KPI Assignments

Administration > Service Health > KPI Assignments

Alternatively, click KPI Assignments.

Each assignment has two parts: a condition and a task. The condition describes a CI, whereas the task describes the context menus, KPIs or HIs, and business rules that are assigned to CIs that match the condition. When an assignment is running and its condition is met, the assignment mechanism automatically:

• Attaches the relevant KPIs to the CI.

• Assigns business rules for the KPIs.

• Assigns thresholds for the affected KPIs.

• Adds the context menus to the CI.

For general information on KPI and HI functionality, see Service Health Concepts. For details on specific KPIs, see List of KPI definitions.

The assignment mechanism is an OMi service named KPI_ENRICHMENT. The assignment mechanism is deployed on the Data Processing server.

Assignments on higher level CITs are inherited by their descendant CITs. When an assignment is inherited, you can see the name of the source CIT either if you hover over the Inherited icon next to the assignment name on the child CIT or in the details pain on the right. Inherited assignments work as follows:

• Deleting. An inherited assignment cannot be deleted on a child CIT. If you override an inherited assignment, you can delete the overriding assignment on the child CIT. If you delete an assignment on a parent CIT, it is deleted on its descendant CITs as well.

• Editing. To edit an inherited assignment, you can duplicate it, give it a new name, and edit the duplicate. The duplicate will then override the original inherited assignment. To undo the override, you can click Restore from parent CIT, which will reinstate the original inherited assignment.

• Invalid assignments. Inherited assignments are not displayed if they are invalid because these assignments are not relevant for the child CIT. An invalid assignment is only shown on the CIT where it can be fixed. When it is no longer invalid, it appears on the descendant CITs.

There are three types of assignments:

• Predefined. Out-of-the-box assignments that have not been modified. These assignments can be edited but not deleted. If you edit a predefined assignment, it is labeled Predefined (Customized).

• Predefined (Customized). Out-of-the-box assignments that have been edited. These assignments cannot be deleted, but you can restore them to their default settings.

• Custom. New assignments that you have created.

The validation mechanism checks that each assignment rule is valid.

The left pane contains a filter to enable you to focus attention on invalid assignments. When you click Filter, and select the Show invalid assignments check box, the CIT tree expands all the CIT nodes that have invalid assignments.

If there is a problem with an assignment (for example, if an invalid business rule is defined, if an assignment is not unique, or if a referenced property does not exist for the CIT in the RTSM), you can open the assignment for editing. The panel that opens contains details regarding which area in the assignment definition is problematic, and should be fixed.

After making changes to assignments for a CIT, you can synchronize the assignment mechanism to run assignments on the CIT as if a new CI was just added. You can synchronize KPI assignments.

Synchronizing HI assignments can also have an effect on KPIs. For example, an HI is instantiated on a CI when an event occurs that sets the ETI and therefore the matching HI. If there is a KPI assignment involving that HI, then the corresponding KPI is also created on the CI.

Synchronizing can also delete KPIs or HIs. For example, if a KPI assignment is deleted and then synchronized, the KPI(s) will be deleted from the CIs. However, the HIs will not be deleted, and exist as not contributing to KPIs.

When an HI is manually attached to a CI by using the CI Customizations page (for details, see CI Customizations), the assignment mechanism may then add KPIs to the CI based on the KPI assignment definitions.

If a KPI is assigned to a CI by using the assignment mechanism and you manually change the KPI, the assignment mechanism no longer makes changes to this indicator. For example, if you manually modify an assigned KPI and you change the business rule used within the KPI assignment, this change will not affect the modified KPI. In addition, synchronization does not remove a modified indicator, even if the CI no longer fills the assignment condition.

However, if you manually remove an assigned KPI and then synchronize assignments, the KPI will again be assigned to the CI by the assignment mechanism.

1. In the left pane, select a CI type to display its KPI assignments.

2. In the central KPI Assignments pane, perform one of the following actions:

   • To create a new KPI assignment, click New. The Create KPI Assignment panel opens.

