sap are activated.

To make use of Alert Management you have to define alert categories of your system. You can think of alert categories as kinds of errors that may occur in your landscape and require some action from administrator or user.

Alert Category configuration defines (selected):

• Category name
• 
  
• Message context
• 
  
• Short alert message (for SMS/Pager)
• 
  
• Long alert message (for e-mail)
• 
  
• List of users to receive the alerts of this category
• 
  
• List of roles, which users will receive the alerts of this category
• 
  
• List of roles, which users can sing up to receive the alerts of this category
• 
  

You define alert categories using transaction ALRTCATDEF.

Choose "Display/Change", then "New" and type in name of the category and a little description.

The next thing to do is customize the message that the alert will contain. You do that by selecting the alert category and filling the fields on tab "Long and Short Text". You have to click save after each change of text on this tab. If you do not, the entry will be lost.

The last thing to be done is to configure the recipients. This is done by clicking one of the buttons on the top, called "Fixed Recipients" , "Recipients Via User Roles" and "Subscription Authorization". The assignment is simple. You double-click the alert category name, press one of the buttons and simply add entries to the list. If you are begging your adventure with alerts it is best to add your user to the "Fixed Recipients" list so you could quickly see that alerts are really working!
. "container macros definitions
CONSTANTS:
  C_CATEGORY TYPE SALRTDCAT VALUE 'YOUR_ALERT_CATEGORY'.
CALL FUNCTION 'SALRT_CREATE_API'
  EXPORTING
    IP_CATEGORY = C_CATEGORY
  EXCEPTIONS
    OTHERS = 1.
IF SY-SUBRC NE 0.

• MESSAGE E000(Z_BCC_ALERTS_DEMO).

ENDIF.
COMMIT WORK.

After execution (assuming you configured yourself as recipient) you can use transaction ALRTINBOX to call up your private alert inbox. Choose the language (as of SP9 only EN and DE are available) and Internet browser will come up and show you a BSP page listing alerts you have received. Upon selection of a particular alert more detailed information will be available below the list. Selected alert can be "Confirmed" which means that you reacted to the critical situation, or "Forwarded" like an e-mail to other user. If the SAPconnect and your user profile in SU01 are properly configured you will also automatticly receive an email and/or SMS with the alert.

A more "administrative" look on recent alerts is available trough transaction ALRTDISP

Have fun with alerts - as for now i showed how to use simple alerts to report critical situations occurring in you ABAP application. I plan a weblog about using Alert Management with CCMS, so look often on SDN :smile: