Alert correlation rule form

  • Release version: Zurich
  • Updated July 31, 2025
  • 3 minutes to read
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    Summary of Alert correlation rule form

    The Alert correlation rule form enables ServiceNow customers to define how alerts are correlated and grouped within their IT environment. This form allows you to manage rules that prioritize, filter, and relate alerts to improve incident management efficiency by identifying primary and secondary alerts and their relationships.

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    Key Features

    • Name and Order: Assign a unique name and evaluation priority to each alert correlation rule. Rules with lower numerical order values are evaluated first, stopping further checks upon a match.
    • Activation and Modes: Activate or deactivate rules as needed. Switch between standard and advanced modes, where advanced mode allows custom scripting for defining correlation logic.
    • Filter Conditions: Define filters to specify which alerts the rule applies to. In standard mode, separate fields identify primary and secondary alerts, while advanced mode uses a script-based filter.
    • Relationship Types: Specify relationships between primary and secondary alerts such as no relationship, same Configuration Item (CI) or node, primary as parent, or primary as child, affecting how alerts are grouped.
    • Time Difference: Set the allowable time window (up to 1440 minutes) between primary and secondary alerts for correlation.
    • Custom Script Support: In advanced mode, use custom scripts returning JSON strings to precisely define primary and secondary alerts and correlation types, offering flexible and complex alert correlation logic.
    • Relationship Description: When using parent-child relationships, specify the CI relationship description to clarify how alerts are connected.

    Practical Benefits for ServiceNow Customers

    • Enable prioritized and efficient alert correlation to reduce noise and focus on the most critical alerts.
    • Customize correlation logic through filters or scripts to fit your specific operational needs and CI relationships.
    • Control alert grouping based on time windows and defined relationships to improve incident response accuracy.
    • Utilize an out-of-the-box sample rule as a template to accelerate rule creation and adaptation.
    • Maintain flexibility to activate or deactivate correlation rules as your alert management strategy evolves.

    Manage the fields that define how alerts are correlated and grouped.

    Table 1. Alert correlation rule form
    Field Description
    Name Name of the correlation rule.
    Order The evaluation priority for the rule. Rules with lower numerical values are given higher priority. An alert is evaluated against each alert action rule until a match is found.

    For example, if you have two alert correlation rules with priorities 10 and 20, respectively, the rule with priority 10 will be evaluated first. If an alert matches the criteria of the rule with priority 10, no further rules will be checked. If it doesn’t match, the alert will then be evaluated against the rule with priority 20.
    Active Option to activate or deactivate the rule.
    Advanced Option to switch to advanced mode, which lets you use custom scripts to define your own logic. The sample correlation rule, Alert correlation rule SAMPLE, is provided out-of-the-box for reference. You can use the available script as a guide.
    Note:
    The Filter condition specifies which alerts the rule will apply to. Ensure that the same condition is used in the advanced script to identify alerts to be included in the group.
    Description Description of the rule.
    Primary Alert The filter condition to identify the alert that is the primary alert, or most important alert, in a set of related alerts.

    This field does not appear when Advanced is selected.
    Secondary Alert The filter condition to identify the alert that is related to the primary alert, however it is of lesser importance.

    This field does not appear when Advanced is selected.
    Filter The filter condition to identify the alert on which the script is run.

    Filter is available only when Advanced is selected.

    Filter parameters are case sensitive by default. To disable case sensitivity, set the sa_analytics.correlation_case_sensitive parameter to false.
    Relationship Type Specify the type of relationship between the primary and secondary alert:
    • No Relationship: Ignore the relationship when looking for a match.
    • Same CI or Node: Relate both alerts with the same CI. If the CI field is blank, the alerts must have the same Node value.
    • Primary is Parent: Relate the alerts where the primary alert is the parent in a parent-child relationship, as described in the CI Relationship Types table [cmdb_rel_ci].
    • Primary is Child: Relate the alerts where the primary alert is the child in a child-parent relationship, as described in the CI Relationships table [cmdb_rel_ci].

    This field does not appear when the Advanced check box is selected.
    Time Difference in Minutes The minutes between which the primary and secondary event must occur to match this rule. The default value is 60 minutes.
    Note:
    The value for this entry cannot exceed 1440 minutes (one day).

    This field does not appear when Advanced is selected.
    Script Custom script that you can modify to return a JSON string that specifies the primary and secondary alerts.

    Select Advanced to display the script field.

    
(/* The function needs to return a JSON- {correlationType:[correlatedAlerts]}
 for example: if your filter matches the alert, set the alert as the primary alert and set alerts 1, 2 and 3 each as secondary alerts.
 
 You can use both multiple primary alerts and multiple secondary alerts.
 The correlationType can be PRIMARY or SECONDARY, and the alerts ID must be in an array. 
 CurrentAlert is the GlideRecord of the currentAlert on which that rule runs.  
 The system supports only one primary per alert, so: 
   Do not correlate more than one alert under the PRIMARY array. 
   Do not correlate alerts that already have a primary under the SECONDARY array. 
  The system supports open alerts only, so do not correlate alerts that have been closed under either one of the arrays. 
  */
 
 (function findCorrelatedAlerts(currentAlert){
 
       var result = {};   //Insert your code here
       result = {'SECONDARY':['alertID1','alertID2','alertID3']};         
       return JSON.stringify(result);  
 
 })(currentAlert);
    Relationship Description of the CI relationship between primary and secondary, for example, Allocated from::Allocated to or Allocated to::Allocated from.

    This field displays only if either Primary is Parent or Primary is Child is selected for the Relationship Type.

    Relationship

    This field does not appear when Advanced is selected.