   • To edit an existing KPI assignment, select it, and click Edit. The Edit KPI Assignment panel opens.

     Note The condition of an inherited assignment cannot be edited. To edit, duplicate the inherited assignment, edit the duplicate, and delete the original inherited assignment. The duplicate will override the original inherited assignment.

   • To duplicate an existing KPI assignment, select it, and click  Duplicate. The original KPI assignment is still available, and the new KPI assignment automatically opens for editing.

   Note You can perform additional actions on the assignments, such as restoring a selected overridden assignment to its original settings by clicking Restore from parent CIT) or restoring a selected edited assignment with the predefined (customized) type to its original settings by clicking  Revert. In addition, you can synchronize all assignments for the selected CIT.

3. Define a KPI assignment as follows:

   • In the General section, define general assignment information, such as an assignment name and its description (optional).

   • In the Condition section, provide the following information:

     1. Specify the application that monitors the CI. This is the value of the CI Monitored By attribute within the RTSM.

        The condition defines which characteristics a CI must have so that the KPI assignment is relevant for the CI. The assignment is relevant if all the property conditions are filled. If no property conditions are defined, the KPIs are assigned to all CIs of the CIT with the specified Monitored by attribute.

        Note You can add a value to the drop-down list of possible Monitored by values by using the following infrastructure setting: Administration > Setup and Maintenance > Infrastructure Settings > Foundations = Sources Configuration > Possible values for the Monitored By field.

     2. Click Add Condition, and select an attribute to define the condition. The drop-down list contains all attributes of the RTSM class for the selected CIT.
     3. Select a relational operator that the condition uses when comparing the actual value for the property against the value defined in the condition.
     4. Enter the required value for the property. This is the property value that the condition compares with the value in the RTSM class attribute.
     5. Click OK.

     To add additional conditions based on CI properties, click Add and define one or more property conditions. All property conditions must be true for the condition to be met. To edit property conditions, click Edit.

   • In the KPI Configurations section, provide the following information:

     1. Click New KPI Configuration, and define the KPIs that you want assigned to the CIs when the condition is met.
     2. For each KPI, specify its business rule, rule thresholds, and API rule definitions (if applicable). For more information on API rules, see Service Health Rules API.

     3. Select a calculation method indicating if the KPI is calculated by:

        • HIs and child KPIs. The KPI is calculated by the HIs assigned to the CI, and by the KPIs assigned to the child CIs.

        • HIs. The KPI is calculated by the HIs assigned to the CI.

        • HIs; if none, use child KPIs. The KPI is calculated by the HIs assigned to the CI. If there are no HIs assigned, the KPI is calculated by the KPIs assigned to the child CIs.

     4. From the Related HIs drop-down list, select applicable HIs (the HIs whose values are used to calculate the KPI). Note that the KPI will be assigned only if one or more HIs exist on the CI. If no HIs exist on the CI, the KPI is not assigned.

        Note Adding a related HI to a KPI does not assign the HI to the CI itself; if the HI is assigned to the CI, this KPI will include the HI in its calculation.

   • Optional. In the Context Menus section, you can define which context menus are assigned to the CI when the condition is met. This does not override existing context menus, but enables you to define additional ones.

     Note The list of selected context menus shows which context menus are assigned to the CIs. The drop-down list of additional context menus contains the context menus that are applicable to the CIT.

4. Click Create or Save.

In the left pane, click Filter, and select the appropriate filter option:

• Show only CI Types with assigned assignments to display only CITs with assigned assignments.
• View to display all assignments that are contained within a certain view.

• Show valid or invalid assignments to display the CIT tree with all the CIT nodes that have valid or invalid assignments.

  To resolve invalid assignments, open each assignment for editing. When the Edit KPI Assignment panel opens, you can see alert messages indicating what needs to be fixed in assignment definition.