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Notifications and escalations are how the Nagios™ engine within GroundWork Monitor alerts its users when monitoring services change between states (OK, WARNING, CRITICAL, and UNKNOWN). Escalations combine specified contact groups that are to be notified when a notification is escalated. An escalation tree is a grouping of multiple escalations which are then assigned to a host, host profile, host group, or a service. Escalations are optional. Below, we cover creating escalations and then configuring escalation trees.

Creating escalations

Select Configuration > Nagios Monitoring > Escalations, expand the Escalations drop-down menu, expand the Host (or Service) drop-down menu, then select New.
In the Host (or Service) Escalation Properties screen, enter an escalation name.
Next, setup the notification options:
- First Notification - [required] This directive is a number that identifies the first notification for which this escalation is effective. For instance, if you set this value to 3, this escalation will only be used if the host is down or unreachable long enough for a third notification to go out or if the service is in a non-OK state long enough for a third notification to go out.
- Last Notification - [required] This directive is a number that identifies the last notification for which this escalation is effective. For instance, if you set this value to 5, this escalation will not be used if more than five notifications are sent out for the host (or service). Setting this value to 0 means to keep using this escalation entry forever (no matter how many notifications go out).
- Notification Interval [required] Indicates when a notification should be sent. This directive is used to determine the time interval, (unless you've changed the interval_length directive from the default value of 60, this number will mean minutes), at which notifications should be made while this escalation is valid. If you specify a value of 0 for the interval, Nagios will send the first notification only, and will then prevent any more problem notification s from being sent out for the host. Specifying any other value will send continuous notifications at the time interval specified.
  
  If multiple escalation entries for a host overlap for one or more notification ranges, the smallest notification interval from all escalation entries is used.
Continue with the escalation options, you can optionally enter an Escalation period which is used to specify the name (e.g., Work Hours, 24x7) of the time period during which this escalation is valid. If this directive is not specified, the escalation is considered to be valid during all times.
The Escalation options directive lets you optionally select the criteria that determines when an escalation is used (e.g., For a host: Recovery, Down, Unreachable; and for a service: Recovery, Warning, Unknown, Critical). The escalation is used only if the host (or service) is in one of the states specified in this directive. If this directive is not specified the escalation is considered to be valid during all host (or service) states.
- Example (host escalation): If you specify Down in this field, the escalation will only be used if the host is in a DOWN state; (service escalation): If you specify warning in this field, the escalation will only be used if the service is in a WARNING state.
Select Add to confirm the the new escalation.

Configuring escalation trees

Select Configuration > Nagios Monitoring > Escalations, expand the Escalation Trees drop-down menu, expand the Host (or Service) drop-down menu, and select New.
Enter a name for the host (or service) escalation tree, and select Add, the Managing Escalations screen will be displayed.

Add escalations to an escalation tree

Next, in the Managing Escalations screen you can add/remove defined escalations. After selecting each escalation the Assign Contact Groups screen will be displayed where you can assign contact groups to be associated with the escalation. These are groups of contacts that will be notified when the host or service notification is escalated.

You can build up a number of escalations to accomplish elaborate notification schemes. For example, a Technical contact group could be assigned an escalation that sends out the first through the last notifications. Whereas a different escalation might start with the 5th notification and end with the 6th notification and go to a Senior Manager that might want to be notified only when a alarm hasn't been acknowledged within the 4 previous notifications.

Select a defined escalation and click Add Escalation, you are adding an escalation to the escalation tree.
Next, << Add the contact groups to be associated with the escalation, and Save.
Next, you will be in the Detail tab where you can add additional escalations or modify contact groups. Next we'll assign host groups to set the default host escalation.

Assigning host groups

You can now assign host groups which will set the default host escalation for all hosts in a host group. You also have the option to set a host escalation for an individual host.

Select the Assign Host Groups tab, then << Add the host groups to assign to the escalation tree.
Select Save and Close.

Applying escalation trees

When creating or modifying Escalation Trees you have the option to assign host groups which sets the default host escalation for all hosts in the host group. And you can assign hosts which sets the host escalation for the host. Additionally, you can add an escalation tree to defined host groups and hosts.

Apply an escalation tree to a host

Go to Configuration > Nagios Monitoring > Hosts > Hosts, and navigate to the host you want to edit.
Select Detail, and the Manage Host screen will be displayed.
Select the Escalation Trees tab, and select an Escalation Tree from the drop-down box appropriate for this host.

To avoid amplified notifications (i.e., multiple notifications for the same event), a host escalation assigned to this host should not also be assigned to a host group in which the host is a member.

Choose an Escalation Tree from the drop-down box appropriate for all services on this host.

When a service escalation is assigned here, all services on this host will use the same escalation. To use different escalations for different services, each service must have its own escalation. In that case do not assign a service escalation at this point.

Select Save.

Apply an escalation tree to a host group

Go to Configuration > Nagios Monitoring > Hosts > Host Groups.
Click Modify to get a listing of defined host groups, and select a Host Group. The Host Properties screen will be displayed.
Next, select a Host Escalation Tree from the drop-down box applicable to the host group.

All hosts in the host group will receive the same host escalation.
Select a Service Escalation Tree from the drop-down box applicable to this host group.

All services on each host in the host group receive the same host escalation.
Click Save.

How to configure Nagios escalations