The native xymon alert config is easier to read than Big Brother but it doesn't free me up from writing elaborate rules. Right now it takes ****25**** rules to cover our shift changes, and that's just for one set of alerts.
Look at Monday mornings. Nadja in Singapore started at 9 pm EST Sunday night and she's covering until 5:00 am EST. Sam in England starts at 4:00 am EST. The US guys start at 8:00 am EST. So I've got a rule from 9:00 pm to midnight Sundays, then 12:00-am-4:00 am Monday, another rule from 4:00am to 5:00 am Monday, and a third rule from 5:00 am to 8:00 am when the US guys start.... it's just endless. There's another set for Tuesday-Thursday and then more for Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
The operations people aren't going to change everyone's schedule just to make configuring the paging alerts easier! Ideally they should be able to enter shifts and coverage changes into some sort of sane interface and have the paging system know what to do.