Dirk, I have an idea for an improvement to SA. Its not really a new capability, it's more of a change to the way current capabilities are managed. Every one of our checks has several notifications. (first down, 4th down, etc) for issue escalation. What I would like to see is a better way to manage that process than at the individual check level. I'd like be able to build an "Escalation Plan" that outlines a series of notifications steps based on number of downs and then simply apply that plan to one or more checks. I think this can currently be accomplished via some group editing - but I'm looking for more that that. It would be great if we could then sort/manage/report on checks based on the PLAN they were tied to (or ones that didn't have an escalation plan). Also, a single change to the escalation plan would automatically be used (inherited) by all the checks tied to that plan. In the ideal world, you could have several "escalation plans" built in SA (mission critical, casual systems, FYI notifications) and any given check could be assigned to a single plan - but it could also have additional notifications at the check level. In my mind I am seeing the Notification page have a drop down to select an Escalation Plan, and if selected, all the alerts for that plan are visible at the check level as grayed out or "read only" values, but you could always add in additional checks as well. You could not delete an inherited notification from a check, but there could also be a button to "Copy Escalation Plan notification to this check" that, if picked, would copy the plan notifications into the check as "local" and clear the selected plan field (break the inheritance link). The result is an easy way to make sure check notifications are consistent and greatly simplify the management of one of the most powerful features of SA. -tom
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