How to Setup Notification for an Activity

Implementing Policy › Policy Implementation › Notifications › How to Setup Notification for an Activity

How to Setup Notification for an Activity

You can define a notification that is sent for a specific activity. An activity is an action that someone performs, such as resolving a ticket, sending a managed survey, running the Knowledge Report Card, and so on. Even daily activities such as returning a call, canceling or closing a record, increasing priority, or updating status are activities that can result in a notification being sent.

The following diagram shows how to setup notification for an activity:

This diagram shows how to setup notification for an activity.

Follow these steps:

Open the CA SDM Web UI.
Verify the Prerequisites.
If you do not want to use a predefined message template, Create a Message Template.
If you do not want to use a predefined notification rule, Create a Notification Rule.
If you do not want to use a predefined activity association, Create an Activity Association.
If you do not want to use a predefined activity notification, Create an Activity Notification.

Open CA SDM Web UI

Conventional: Primary or secondary servers
Advanced availability: Application or background servers

Verify the Prerequisites

Verify the following prerequisites, before you being the setup:

Installed the option to add URL in the notification.
Verified the notification method for the recipient.
If you want to send a manual notification to an email address that is not associated with a contact, allow temporary email address

Install the Option to Add URL Hyperlinks to Notifications

The web_url field in the Change_Request and Workflow_Task tables holds a URL value that allows a user to access a particular change order or workflow task through the web interface. When used in email notifications, a user can click the URL and can go to the web interface without any further querying.

Before you can implement the URL hyperlinks in notifications, configure the system as follows:

Install and configure the CA SDM web interface. For more information about configuring the CA SDM web interface, see the Implementation Guide.
Using the Options Manager, configure and install the web_cgi_url option to specify the location of the CA SDM web engine. For example, http://hostname/scripts/pdmcgi.exe. For advanced availability configuration, the hostname should point to the application server or the load balancer.

Verify the Notification Method for the Recipient

Ensure that the contact to whom you want to send the notification, is assigned to that particular notification method.

Follow these steps:

Select Security and Role Management, Contacts on the Administration tab.
The Contact Search page opens.
Search for the contact using the filter and select the contact that you want to notify from the search result.
The contact detail page opens.
Select Notification on the Contact Details tab.
Verify the notification method. Based on your notification priority, choose the required option. For example, you want to send an email notification for any emergency notification. Select the Email option in the Emergency field.
To change the notification method, click Edit, change the option, and click Save.
The notification method for the contact is verified.

Allow Temporary Email Addresses

A temporary email address is an address that is not associated with a contact in the system. Temporary email addresses are useful in circumstances such as the following one:

An end user is out of the office or is having difficulty accessing their standard email account.
The analyst wants to use email to track interactions with the user.
The analyst sends a manual notification to a temporary email address for the user.
The analyst can view the activity log, which is updated with the manual notification.

Recipients cannot reply to temporary addresses when their email address is not associated with a contact record or does not have permission to update the ticket.

Note: Temporary email addresses are always SMTP email addresses, and are supported only when the Preferred Method supports SMTP. For information about how to set up temporary email addresses, see the Online Help.

Follow these steps:

Select Options Manager, Notifications on the Administration tab.
The Option List page opens.
Click notification_allow_temp_address.
The notification_allow_temp_address Options Detail page opens.
Click Edit.
Click Install.
The notification_allow_temp_address Options Detail page opens.
Click Close Window.
Restart the CA SDM servers. Fore more information about how to start the CA SDM server, depending on your CA SDM configuration, see the Restart the CA SDM servers scenario or find the information in the Administration Guide.
Temporary email addresses are now allowed for manual notifications.

Create Message Templates

Create a message template that contains the values to use for the notification message. When you send multiple notification messages, you can use the message templates to simplify your workload.

Note: If multi-tenancy is installed, select the appropriate tenant from the drop-down list. The public (shared) option creates the object for all tenants.

Follow these steps:

Select Notifications, Message Templates from the Administration tab.
The Message Template List page opens.
Click Create New.
The Create New Message Template page opens.
Complete the fields as appropriate.
Symbol

Defines a unique identifier for this message template.

Object Type

Specifies the object type associated with this template. For example, select Request/ Incident/ Problem for any notification related to a ticket.

Record Status

Specifies the status of the template as either active or inactive. Set the status to Active to use the message template.

Auto Notification

Specifies to send the notification associated with this template automatically, when the activity occurs. For example, you set up an initial notification, set up the objects to notify, and set up the message template, but you are not ready to turn on the notifications. In this case, you do not select Auto Notification. When you are ready to start automatic notifications, you select the check box. The notification becomes active and occurs as defined.

Notify Level

Indicates the relative importance of sending this notification. For example, select Emergency if you want to send the email notification to the contact immediately when the associated activity occurs.

