Opsgenie support for iOS Critical Alert Notifications?

[Deleted user]

Earlier in 2020 Apple relaxed the requirements for application developers to utilize Critical Alert Notifications in iOS. Since then other incident response platforms have added the ability to leverage Critical Alerts within their Apps. Is this something that Opsgenie does today or is planning to do?

[Deleted user · Accepted solution]

Yes! Was released a couple days ago and called out in the release notes. Awesome news. Thanks Atlassian Team. 

[Nick H]

You're very welcome! And thanks for your patience as well. Here is the documentation if of interest: https://docs.opsgenie.com/docs/ios-push-notifications#critical-alerts

[Harold Brandner]

Can you add volume control to the critical alerts please? It plays at max volume now, which is way too loud and I've had to disable it.

[Ed Jackson]

@Nick H  I'm glad to finally see this! However, it would be a lot more useful if I could restrict it to just P1 alerts. I want alerts for a lot more things during the day than I do at night.

[Daniel Anderton]

+1 for me. It’s a great feature but not all alerts need it. As of that, I’ve disappointedly had to disable it. 

[Douglas Thomas]

+1 from me too - also had to disable critical alerts, the volume the alerts play is stupidly loud.

[K.C. Bell]

+1 for letting us control the volume of critical alerts! But I'm guessing it is probably an iOS setting, not something that OpsGenie has control over

[Steve Loeppky (biglep)]

@Nick H : thanks for the link to the docs.  That said, it doesn't have any mention about "critical alerts" and overriding DND.  Is the URL wrong or did something happen to the page?

Basically, I would have wanted to see something like, "To ensure you receive alerts even when your phone is on DND or Silent Mode, go to My Profile → Sounds → Allow Critical Alerts.

[Daniel Grigg]

Geezuz, volume control please.  Maybe you know, test changes too before releasing them?

[Nick H]

Hi @[deleted] ,

Critical Alert notifications is on Opsgenie's roadmap, and engineering is currently working on this!

We do not have a set timeframe of when this will be released. And unfortunately - there isn't a way to follow the progress since Opsgenie tickets are not public.

But - the ticket for reference is MOB-911. In the meantime, I've added this community post to it so when we do release this feature, we'll reach back out here!

[Deleted user]

Thanks @Nick H for the feedback. Bummer that opsgenie tickets/roadmap isn't public but hopefully it doesn't take too much time to add this as a feature.

Being able to use DND and the silence switch on my device has really been nice with our current incident response platform and will miss that ability when we switch to Opsgenie.

[Marcel de Haas]

I would applaud this functionality since the new sleep functionality and CarPlay Do-Not-Disturb bit me in the behind this week. Can you elaborate on what level this will be implemented? I would really like to see it as a user-configurable option  on the app section in Notification Settings.

[SanderZ]

Hi @Nick H ,

Any update on this new feature? Or maybe an updated ETA, what quarter can we expect Emergency Alerts? 
We are currently on PagerDuty, which does offer Emergency Alerts. Opsgenie not having Emergency Alerts at this time is the primary reason for us to stick with PagerDuty at the time.

[Nick H]

Hi @SanderZ ,

Engineering is still working with Apple to get this implemented and into production.

At this time, I don't have an ETA on when this will be released. Our hope is ASAP. We're just as excited to get this functionality to customers, as they are to have this available.

Unfortunately the process is quite tedious. So again - I do not have an ETA at this time. 

But we'll be sure to reach out immediately if there are any further updates, or when this goes live.

[Michael Østergaard]

I'm also eagerly awaiting this feature, as I'm tired of having to disable silent mode, wind down and do not disturb mode every time I'm on call. So, at first I thought "Well, why on earth do they need to work with Apple on this, surely it's just an SDK switch they can flip and Bob's your uncle."

Well, I found the documentation, and... Nope. Apparently you need to get an entitlement from Apple before you can use it.

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/usernotifications/unnotificationsettings/2963116-criticalalertsetting

Quote: "Critical alerts require a special entitlement issued by Apple."

What on earth, Apple...

[Deleted user]

While I don’t agree with Apple’s direction and requiring an entitlement for access to this API the entitlement isn’t exactly difficult to get and plenty of other incident response apps and uptime monitoring apps have it.

[Andy Baumgartner]

Hi, has there been any progress on limiting critical alerts to certain priorities?  This is a big disadvantage and may cause us to switch away.

[Nick H]

Hi Everyone,

As a few of you have found out, we recently release critical alerts for iOS. Here is our doc: 

https://docs.opsgenie.com/docs/ios-push-notifications#critical-alerts

Thanks for your patience! Let us know if you have any additional questions or issues.

[Jon Dobson]

This is great, but the volume level when the opsgenie app is backgrounded is a bit extreme. There doesn't appear to be a way for me to override the volume level for critical alerts at the os level. Is there some way to control this in the app or settings somewhere?

[Marcel de Haas]

This should be a parameter to post with the actual push message. I've tested the volume parameter for critical alerts with my Home Assistant instance but the volume does not appear to vary when sending different parameters. I cannot verify if this is an Apple-issue or an app-issue.

If this setting would be exposed I feel it should be within the app settings and the web settings. Preferably specifying time windows (for example being able to tune down the volume after 22:00 so my wife (and my 1-year old) will be les unhappy when I'm on-call and the phone is next to the bed :-D )

Kind Regards,
Marcel

[Harold Brandner]

Is there a way to control the volume on the critical alerts? Its playing at max volume and is obnoxiously loud, so I've had to disable it because it wakes up the entire house.

I know on the Android version of the OpsGenie app, you can toggle to play alerts at max volume all the time or not. It'd be nice to have this feature in IOS as well.

[Deleted user]

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/usernotifications/unauthorizationoptions/2963120-criticalalert

Seems customizable but also read online that its not...

[Marcel de Haas]

I have tested this (read above) with another app but there seems to be no difference in volume whatever parameter I pass.

[Jon Dobson]

FWIW apparently PushOver has a user-controllable critical alert volume so it does appear to be possible. https://blog.pushover.net/posts/2020/2/ios-critical-alerts

[Marcel de Haas]

Jon,

Can you verify this works? Because I *should* be able to control the volume of my alerts from Home Assistant but the parameter does not seem to affect the actual volume. Mind you the sounds from Opsgenie are way louder compared to the sounds from Home Assistant. So as a temporary solution the sound integrated in OG could be edited... ;-)

[Jon Dobson]

Marcel - I tested the volume control feature in PushOver and it works as advertised. 

it would be great to see this ability to control critical alert volume implemented in OG. Not really useful to me without that.

[David Gräßer]

Should we create a new question for that or how can we ensure that this feature request (volume control for critical alerts) will be considered?

[Daniel Myers]

As others have said, tried this and removed as soon as I heard it. 
this feature would be great if you could manage volume. 
Eg it’s next to my bed at night when I need to wake up, low volume only is required.   Brilliant if I left dnd or headphones in by accident. 

[Dries Grobler Jr]

Hi All, 

I am on iOS 14.4 and opening up Opsgenie today I got this request to allow Critical Alerts. 

It would be interesting to know if anyone else has seen this pop-up. 

And putting my phone on Do Not Disturb does not block the alert. 

Great news! 🥳

[Cuong Trinh]

Hi All,

Please advise why I always receive CRITICAL notified on my IOS App regardless what priority of alert is created. 

Thanks

[Nick H]

Hi Everyone,

We have a public feature request to better define what is a Critical Alert for iOS. You can follow, watch and vote for that here: https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/OPSGENIE-134