How responses and response actions work

Question

When a user responds to a notification, the event log includes a message detailing their response and an associated action. What is the action, and how does it work with the response that's selected?

Answer

We cover responses and response actions extensively in our online documentation, but here's a quick rundown:

• Every response has a name (what the user sees and selects) and an associated action (what xMatters does next) which are configured by the form designer. When you install a built-in workflow, it includes pre-configured responses with meaningful names and actions – in some circumstances these can be changed, but they should usually be left as-is. Custom workflows have full flexibility of the name and action of each response. The mapping between the response label (for example, Accept or Acknowledge) and the response action (for example, End or Stop Notifying Target) determines whether the alert continues to notify, escalates, or ends for some or all recipients.

• Response actions let you control the effect the response choice has on the event in xMatters. They include:
  1. Record Response: records the user's response and stops notifying that user on that device, but other recipients continue to be notified. The user remains linked to the alert and can update their response later.
  2. Stop Notifying User: stops notifying that individual user, but continues notifying other recipients.
  3. Stop Notifying Target: stops notifying the responder and any other members notified as part of the same on-call or dynamic group, but continues notifying other users or other targeted groups.
  4. Escalate: stops notifying the responder and immediately escalates the alert to the next scheduled recipient.
  5. Assign to User: records that the responder has taken ownership and stops notifying other recipients, but keeps the alert active until its alert duration expires or another response ends it. This is useful when you want one person to own the alert while keeping it open in the system for a set time.
  6. End: immediately ends the alert and stops notifying all remaining recipients, regardless of whether they were targeted individually, via a group or nested groups.

• If you've configured the Recipients section of your form to "Count Responses" (typically used when you want to meet a certain quota from different groups or people on a conference bridge), then the response actions will be limited to either Add to Count or Do Not Add to Count. If a recipient responds in a way that indicates they cannot contribute to the count, xMatters immediately escalates the alert and begins attempting to notify the next scheduled recipient so you can still meet your response requirements. For more information on configuring response quotas, see Configure response counts.

Additional resources

Define response options - how to add and customize responses to your notifications

Configure alert response options - details about available response actions and how to configure them on your forms and flows