--- sourceDocument: Australia IT Operations Management sourceDocumentLink: https://www.servicenow.com/docs/r/australia/it-operations-management Release : - australia ft:locale : - en-US ft:publication_title : - Australia IT Operations Management ft:clusterId : - itom bundleId : - itom workflow : - Technology --- # Alert overview # An overview of alerts for Event Management operators {#ariaid-title1} Release version: Australia Updated March 12, 2026 ![](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/portal-asset/ico-clock) 3 minutes to read Summarize ![AI sparkle icon](https://servicenow.com/docs/portal-asset/ai-sparkle-icon) Summarized using AI This content was generated using new OpenAI-powered functionality. Results are provided on an as is basis and are not guaranteed to be accurate or complete. ## Summary of An overview of alerts for Event Management operators This guide introduces ServiceNow Event Management operators to how alerts are generated from events received by the Event Management application. It explains the operator's role in viewing and managing alerts, which indicate issues requiring action within the IT environment. Alerts originate from external event monitoring tools like Microsoft SCOM, Nagios, or SolarWinds, which send events to ServiceNow for processing based on configured settings. Show full answer Show less ## Alert Characteristics Alerts have two key attributes: * **Priority:** A computed score reflecting the impact on application services, configurable by the Event Management administrator. * **Severity:** Indicates the seriousness of the issue, typically passed from the event monitoring tool. Default severity types include: | Severity | Description | |-|-| | Critical | Resource is non-functional or critical problems are imminent. | | Major | Major functionality is impaired or performance degraded. | | Minor | Partial, non-critical functionality loss or degradation. | | Warning | Resource still functional but attention needed. | | OK | No severity; alert created but resource functional. | | Clear | Alert no longer requires action. | ## Alert Correlation and Grouping Related alerts, such as multiple alerts triggered by a single underlying issue (e.g., a router outage affecting connected servers), are automatically or manually correlated to simplify management. Correlated alerts form a two-level hierarchy: * **Primary alert:** The root alert representing the main issue. * **Secondary alerts:** Related alerts grouped under the primary alert. Primary alerts are highlighted to help operators focus on the main problem. Operators should verify and adjust alert correlations as needed to ensure accuracy. ## Alert Flapping Alerts may enter a flapping state, characterized by rapid open-close cycles due to fluctuating underlying conditions or configuration issues. Examples include CPU usage spikes or intermittent network outages caused by a loose cable. Flapping alerts indicate uncertainty about the issue's nature and may require operators to take actions such as creating incidents, restarting servers, or adjusting configurations. ## Next Steps Operators are encouraged to continue learning about Event Management by progressing to the next lesson on Application services for Event Management operators, which builds on understanding alert context and incident resolution. Understand how alerts are generated from events, what to look for in an alert, and how alerts can be grouped together. This is the first lesson in the Event Management tutorial. |-|-|-| | Lesson 1 | ![Overview icon]() | An overview of events and alerts | | Lesson 2 | ![Overview of BS icon]() | [An overview of application services](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/sQl9gkhMf3VmiRLfdFcx9A "As an Event Management operator, you need to understand what application services are.") | | Lesson 3 | ![Overview operator icon]() | [Event Management operator workspaces](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/whgdKTiqN_C8~0TlRW6Wjw "As an Event Management operator, your primary work environment is the Service Operations Workspace dashboard.") | | Lesson 4 | ![Overview of what operators do icon]() | [What operators do](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/KyCbidbjqvC8fHwP60vGqw "As an Event Management operator, your typical workflow involves three phases: analyzing an alert and its effect on application services, taking some type of action, and making sure the alert is finally closed.") | [ ] {#operator-events-alerts__table_or3_vg3_3db} Your organization already has an event monitoring tool in place, such as Microsoft System Center Operations Manager (SCOM), Nagios, SolarWinds, and so on. When an issue occurs on your network, such as a computer going down or a database failure, the event monitoring tools send events to your ServiceNow instance. The Event Management application processes the events according to the settings that your