Configure notification policies

This documentation topic is designed for Grafana workspaces that support Grafana version 10.x.

For Grafana workspaces that support Grafana version 9.x, see Working in Grafana version 9.

For Grafana workspaces that support Grafana version 8.x, see Working in Grafana version 8.

Notification policies determine how alerts are routed to contact points.

Policies have a tree structure, where each policy can have one or more nested policies. Each policy, except for the default policy, can also match specific alert labels.

Each alert is evaluated by the default policy and subsequently by each nested policy.

If you enable the Continue matching subsequent sibling nodes option for a nested policy, then evaluation continues even after one or more matches. A parent policy’s configuration settings and contact point information govern the behavior of an alert that does not match any of the child policies. A default policy governs any alert that does not match a nested policy.

For more information on notification policies, see Notifications.

The following procedures show you how to create and manage notification policies.

To edit the default notification policy

1. In the left-side menu, choose Alerts management portal IRM and then Alerting.

2. Choose Notification policies.

3. From the Choose Alertmanager dropdown, select the Alertmanager you want to edit.

4. In the Default policy section, choose ..., Edit.

5. In Default contact point, update the contact point where notifications should be sent for rules when alert rules do not match any specific policy.

6. In Group by, choose the labels to group alerts by. If multiple alerts are matched for this policy, then they are grouped by these labels. A notification is sent per group. If the field is empty (the default), then all notifications are sent in a single group. Use a special label, ... to group alerts by all labels (which effectively disables grouping).

7. In Timing options, select from the following options.

   • Group wait – Time to wait to buffer alerts of the same group before sending an initial notification. The default is 30 seconds.

   • Group interval – Minimum time interval between two notifications for a group. The default is 5 minutes.

   • Repeat interval – Minimum time interval before resending a notification if no new alerts were added to the group. The default is 4 hours.

8. Choose Save to save your changes.

To create a new notification policy, you need to follow its tree structure. New policies created on the trunk of the tree (the default policy), are the tree branches. Each branch can have their own nested policies. This is why you will always be adding a new nested policy, either under the default policy, or under an already nested policy.

To add a new nested policy

1. In the left-side menu, choose Alerts management portal IRM and then Alerting.

2. Choose Notification policies.

3. From the Choose Alertmanager dropdown, select the Alertmanager you want to edit.

4. To add a top level specific policy, go to the Specific routing section (eitehr to the default policy, or to antoher existing policy in which you would like to add a new nested policy) and choose + New nested policy.

5. In the matching labels section, add one or more rules for matching alert labels.

6. In the Contact point dropdown, select the contact point to send notifications to if an alert matches only this specific policy and not any of the nested policies.

7. Optionally, enable Continue matching subsequent sibling nodes to continue matching sibling policies even after the alert matched the current policy. When this option is enabled, you can get more than one notification for one alert.

8. Optionally, enable Override grouping to specify the same grouping as the default policy. If the option is not enabled, the default policy grouping is used.

9. Optionally, enable Override general timings to override the timing options configured in the group notification policy.

10. Choose Save policy to save your changes.

To edit a nested policy

1. In the left-side menu, choose Alerts management portal IRM and then Alerting.

2. Choose Notification policies.

3. Select the policy that you want to edit, then choose ..., Edit.

4. Make any changes (as when adding a nested policy).

5. Save your changes.

Searching for policies

You can search within the tree of policies by Label matchers or contact points.

• To search by contact point, enter a partial or full name of a contact point in the Search by contact point field. The policies that use that contact point will be highlighted in the user interface.

• To search by label, enter a valid label matcher in the Search by matchers input field. Multiple matchers can be entered, separated by a comma. For example, a valid matcher input could be severity=high, region=~EMEA|NA.

  Note

  When searching by label, all matched policies will be exact matches. Partial matches and regex-style matches are not supported.