We want to utilize Critical Monitoring on a specific Monitor (such as Ping) to avoid getting excessive alerting. However, when setting the Monitor in the appropriate Sub-Role to be Critical, it is not being added to the device as Critical.

For more information on Roles and Sub-Roles and how they add Monitors please see Troubleshooting Roles, Sub Roles, and Automatically Applied Monitors after Discovery

The weight of the Sub Roles affects which monitors are applied, or how they are applied based on options such as “Critical Monitors” or other filters when more than one Sub-Role is applied.

Example Use Case:

Router has a weight of 13, while Switch has a weight of 10. If a device is scanned into WhatsUp Gold that identifies as both, because Router has the higher weight, the Monitors list in the Router Sub-Role is what will be used and the Sub-Role with the lower weight will be ignored.

For example, if the Ping Monitor has “Critical” selected only in the Switch Sub-Role, then when it is added it will not be marked as Critical due to Router outweighing Switch.

Additionally, the Router Role will also be applied as the Sub-Role recommends the Role.

Note: When doing a Rescan of the Device, will require selecting the option Reset Device > Reset Monitors regardless of which settings option listed below is used. Newly added devices should use the options chosen upon initial Discovery.

Option 1: (Recommended)

When applying any customization to the Monitor list (such as making monitors critical, or other advanced filtering) you should apply those options to both the Router and Switch Sub-Roles.

The Roles and Sub Roles are found under Settings > Libraries > Device Templates. Note that Monitors are normally added via Sub Roles, although can also be added via a Role. Having the same Monitor(s) in both the Role and Sub-Role is redundant and unnecessary. For example, adding Ping to both the Router Role and the Router Sub-Role is unnecessary – it will only be added once.

Under the Sub-Roles tab, locate the Sub-Role you wish to edit, then click on the Monitors. Check the box for the “Critical” column next to the Active Monitor you wish to make Critical.

In our above example, since Router and Switch have the same Monitors listed and a device could potentially match on either or both, make sure to select Critical for the appropriate Monitor for both Sub-Roles.

As shown below, changing the settings for the Sub-Role(s) will change their Source to say “Modified”.

As you can see here, both the Router and Switch Sub-Roles have Ping configured to be “Critical” so that a device that gets both Sub-Roles assigned is assured to have Ping not only added, but made the Critical Monitor on the device.

Option 2:

Update the weighting of the Router and Switch Sub-Roles so that Switch has a higher weight than Router.

As you may also note in the Sub-Roles list is that each Sub-Role has a weight. If more than one Sub-Role can apply, such as Router and Switch, you will see both listed in Device Properties under the Roles side-tab, but the one with the greater weight will determine the Role and the list of Monitors used.

Note that Router has a weight of 13 while Switch has a weight of 10.

If you do not want Router to have precedence over Switch for either the Role recommendation nor the Monitors options you can change their weights so that Switch is higher than Router in the weighting.

Edit the Sub-Roles and go the General section. From there you can adjust the weights as desired.