administrator configured, and then generates alerts. An alert is an indicator that the issue requires some type of action. Figure 1. Alert generation As an Event Management operator, your role is to view alerts. Depending on how Event Management is implemented in your organization, take an action to help resolve the underlying issue or notify someone who can. You will see the phases of a typical alert management process later in this tutorial. ## Alert priority and severity {#operator-events-alerts__section_jzt_gf1_gdb} The two most common characteristics of an alert are the priority and the severity. * The priority of an alert is a score that helps you determine how important the impact is to application services. Multiple factors determine the alert priority score. Your Event Management administrator can configure the algorithm that the Event Management application uses to calculate priority. * The severity of an alert is an indicator of how serious the underlying issue is. The event monitoring tool in your organization usually sends severity values with the event, which then gets carried over in the alert. These are the default severity types that you will see in this tutorial: {#operator-events-alerts__table_egv_c31_gdb__entry__2} | Severity | Description | |-|-| | ![Resource icon]() Critical | The resource is either not functional or critical problems are imminent. | | ![Functionality icon]() Major | Major functionality is severely impaired or performance has degraded. | | ![Minor icon]() Minor | Partial, non-critical loss of functionality or performance degradation occurred. | | ![Warning icon]() Warning | Attention is required, even though the resource is still functional. | | ![OK icon]() OK | No severity. An alert is created. The resource is still functional. | | ![Clear icon]() Clear | The alert no longer needs action. | [ ] {#operator-events-alerts__table_egv_c31_gdb} {#operator-events-alerts__ul_jsq_3f1_gdb} ## Correlated alerts {#operator-events-alerts__section_emk_tzz_fdb} Some alerts are related to each other. For example, if a router goes down, several separate alerts could be generated, one for each server connected to the router. All of these alerts are related, or correlated. To help you manage correlated alerts, Event Management can automatically group them and establish a two-level hierarchy. One root alert, called the primary alert, appears at the top. Other related alerts, called secondary alerts, appear under the primary alert. When you view alerts, primary alerts stand out by default so you know which alert to focus on without being distracted by the secondary alerts. In our example, if a router goes down on your network, network communication is also affected for connected servers, assuming they cannot reach any other routers. The router outage becomes the primary alert and the alerts generated on the server are secondary alerts that are correlated under the router alert. Figure 2. Secondary alert generation Depending on your organization's Event Management implementation, alerts might be grouped automatically based on correlation rules that your administrator sets up. Your instance can also learn how to improve the way it correlates alerts based on these rules. As an operator, you should still verify the accuracy of the correlation and, if necessary, manually correlate additional alerts with the primary alert. Later in the tutorial, you will learn how to do this. In this tutorial, you will learn how to manually correlate alerts. ## Alert flapping {#operator-events-alerts__section_nz4_k5x_hdb} An alert can flap, meaning that it gets multiple open-close events in rapid succession. Flapping indicates that Event Management does not know whether the underlying events are genuine or not. The events could indicate small issues with the way CIs are configured, or larger issues, like network outages. Figure 3. Alert flapping For example, if a server that hosts a web service has too many active processes, it might trigger an event about excessive CPU usage. Since CPU usage can fluctuate rapidly depending on web service requests, several events might be triggered, leading to the alert being put in the flapping state. As an operator, you might need to create an incident to have the server restarted. Someone might have to reconfigure the CPU or make a hardware change on the device. As another example, consider a loose network cable that causes momentary, repeated network outages. The thresholds that your administrator configures might not be optimal for this kind of alert and Event Management considers it a flapping alert. ## Continue the tutorial {#operator-events-alerts__section_rrw_zpx_hdb} Proceed to the next lesson: [Application services for Event Management operators](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/sQl9gkhMf3VmiRLfdFcx9A "As an Event Management operator, you need to understand what application services are.").