Incident Response Automation
Automation contains response and grouping rules that are conditional triggers that execute response actions automatically, based on the contents of the alert.
An alert is created in Incident Response when a third-party monitoring tool has an event. The system analyzes incoming alerts, once a minute, and runs grouping and response rules accordingly.
Grouping rules
A system default rule for automatic group creation based on Service and Metric name fields is included when your system is provisioned. It is active by default.
Watch this quick video to know what you can do with grouping rules.
View the grouping rules by navigating to the Automation module from your Home page. Select the Grouping rules tab.
- If an alert is created, and rule 1 is the only rule, it will run only once on that alert.
- If you add rules 2 and 3 after that alert was created, they will not run on it unless the alert is updated. Those rules were never run on the alert to begin with.
- If you close and reopen the alert, all three rules will run on it.
If you change an existing rule and an existing alert would have been captured by it, it won’t be. Whatever criteria or actions you have changed won’t be addressed unless the existing alert is closed and reopened. Then, whatever changed rule actions are will take place.
Order is important for grouping rules because the lower-order rules run first. This can impact whether the conditions of higher-order rules are met, or will process. Lower-order rules can adjust field values or even stop processing.
- Order (asc): Order they are in, ascending - Default.
- Order (desc): Order they are in, descending
- Last Modified (recent): Recent
- Last Modified (oldest): Oldest
- System Generated Rules: Displays only rules that were created automatically when your account was provisioned.
- My Team's Rules: Displays only those rules your team created.
- Rules I created: Displays only those rules you created.
- Active: Displays only active alerts.
- Inactive: Displays only inactive alerts.
Name & Description represents the group rule name and description.
Scope represents who or what is impacted by this rule. Whether the impact is Global or to a team or service.
Criteria represents which grouping method this rule uses. Either
Field Match or
Condition Match
.
Timeframe represents how long this rule should continue to run and group alerts after an initiating alert.
Whether your rules are Active or not is shown using the toggle
switch icon.
- Grouping rules run
- Manually created groups are updated
- Automated grouping runs
Alerts are grouped under the primary alert. The oldest of the highest severity alerts becomes the primary alert. The rest become related alerts. Grouping activity is recorded in Work notes..
A grouped, related alert contains a Grouped by field. This field indicates how the related alert was grouped. For more information, see Alert workspace.
Only administrators can activate or deactivate any rule, including global rules.
When a Service is deleted, its integrations, alerts, incidents, and automation rules are removed. This is not a recoverable action so consider deactivating the service instead.
Response rules
A system default rule for automatic incident creation for P1 alerts is included when your system is provisioned. It is active by default.
View the response rules by navigating to the Automation module from your Home page.
- If an alert is created, and rule 1 is the only rule, it will run only once on that alert.
- If you add rules 2 and 3 after that alert was created, they will not run on it unless the alert is updated. Those rules were never run on the alert to begin with.
- If you close and reopen the alert, all three rules will run on it.
If you change an existing rule and an existing alert would have been captured by it, it won’t be. Whatever criteria or actions you have changed won’t be addressed unless the existing alert is closed and reopened. Then, whatever changed rule actions are will take place.

Order is important for response rules because the lower-order rules run first. This can impact whether the conditions of higher-order rules are met, or will process. Lower-order rules can adjust field values or even stop processing.
- Order: Order they are in, ascending - Default.
- Order: Order they are in, descending
- Last Modified: Recent
- Last Modified: Oldest
- System Generated Rules: Displays only rules that were created automatically when your account was provisioned.
- My Team's Rules: Displays only those rules your team created.
- Rules I created: Displays only those rules you created.
- Active: Displays only active alerts.
- Inactive: Displays only inactive alerts.
Name & Description represents the alert rule name and description.
Scope represents who or what is impacted by this rule. Whether the impact is Global or to a team or service.
Actions are denoted by the action icons.
Stop after run contains a pause icon if you wanted processing to stop after that rule runs.
Whether your rules are Active or not is shown using the toggle switch
icon.
Response rule activity is recorded in Work notes.
Only administrators can activate or deactivate any rule, including global rules.
Modify field value and/or Create an Incident actions, in a rule, will run before escalation policies run.
When a Service is deleted, its integrations, alerts, incidents, and automation rules are removed. This is not a recoverable action so consider deactivating the service instead.