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# Alerts and flags

When a requirement, test, or defect changes, ALM can alert the associated entities and notify those responsible for any associated entities. Your project administrator can activate alert rules based on associations you make between requirements, tests, and defects.

In this topic:

## Overview

The alert rules are based on the following associations you can create:

Associate a test in the test plan tree with a requirement | This is accomplished by creating requirements coverage in the Test Plan module, or by creating tests coverage in the Requirements module. For details, see Requirement and Test Coverage Overview.
Associate a test instance with a defect | This is performed by creating Linked Defects in the Test Plan module, or by adding a defect during a manual test run. For details, see Defect Linkage.
Create traceability links between requirements in the Requirements module | For details, see Requirements Traceability Overview.

After you establish associations in your project, you can track changes using these associations. When an entity in your project changes, ALM alerts any associated entities that may be impacted by the change. The alert can be seen by all users, and also notifies the person responsible for the entity at the time of the change of any associated entities that may be impacted by the change.

In the Alerts column in a tree or grid view, the Alerts flag indicates the following:

- A red alert flag indicates that the alert is new.

- A gray alert flag indicates that the alert has already been read.

Version Control: ALM alerts associated entities only when a new version is checked in. The alert states that the version status has changed to Checked In. It does not indicate which fields have been modified. You can then compare the new version with the previous version. For details on comparing versions, see Version control.

Note: While the entity is checked out, changes made to non-versioned fields continue to generate regular alerts, indicating which field was changed. For details on non-versioned fields, see Version control.

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## Alert rules

Your ALM project administrator can activate four alert rules:

Rule | Description | Entities flagged | User notified by email
--- | --- | --- | ---
1 | When a requirement is modified, alert the associated tests. Note: A change to the requirement can be any modification, excluding changes to the Direct Cover Status field and the risk-based quality management fields. | Tests covering the requirement. | Test designer.
2 | When a defect status changes to "Fixed", alert the associated test instances. | Test instances associated with the defect. | Responsible tester for the test instance.
3 | When a test runs successfully (status changes to "Passed"), alert the linked defects. | Defects linked to the test run. | User assigned the defect.
4 | When a requirement is modified or deleted, alert traced to requirements and child requirements. | The requirement's child requirements and traced to requirements. | Author of the requirement.

For details on activating alert rules in Project Customization, see Activate alert rules.

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## Use alerts

This task describes how to work with automatic notification alerts to keep track of changes made to your requirements, tests, and defects.

To work with alerts:

1. Prerequisites.

   Verify that alert rules are activated for your project. Alert rules, activated by the project administrator, instruct ALM to send email to notify those responsible when changes occur in your project. For details, see Activate alert rules.

2. View alerts of a single record, or of all records in a module.

   View alerts of a record | To view alerts of a single record, do either of the following: In a tree or grid view, click the Alert flag in the Alerts column. If this column is not visible, select View > Indicator Columns. Right-click the record and select Alerts.
   View alerts of a module | To view a list of all alerts for a selected module, in the Filter dialog box > Cross Filter tab, select the Show <entity> with alerts option. For user interface details on the Filter dialog box, see Filter Dialog Box.

3. Clear alerts of a single record, or ofall records in a module.

   Clear alerts of a record | For a selected record, you can clear an individual alert or all alerts in the Alerts dialog box. To clear a single alert, click Clear Alert for the alert. To clear all alerts for the record, click the Clear All button. For user interface details on the Alerts dialog box, see Use alerts.
   Clear alerts of a module | You can clear all the alerts associated with all the records in an ALM module. In the Requirement, Test Plan, or Defects module, select Edit > Clear Alerts. In the Test Lab module, select Tests > Clear Alerts. Only alerts associated with records that match the current filter are cleared. In addition, you can only clear alerts that are assigned to you, or that are not assigned to any user. The user to whom an alert is assigned is the user who receives email notification when the alert is triggered. This user is listed in the Alerts dialog box for the alert.

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## Follow up flags

You can add a follow up flag to a specific requirement, test, test instance, or defect to remind yourself to follow up on an issue. For example, you can set a follow up flag on a defect to remind yourself to check the status in a week.

To add a follow up flag for a record:

Right-click a record and select Flag for Follow Up.

When you add a follow up flag, ALM adds a gray flag icon to the record. When the follow up date arrives, ALM sends you email and changes the flag icon to red.

A follow up flag is specific to the user name with which you logged on. You can open the follow up flag at any time to view or modify the details.

To view or modify an existing flag:

In a tree or grid view, click the flag icon in the Follow Up Flag column. If this column is not visible, select View > Indicator Columns.

To remove the follow up flag, click Clear.

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