Using Notification Manager › Notification Manager Overview › Notification Manager Scenarios

Notification Manager Scenarios

Here are some examples of Notification Manager's capabilities.

Example 1:

Suppose you determine that when a particular JES is having difficulties, you need to notify the lead JES systems programmer, Jim Smith. The CA Automation Point rule that trapped the error message from JES would contain this clause:

REXX(NMFIND PERSON(JIM SMITH) TELL('JES is down'))

Notification Manager uses its database technology (which is based on a relational database) to determine which communications method it should use to contact Jim Smith based on the time and day. Notification Manager proceeds to contact Jim Smith and relay the message according to the following:

• If the notification method was CA Automation Point voice technology, Jim receives a phone call at the phone number pointed to by his notification schedule.
• If the notification method was a numeric pager, Notification Manager pages Jim with the numeric message consisting of the phone number that he needs to call and an ID number authorizing him to receive the voice message.
• If the appropriate notification method was an alphanumeric pager, the message displays on Jim's pager with a phone number and ID that he can use to get any information that was not sent by his pager. (For example, the message to be sent may be longer than his paging service supports.)
• If the notification method was CA Automation Point email technology, Jim receives an email message at the email address pointed to by his notification schedule.

Important! You can support longer text notification with the email method than you can support with the voice and paging methods.

Example 2:

Extending the previous example, suppose you have written a REXX program that obtains control whenever JES is down and you have determined that you do not know how to handle the situation. Thus, you want to allow Jim to specify what should be done about JES being down. You can code a call to Notification Manager within your REXX program as follows:

CALL NMFIND.REX "PERSON(JIM SMITH) TELL('JES is down')",
  "ASK('What should I do', 'WARM START', 'COLD START')"

Your program returns a value of 1 from NMFIND if Jim wants it to warm-start JES (because WARM START is the first answer) and a value of 2 if Jim wants it to cold-start JES (because COLD START is the second answer).

Example 3:

Alternately, you may want to code REXX programs that handle various situations, and then code your automation so that Notification Manager invokes those programs based on the response it gets from the person it calls. For example, you could code the following invocation of Notification Manager in your rules file:

REXX(NMFIND PERSON(JIM SMITH) TELL('JES IS DOWN')
  ASK('What should I do,
      WARM START :: JESSTART.REX WARM,
      COLD START :: JESSTART.REX COLD,
      IPL THE SYSTEM :: IPLSYS.REX'))

Note: The previous example is split across lines for presentation on the page. However, when you enter this code, it must be on a single line.

If Jim asks for a warm start, Notification Manager will run the JESSTART REXX program with a parameter of WARM. If Jim asks for a cold start, Notification Manager will run the JESSTART REXX program with a parameter of COLD. If Jim asks for a system IPL, Notification Manager will run the IPLSYS REXX program.

Notification Manager also supports group definition and notification. For example, if you define a group called CICS_SYS_PROGS, you could replace the PERSON(JIM SMITH) in the previous examples with GROUP(CICS_SYS_PROGS). Instead of trying to contact just Jim Smith, Notification Manager systematically attempts to contact each member of the CICS_SYS_PROGS group until someone is successfully contacted. You can also tell Notification Manager to notify all members of the group by defining the group as a broadcast group.