Creating escalations

An escalation uses a schedule to determine when it is executed—using a set time or a time interval. For example, an escalation might run when a request more than eight hours old has not been closed by support personnel.

When you are working with an escalation, the settings in the Execution Options panel change depending on whether you select Time or Interval in the Run By field.

  • Time—Time escalations run at the specified times, for example, every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 10:00 a.m., 2:00 p.m., and 4:00 p.m. The time specification permits recurring execution on multiple days of the month and days of the week at a fixed number of minutes after multiple hours in the day.
  • Interval—Interval escalations run after the defined time interval has passed, for example, every 30 minutes. You can select any combination of days, hours, and minutes.

Related topics

Defining-and-managing-applications

Creating-filters

Because an escalation can apply to many requests, it can require significant computer resources to perform its Run If test and its actions. Therefore, consider the performance impact when constructing the Run If test and scheduling escalations. To distribute the load, vary escalation times or use escalation pools.

There might be irregularities the first-time escalations execute after Daylight Saving Time (DST) transitions. For example, an escalation is scheduled to run at 12:00 noon every Monday. On the first Monday after clocks are set ahead, the escalation runs at 1:00 p.m. instead of at noon. On the first Monday after the clocks are set back, it runs at 11:00 a.m. and again at noon.

Important

Escalation pools 2 and 10 are reserved. Do not use these escalation pools.


To define an escalation that runs by time

  1. Open an existing escalation or create a new one.
  2. Make sure there is an associated form selected, or select one in the Associated Forms panel if necessary. See Associating-workflow-objects-with-forms.
  3. Expand the Execution Options panel.
  4. Set the State field to Enabled or Disabled.
    When the state is Enabled, the active link becomes active as soon as it is saved. You might want to set the state to Disabled during development or when troubleshooting.
  5. To assign an escalation to an escalation pool, enter the pool number in the Pool Number field.
    The Pool Number should be between 1 and the number of threads configured for the escalation queue. If the Pool Number is blank or outside the valid range, the escalation is assigned to pool number 1 and is run by the first escalation thread.
    See Workflow-objects for information about escalation pools.
  6. In the Run By field, select Time.
  7. Define the execution run times by selecting the appropriate options from the Days of Month, Days of Week, and Hours of Day menus.
    For example, to run an escalation every Friday at 10:00 p.m., click Friday in the Days of Week menu, and 10PM in the Hours of Day menu.
    • You must select at least one day of the month or one weekday from Days of Month or Days of Week, and at least one time from Hours of Day.
    • In the Days of Month menu:
    • Selecting All selects every day of the month.
    • Selecting None clears every day of the month.
    • Selecting 31 causes the escalation to run on the last day of the month for all months.
    • To run the escalation at a certain number of minutes after the hour, select the hour and then type the number of minutes in the "Minutes after Hour" field. For example, for 5:15PM, select 5:00PM, and type "15" in the "Minutes after Hour" field.

    • You can combine selections from the Days of Month and Days of Week menus. For example, if you select 15 and 31 from the Days of Month menu and Fridays from the Days of Week list with 10AM from the Hours of Day menu, the server executes the escalation on the 15th and 31st and all Fridays during the month. If a Friday occurs on a 15th or 31st, the server executes the escalation only once.

      Tip

      Clicking the time criteria menus has a toggle action. For example, click Friday to add Friday to the time criteria; click Friday again to remove it.

  8. Expand a Run If Qualification panel, and enter a qualification, if needed.
    For more information, see Using-buttons-and-menu-bar-items-to-execute-active-links.
  9. Enter If and Else actions, as needed.
    For more information, see Using-buttons-and-menu-bar-items-to-execute-active-links.
  10. Save the escalation.

To define an escalation that runs by interval

  1. Repeat steps 1 through 5 of the procedure "To define an escalation that runs by time" on To define an escalation that runs by time.
  2. In the Run By field, select Interval.
  3. Use the Days, Hours, and Minutes selection fields to set the duration of the interval.
    The interval begins when you create, modify, or enable the escalation, when the server is restarted, or when the escalation terminates. For example, if you enable an escalation with a 30 minute interval, it executes 30 minutes after you enable it. If the escalation takes five minutes to complete, it executes again 65 minutes after you enabled it (which is 30 minutes after it terminated).
  4. Expand a Run If Qualification panel, and enter a qualification, if needed.
    For more information, see Using-buttons-and-menu-bar-items-to-execute-active-links.
  5. Enter If and Else actions, as needed.
    For more information, see Using-buttons-and-menu-bar-items-to-execute-active-links.
  6. Complete the following properties:
    1. Grant the necessary Permissions for the escalation.
    2. For the Change history property, enter a description of your changes.
      This object property automatically records the owner, the user who last modified the escalation, and the date of the modification.
    3. For the Help text property, enter help text to describe what the escalation does or how it is used.
  7. Save the escalation.

 

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