This blog will look towards providing the reader an opportunity to explore a view point on Alert management in SAP PI.
NOTE: The view point is personal and hence if the reader has a better suggestion, he/she is welcome to add their recommendations as comments to the blog for the benefit of other readers
The major questions involved are below;
1. What is the ideal way to manage alerts in SAP PI? How many alert category should be created?
2. How many rules per category?
3. What is the best way to manage the recipients?
4. Miscellaneous references around Alerts
What is the ideal way to manage alerts in SAP PI? How many alert categories should be created?
One of the best ways I believe in managing alerts is to categorize the alerts based on the systems interacting in a particular scenario.The same thought can be extended to the systems interacting in a business process (Order 2 Cash, Emergency WO creation etc).
The advantage we can leverage with this concept is that in terms of Application support perspective. Usually in case of app. support, the teams would be allocated specific systems or process areas. Thus instead of generic alerts, by categorizing the alerts per system, you can easily forward the alert to specific people looking into the support of a system or process.
Example;
Say there are 3 systems SystemA, SystemB and SAP ECC in an interface flow; then Alerts will be configured for SystemA and SystemB assuming that ECC can be either the sender or receiver system at any point in the message flow.
So the categories will be based on the systems involved in the landscape. Also a category for capturing alerts from BPM can be defined.
How many rules per category?
Now that the categories have been defined, creation of rules would be the next step.With per System categories, rules can be framed around the direction of the message flow (outbound and inbound. So per category, you can have rules that will capture any alerts when the message flow is outbound from the system and similarly inbound to the system.
Note: Alerts in these cases can be with the option of No Restriction in terms of the AE, IE and BPE
What is the best way to manage the recipients?
There are various ways in which you can assign a user to be a recipient of alerts but one of the best ways would be to use subscriptions (ALRTCATDEF -> Subscription Authorization). Simple Roles like SAP_XI_DISPLAY_USER_ABAP or SAP_XI_DISPLAY_USER_J2EE can be used so that any user created in PI (with that minimal role) can subscribe (or unsubscribe) to any alerts of their interest on their own.
Note: In case of email alerts to external parties or groups, a generic user ids can be created with the email id as a distribution list.
Miscellaneous references around Alerts
a. You can always move your alert configuration and rules to a different environment using normal ABAP transports. In case of alert rules, there are standard reports available which can help in the transport - PI/XI: Transporting alerts - quick tip
b. Alert via Email? - Configuration for forwarding Alerts as Emails
c. Alerts for Queues - SAP XI/PI: Alerts for Queue Errors
d. Customizable Alerts? - You can use the function module 'SALERT_CREATE' to generate your own custom alerts.
