Configuring Alerts and Reports

Participant’s Guide

Configuring Alerts and Reports

Participant’s Guide

© 2019 SolarWinds Worldwide, LLC. All rights reserved.

Configuring Alerts and Reports
Participant’s Guide

Table of Contents
How Alerts Work in SolarWinds 3
Alert Pre-Configuration Tasks 3
Out-of-the-Box Alerts 4
Managing Alerts 4
Enhanced Node Status 5
SolarWinds Service Desk Integration 6
Out-of-the-Box Reports 7
Creating and Scheduling Reports 7
Useful Links 9

© 2019 SolarWinds Worldwide, LLC. All rights reserved.

Configuring Alerts and Reports
Participant’s Guide

How Alerts Work in SolarWinds

An alert is notification of a problem with a monitored element. The Orion® Platform comes with hundreds of
predefined alerts for common problems such as a node or application going down, high interface utilization, packet
loss, and many other problems.

For more information, visit:

https://documentation.solarwinds.com/en/success_center/NPM/Content/Onboarding/NPM_OB_Alerts_Reports.ht
m

Alert Pre-Configuration Tasks

Some alerts require extra configuration, separate software installations, or information you may need to request
from other departments.

Alert actions requiring setup before creating or configuring alerts include:

• Send an email or page

https://documentation.solarwinds.com/en/success_center/orionplatform/Content/Core-Sending-an-Email-
Page-sw1079.htm

• Dial a paging or SMS service

https://documentation.solarwinds.com/en/success_center/orionplatform/Content/Core-Dialing-Paging-or-
SMS-Service-sw1046.htm

• Play a sound when an alert is triggered

https://documentation.solarwinds.com/en/success_center/orionplatform/Content/Core-Playing-a-Sound-
sw1070.htm

• Send an SNMP trap

https://documentation.solarwinds.com/en/success_center/orionplatform/Content/Core-Sending-an-
SNMP-Trap-sw1082.htm

© 2019 SolarWinds Worldwide, LLC. All rights reserved.

Configuring Alerts and Reports
Participant’s Guide

• Use the speech synthesizer to read alerts

https://documentation.solarwinds.com/en/success_center/orionplatform/Content/Core-Using-Text-to-
Speech-Output-sw1091.htm

Out-of-the-Box Alerts
SolarWinds recommends using the included alerts as templates for your new alerts.

For more information, visit:

https://documentation.solarwinds.com/en/success_center/NPM/Content/Onboarding/Basic_Alerts_Reports/NPM_
OB_Preconfigured_Alerts.htm

Managing Alerts
Use the Alert Manager to create, edit, delete, or disable alerts.

For more details on how to manage alerts in Network Performance Monitor (NPM), visit:
https://documentation.solarwinds.com/en/success_center/orionplatform/Content/Core-Creating-and-Managing-
Alerts-sw1277.htm

© 2019 SolarWinds Worldwide, LLC. All rights reserved.

Configuring Alerts and Reports
Participant’s Guide

Enhanced Node Status

With the release of Orion Platform 2019.2 comes the introduction of Enhanced Node Status. With this new
Enhanced Node Status, thresholds defined either globally or on an individual node itself can now affect the overall
status of the node. For example, if the memory utilization on a node is at 99% and your “Critical” threshold is
“Greater than 90%,” the node status will now reflect the appropriate “Critical” status. This should allow you to spot
issues quickly without having to hunt for them in mouse hovers or drilling into Node Details views.

For more information, visit https://THWACK.solarwinds.com/docs/DOC-204632.

© 2019 SolarWinds Worldwide, LLC. All rights reserved.

Configuring Alerts and Reports
Participant’s Guide

SolarWinds Service Desk Integration

Integrating Orion alerts with SolarWinds® Service Desk (SWSD) is another tool in the IT pro’s arsenal. Powerful
features such as Advanced Ticket Routing and Automated Workflows improve your operational efficiency by
ensuring the critical events within your monitored infrastructure are automatically routed to the correct team.
Fast, reliable two-way communication between the Orion Platform and SolarWinds Service Desk (SWSD) ensures
changes such as alert acknowledgments or changes in incident state are always in sync.

For more information, visit https://THWACK.solarwinds.com/thread/128443.

© 2019 SolarWinds Worldwide, LLC. All rights reserved.

