Opsgenie Flow: Understanding Alert Creation and Notification Processes

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In Opsgenie, there's a common misconception that the creation of alerts and the subsequent notifications are one seamless process. In reality, they are distinct steps within the Opsgenie flow.

Alert creation and notification deployment are intricately linked yet function independently within Opsgenie. Here's a breakdown of how these processes unfold:

1. Alert Creation:

   • Alerts are generated primarily through integrations via inbound payloads.
   • These integrations often define who the initial responders to the alert will be.
   • An alert with no responders will never send out notifications. 
   • If the integration is assigned to a team, the ability to add other teams to the 'responders' fields will disappear.
   • If the integration is not assigned to a team, it is considered a 'global' integration and multiple responders can be added via the 'responders' field. 
   • Responders can be teams, individual users, schedules, or escalations.
   • The responders field can be assigned to a single team or multiple teams, schedules, escalations and users. 

2. Global and team-based policies

   • Once an alert is created, it undergoes processing against global policies.
   • If a single team is assigned, it becomes the 'owner team,' and its specific policies come into play after global polices are processed. 
   • Global and team-based policies, among other things, can add or remove responders via the 'responders' field
3. Routing 
   • The alert then begins routing to designated teams, schedules, escalations, and users.
   • Routing rules of the assigned team dictate the path of the alert, often leading to escalations or schedules and finally to an on-call user.
   • Alerts can also be routed directly to users, escalations and schedules (without being routed to a team, first) if they are named on the 'responders' field. 
   • Only when the alert reaches the individual user does their notification rule set come into effect.

4. User Notification Rules:

   • Notification rules at the individual user level determine the type of notification they receive.
   • Notification types include SMS, push notifications, and voice alerts.
   • Users can configure their notification preferences according to their needs.

5. Standardization and Enterprise Features:

   • Opsgenie offers options for standardizing user notifications through central notification templates.
   • These templates streamline notification configurations, ensuring consistency across user roles. 
   • Central notification templates are available on the Enterprise plan, providing advanced customization and control over notification processes.

Understanding the distinction between alert creation and notification deployment is crucial for understanding how and why opsgenie may send notifications in some cases and not in others. 

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