Test your IRM configuration

In this milestone, you test your configuration to verify that IRM creates an Alert group from a firing alert and executes escalation and notification steps as expected.

Note: Before you test, configure your personal notification rules so you receive notifications through your preferred channels. The default notification method is your Grafana Cloud account email. If you’re testing against a production alert rule, duplicate the rule first or revert any changes immediately after testing using the Versions tab.

To trigger the alert rule from Grafana Alerting, complete the following steps:

1. In Alerting > Alert rules, locate the rule connected to your IRM contact point.
2. Open the rule and click Edit to lower the conditions so the rule fires (for example, set CPU > 5%).
3. If necessary, lower the evaluation period to 1 minute so it fires quickly.
4. Save the rule, wait one evaluation cycle, and confirm the rule shows a firing state.

After the rule fires, verify the resulting Alert group in IRM and acknowledge it:

1. Verify and acknowledge the new Alert group.

On the Alert group details page, review the timeline to verify escalation chain selection, on-call user identification, notification attempts, and any wait and escalation steps you configured. After acknowledging, restore the alert rule conditions and confirm the rule returns to a non-firing (OK) state after the next evaluation.

If you don’t have an alert rule connected to IRM, you can run a partial test by sending a demo alert from the integration page:

1. Send a demo alert and view the resulting Alert group.

When your test is successful, you observe the following:

• A new Alert group appears in IRM > Alert Groups within a few seconds of the alert firing.
• The Alert group timeline shows escalation chain selection, on-call user identification based on your schedule, notification attempts with timestamps, and escalation steps progressing on the configured delays.
• You receive notifications through your configured channels (email, mobile app, Slack, SMS) at the expected times.
• When you acknowledge the Alert group, the timeline shows the acknowledgment and all further escalation and notifications stop.

If your test doesn’t produce the expected results, check the troubleshooting links at the bottom of this page.

In the final milestone, you review what you accomplished and plan next steps.