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Using Response Interval, Revalidate, and Recalculate boxes with rules
Answer ID 2015   |   Last Review Date 08/23/2021

When configuring escalation rules, when should I enable the additional options?

Environment:

Business Rules, Escalations
Oracle B2C Service

Resolution:

When setting up escalation rules, you must determine whether to enable the Use Response Interval, Revalidate and Recalculate checkboxes. Each of these options is described below.

In general, the escalation process includes two rules. The first rule is a "chain" rule that specifies the criteria for escalation and determines the time frame for setting the escalation level. The second rule includes the escalation actions that act on the record when the escalation level is set by the spm_scheduler utility (or dbstatus if using legacy rules).

Within the chain rule, when you click the Add Action button and select the action Escalate, several fields display, including the Use Response Interval, Revalidate and Recalculate check boxes.

 

Response Interval Option

When the Use Response Interval box is checked, the time attributed to the incident is based on the response interval for the incident. The response interval is associated with either the default response requirements or with specific response requirements that are configured for a service level agreement (SLA) that is applied to the incident.

That is, if your default response requirements are configured for 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Monday through Friday, if your escalation rule is set to escalate in 4 hours and the Use Response Interval box is checked, the incident will only escalate during the hours specified in the response requirements. The incident will not escalate in the evenings or night or on weekends. The four hours must elapse during the response intervals that are configured.

If you select Days as the unit for the time element, one day corresponds to 24 hours. Again, if you check the Use Response Interval box, this means that that number of hours based on the default response requirements must pass before the incident is escalated. If you use 1 Day with the User Response Interval box checked and your response requirements have 8 hours specified each day, then this corresponds to 3 work days (of eight hours each).

 

Revalidate Option

When the Revalidate check box is enabled, the escalation conditions are checked again when the record is saved to determine if the record still meets the criteria to be escalated. If the record has been edited so that the escalation criteria are no longer met, the scheduled escalation is cleared and the record will not be escalated, even though it initially met the original criteria.

A record must remain in the same rule state in order for it to be revalidated. When the record is compared to the initial criteria, this includes the rule state as well. The record must also be in the same rule state as the initial rule condition. That is, a record matches a rule while it was in the initial state and the revalidate box is checked. If that record transitions to another state, the criteria are no longer met when the revalidate check is performed and the record will not be escalated.

An example of revalidation: If the escalation criteria indicates that an incident must be in the Unresolved status and assigned to a specific group in order for it to be escalated, if you check the Revalidate box, the incident will have to be in the Unresolved status and still assigned to the specific group at the time it is escalated in order for the escalation rule to take effect.

If the incident is assigned to another group or is assigned to a different status such as Updated or a custom status, it will no longer meet the escalation criteria and will not be escalated. If the revalidate check box were not enabled, then the incident would be escalated, regardless of status and which group it was later assigned to.

Generally, when configuring escalation rules, you will enable the Revalidate box so that records are revalidated at the time of escalation.

 

Recalculate Option

You can enable the Recalculate check box so that if an incident is updated before the escalation rule fires, the escalation time is recalculated based on the last time the incident was saved and updated.

Just as it does when you select Revalidate, the rules engine compares each object to the rule’s conditions when you select Recalculate. The incident, answer, or opportunity that is updated must continue to match the rule’s conditions in order for the escalation to be rescheduled. If updating the object changes it so it no longer matches one or more rule conditions, Recalculate will not be triggered.

For example, you can schedule an incident to be escalated 24 hours after it is updated. If the escalation rule has the Recalculate box enabled and the incident is updated within the 24 hours (before the incident is actually escalated), then the time of escalation will be recalculated based on the time of the last update.

Note: For the Recalculate feature to be meaningful, you must select a relative time value that is not static. If you select a static value (such as Time Created) for your rule, the escalation schedule will not be recalculated because the Time Created value remains constant even when the object is updated. If, however, you select Time Updated, escalation will be rescheduled because the Time Updated value changes when the object is updated.


For additional information, refer to the 'Adding rules for escalation' section in the Online Help User Guide documentation. To access Oracle B2C Service manuals and documentation online, refer to the Documentation for Oracle B2C Service Products.

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