Description

When upgrading to version 2026.05.02, the date/time format of the Time parameter passed to alert action shell scripts changes from a locale-dependent format to an ISO-8601 UTC timestamp.

Breaking change

Before

The Time parameter was formatted using the Introscope Enterprise Manager server locale, for example: 7/22/25, 10:43:30 AM CEST

This format depends on the EM server locale and timezone, making it unreliable to parse.

After

The Time parameter is now always an ISO-8601 UTC timestamp, for example: 2025-07-22T08:43:30Z

This change is implemented by a patched com.wily.introscope.core.alertactions.em plugin, bundled automatically with the EM package. No manual action is required on the Enterprise Manager side.

Upgrading steps

Default scripts

The default scripts provided by HPA (alert_log_awk.sh, alert_log_python.sh, alert_mail_python.sh, send_alert_mail.py, …) already parse the new ISO-8601 format. No action is required if you use them unmodified.

Custom scripts

If you maintain custom alert action scripts (in <HPA home>/override_config/alertscripts/) that parse the Time parameter, they must be updated to handle the new ISO-8601 format instead of the previous locale-dependent format.

See Mail action by script for the reference parsing implementation.

Fresh installation do not need to do this.