Notification Message Title

Specifies the summary title of the message. You can use variables to insert the incident number in the message title. For example, @{call_req_id.type.sym} @{call_req_id.ref_num} @{type.sym}.

Notification Message Body
Specifies the content of the message. You can use variables to insert the analyst name, end-user name, and description into the message. For example,
```
@{call_req_id.type.sym} @{call_req_id.ref_num} @{type.sym}.
```
```
Assigned to: @{call_req_id.assignee.combo_name}
```
```
Customer: @{call_req_id.customer.combo_name}
```
```
Description: @{call_req_id.description}
```
```
Click on the following URL to view:
```
```
@{call_req_id.web_url}
```
You can use the ARTIFACT keyword to specify how artifacts are handled in outbound messages, message templates, notifications, and auto-replies. The ARTIFACT keyword uses the following values:
- NONE—Specifies no validation of artifacts. This value is the same as not using the keyword.
- PROTECTED—Validates a ticket against the hash for confirmation. If confirmation fails, the artifact is considered invalid and filtering fails when filtering searching for an artifact ({{object_id}}).
- SECURE—Decrypts the ticket number. If the value is not a valid password, the artifact is considered invalid and filtering fails when filtering is searching for an artifact ({{object_id}}).
HTML Message

Specifies the HTML message that is displayed to the recipient. If the recipient receives the message on an external device, such as a cell phone or PDA, the message displays in plain text only. Click Edit HTML Message to open the HTML Editor.

Quick View

Displays the message as it appears to the recipient.

HTML Source

Displays the message in the HTML source code.
Click Save.
The message template is created.

Create a Notification Rule

Create the notification rule to specify the contacts to be notified and under what circumstances.

Note: If multi-tenancy is installed, select the appropriate tenant from the drop-down list. The public (shared) option creates the object for all tenants.

Follow these steps:

Select Notifications, Notification Rules from the Administration tab.
The Notification Rule List page opens.
Click Create New.
The Create New Notification Rule page opens.
Complete the following fields:

Symbol

Defines a unique identifier for this notification rule. For example, enter Ticket Description Update.

Object Type

Defines the object to which the rule applies. For example, select Request/ Incident/ Problem for an activity related to a ticket.
Click Save & Continue.
Click Condition to select the macro you can use to define a condition for this rule. Do one of the following actions to define the condition:
Note: A notification rule without a condition notifies all contacts every time the activity occurs.
- Search for the macro from the list and select it.
- Click Create New to create a macro.
Click Message Template to add a message template that you have created for this rule. Do one of the following:
- Search for the template from the list and select it.
- Click Create New to create a message template.
Choose the appropriate contacts to notify from the following tabs:
Note: Use the Update Contacts button that appears on each tab to search for and select more contacts to notify.

Object Contacts

Displays the available organizations, vendors, and configuration items for the selected Object type that receive notification about tickets. For example, you can select Affected End User or Affected End User's Admin Org to notify.

Contacts

Displays the individuals who are added to the notification rule, regardless of their association with the ticket.

Contact Types

Displays the users who are defined within the notification rule with the same classification, such as analyst or customer.
Click Save.
The notification rule is created.

Create an Activity Association

Associate an activity with the object attribute to track the changes to the related object attribute. For example, associate Field Update activity with the object attribute of the Description field of an incident record. This enables you to send a notification whenever the description of the incident is updated. An object attribute can have only one activity notification.

Note: If multi-tenancy is installed, select the appropriate tenant from the drop-down list. The public (shared) option creates the object for all tenants.

Follow these steps:

Select Notifications, Activity Associations on the Administration tab.
The Activity Association List page opens.
Click Create New.
The Create New Activity Association Type page opens.
Complete the following fields:

Symbol

Defines a unique identifier for this association.

Code

Defines an internal code for the activity association.

Object Type

Specifies the name of the object to which the attribute applies. For example, select Request/ Incident/ Problem.

Object Type Attribute

Defines the object attribute to which the activity type is associated. For example, enter the object attribute of the Description field of an incident record.

Activity Type

Indicates the type of activity. For example, select Field Update to check when the selected object attribute is updated.

Log Me

Determines if this activity association creates a log entry in the Audit Log.
Click Save.
The Activity Association Type Detail page opens.
Click Close window.
The activity association is created.

Create an Activity Notification

Associate the activity with a notification. When the activity takes place, the associated notification is sent to the selected contacts.

Note: If multi-tenancy is installed, select the appropriate tenant from the drop-down list. The public (shared) option creates the object for all tenants. You cannot maintain different Manual Notify activity notifications per tenant, or copy a Manual Notify activity notification.

