sykko, let me help you: throw away the concept of "managed object". As far as I know, it does not exist in Zenoss. There is no way to associate a user with a device. OK? Once you've got that, move on.
Every user by default receives notification of every event. However, alerting rules can be used to manipulate what messages are sent and when they are sent. Alerting rules are applied to every event. They use the properties of an event to filter which messages will be sent to the user.
The next Zenoss concept you want to understand is groups. Devices can be organized in different ways. Device classes organize devices by hardware type. So all of your network switches might be assigned to the device class /Net/Switch. Your Windows servers can be assigned to /Server/Windows and so on.
There are other groupings that are totally arbitrary - they are only there for your convenience. If you navigate to the Edit tab of any device you will see a Systems value and a Groups value. These are available for you to organize devices and most importantly - they assist with alerts. See Chapter 9 of the Adminstration Guide.
For instance, as I mentioned earlier, we have two alerting groups - me and the network guys. I get alerts for telecom equipment, they get alerts for network infrastructure. I created one group called /Network Infrastructure and another called /Telecom. In my phone room, I have an environment monitor that is in /Devices/Environmental, and is assigned to /Groups/Telecom. My phone system is in /Devices/PBX and is assigned to /Groups/Telecom. My voicemail server is in /Devices/Server/Windows and is assigned to /Groups/Telecom. Finally, there is a network switch that is in /Devices/Net/Switch and is assigned to /Groups/Telecom AND /Groups/Network Infrastructure.
Alerting rules are applied to events. See Jane Curry's Zenoss Event Management paper for more information on events. When an event is created, properties of the device that generated the event are assiged to the event. These can be used in alerting rules.
I created an alerting rule in my user account so that I would only receive events that are generated by a device that belongs to the /Telecom group. I did that by creating an alerting rule, then editing it. Just above the Save button is the Add Filter drop down box. I Selected "Device Groups" from the drop down, which added a new filter to my alerting rule. I assigned it as follows "Device Groups is /Telecom". Now any event that is generated by a device not assigned to the /Telecom group is filtered out and not sent to me.
There are lots of filter combinations you can use. Once you get the hang of it, the possibilities are endless. I created 2 user accounts for each user - one for their email and another for SMS. The alerting rules are the same except that the email accounts get messages of severity "Info" and above whereas the SMS accounts are only sent severity "Warning" and above. Also, on the SMS accounts, "Warning" messages are only sent during normal business hours, since they aren't emergencies. Messages of severity "Error" and above are sent 24/7.