Configuring Alerts and Reports
Participant’s Guide

Out-of-the-Box Reports
Reports provide a bridge between detailed views (which provide point-in-time information) and alerts (which tell
you there’s a problem). Reports can contain detailed, current state information, or historical data.

You can find more details at:

https://support.solarwinds.com/Success_Center/Network_Performance_Monitor_(NPM)/Network_Performance_M
onitor_Getting_Started_Guide/050_Alerts_and_reports/040_Run_a_preconfigured_report

Creating and Scheduling Reports

Schedules enable you to set up report actions to occur at specific times. These actions let you generate reports and
print them, save them to disk, or email them to selected recipients. You can create schedules for single or multiple
reports or assign reports to existing schedules. You can add URLs to the schedules to include screen captures of
specific websites at the time the reports were generated.

For more details, you may visit these links:

• Schedule a report when creating or editing it

https://documentation.solarwinds.com/en/success_center/orionplatform/Content/Core-Creating-A-New-
Report-Schedule-While-Creating-or-Editing-a-Report-sw2063.htm

• Create, assign, and edit report schedules

https://documentation.solarwinds.com/en/success_center/orionplatform/Content/Core-Creating-
Assigning-and-Editing-New-Report-Schedules-in-Report-Manager.htm

• Schedule reports from the Schedule Manager

https://documentation.solarwinds.com/en/success_center/orionplatform/Content/Core-Creating-
Assigning-and-Editing-New-Report-Schedules-in-Report-Manager.htm

© 2019 SolarWinds Worldwide, LLC. All rights reserved.

Configuring Alerts and Reports
Participant’s Guide

• Manage reports in the Orion Web Console

https://support.solarwinds.com/Success_Center/Orion_Platform/Orion_Documentation/Orion_Platform_A
dministrator_Guide/Manage_reports_in_the_Orion_Web_Console/The_Report_Scheduler

• Modify an existing web-based report

https://documentation.solarwinds.com/en/success_center/orionplatform/Content/Core-Modifying-an-
Existing-Web-Based-Report-sw1733.htm

• Create a web-based report

https://support.solarwinds.com/Success_Center/Orion_Platform/Orion_Documentation/Orion_Platform_A
dministrator_Guide/Manage_reports_in_the_Orion_Web_Console/Create_a_new_web-based_report

• Add content to a web-based report

https://support.solarwinds.com/Success_Center/Orion_Platform/Orion_Documentation/Orion_Platform_A
dministrator_Guide/Manage_reports_in_the_Orion_Web_Console/Add_content_to_a_web-based_report

• Add a custom chart or table to a web-based report

https://support.solarwinds.com/Success_Center/Orion_Platform/Orion_Documentation/Orion_Platform_A
dministrator_Guide/Manage_reports_in_the_Orion_Web_Console/Add_a_custom_chart_or_table_to_a_
web-based_report

• Restrict who can access reports

https://support.solarwinds.com/Success_Center/Orion_Platform/Orion_Documentation/Orion_Platform_A
dministrator_Guide/Manage_reports_in_the_Orion_Web_Console/Restrict_who_can_access_reports

• Export and import reports

https://support.solarwinds.com/Success_Center/Orion_Platform/Orion_Documentation/Orion_Platform_A
dministrator_Guide/Manage_reports_in_the_Orion_Web_Console/Export_reports

• Generate reports on a schedule

https://support.solarwinds.com/Success_Center/Orion_Platform/Orion_Documentation/Orion_Platform_A
dministrator_Guide/Manage_reports_in_the_Orion_Web_Console/Generate_reports_on_a_schedule

© 2019 SolarWinds Worldwide, LLC. All rights reserved.

Configuring Alerts and Reports
Participant’s Guide

Useful Links
NPM Administrator Guide – Everything you need to know to administer NPM in your environment.
https://support.solarwinds.com/Success_Center/Network_Performance_Monitor_(NPM)/NPM_Administrator_Guid
e

THWACK® – Join our online community, where experts and fellow admins alike can answer your questions about
SolarWinds products.
https://THWACK.solarwinds.com/welcome

Success Center – Our knowledge base. Content is created and updated by SolarWinds geeks. You also gain access to
our virtual classrooms here and on-demand training content.
https://support.solarwinds.com/Success_Center

Customer Portal – Create your own account with your company’s SWID. Download SolarWinds products and
manage your licenses here.
https://customerportal.solarwinds.com/

© 2019 SolarWinds Worldwide, LLC. All rights reserved.