Follow these steps:

Select Notifications, Activity Notifications from the Administration tab.
The Activity Notification List page opens.
Click Create New.
The Create New Activity Notification page opens.
Complete the following fields:

Symbol

Defines a unique identifier for this activity notification.

Code

Defines an internal code for the activity notification.

Activity Valid for

Specifies the object to which this activity applies.
Click Save & Continue.
The Update Activity Notification page opens.
Complete the following fields:
Internal

Specifies if the activity notification is available only to internal employees or visible to end users.

Record Status

Defines if the activity notification is active or inactive. Set the status to active to use the activity association.

Related Ticket Activity
Specifies if the activity log on a ticket is propagated to all related tickets. The activity log propagation is only valid for related incidents, problems, and change orders.

Note: If you use multi-tenancy, do the following actions:
- Specify the appropriate tenant type from the Related Ticket Activity drop-down list.
- Enter the name of the tenant in the tenant field, or click the search icon to search for a tenant.
Object Type

Specifies the name of the object to which the activity applies.
Select the Notification Rules tab and click Update Notification Rules. Do one of the following actions:
- Enter the search criteria, click Search, and select the notification rule from the search result.
- Click Create New to create a notification rule.
(If you want to send a survey to the recipient of the notification) Select the Survey tab and define a survey notification. Surveys let you collect and analyze the customer feedback. An activity log is generated when a survey notification is sent and when one is received back from a customer.
Note: The Survey tab applies to all object types except Knowledge Documents, Knowledge Document Comments, and Knowledge Report Card. When specified from the Object Type list, the Emails tab appears instead of the Survey tab on the Update Activity Notification page. From the Emails tab, you can search for one or more email messages to associate with this notification or define a new one.
(If you want to trigger an event after the notification is sent) Select the Events tab. Events are procedures that an issue management system follows after a certain amount of time has elapsed. When the activity notification is triggered, the selected events occur. For example, update the status of the incident to Close. Search for the event and click Update Events button to add the event to an activity notification.
Click Save.
The Activity Notification Detail page opens.
Click Close Window.
The activity notification is created. If an error occurs on the outgoing mail server, email notifications are not sent and queue in the $NX_ROOT/site/mail_queue directory. When the mail server becomes active again, after an interval it processes and sends email. You can set the email retry interval variable to recycle the email that was queued when the mail server was busy.

Notification email messages that the outgoing mail server fails to send are resubmitted until you do one of the following actions:
- Stop the Mail Daemon (pdm_mail_nxd) that handles outbound email notifications.
- Manually delete the messages from the $NX_ROOT/site/mail_queue directory.

Define Survey Notifications

Complete the following fields, as appropriate:

Send Survey: Indicates whether to activate or deactivate the survey. If selected, the survey is sent to the contact when the selected activity notification is triggered.
Default Survey: Specify a default survey using the search icon or specify your own in the text box.
Survey Message Title: Enter the title for the survey.
Survey Message Body: Enter a message for the contact. When a contact receives notification of a survey, the message includes a URL that they can access from their web browser to find and fill out the survey form.

Set the Email Retry Interval Variable

You can define the time interval (in seconds) to retry failed attempts to send outgoing email to the mail server.

Note: CA SDM does not retry sending messages that the outgoing mail server accepts, but cannot be delivered. For these messages, the outgoing mail server retry capabilities and policies, if any, are in effect.

Retries are on a per-message basis. If the mail server is unavailable for a period, each message is retried when its own timer expires, rather than all the messages being sent at once. However, if you restart the outgoing mail daemon, all unsent messages attempt to be sent at that time, and if they all fail to be sent, their retry timers are all reset at the same time.

The setting (NX_EMAIL_RETRY_INTERVAL) in the NX.env file controls the retry interval. You can change the default retry interval setting on one or more servers.

Follow these steps:

Log in to the following server, depending on your CA SDM configuration:
- Conventional: Primary server
- Advanced availability: Background server.
Navigate to the $NX_ROOT directory
Use a text editor such as WordPad to open the NX.env file.
Modify the value of to the NX_EMAIL_RETRY_INTERVAL interval you want as follows:
```
NX_EMAIL_RETRY_INTERVAL=number_of_seconds
```
NX_EMAIL_RETRY_INTERVAL

Defines the time interval (in seconds) to retry failed email attempts.

number_of_seconds

Specifies the number of seconds for each email retry interval. The default time is 600 seconds (10 minutes). The minimum value that you can use is 20 seconds. If you set a value that is less than the minimum of 20 seconds or more than 2000000 seconds, the default value of 10 minutes is used.
Save and close the file.
Restart the CA SDM servers. Fore more information about how to start the CA SDM server, depending on your CA SDM configuration, see the Restart the CA SDM servers scenario or find the information in the Administration Guide.
The change takes effect.