Using Notification Manager › Notification Manager Concepts › REXX Programs › Defining Methods to Notification Manager

Defining Methods to Notification Manager

Methods are aliases for a REXX program and a set of parameters. For Notification Manager to notify someone, it must use REXX programs that actually know how to communicate with the outside world. For example, the NMVOICE program knows how to send speech over a phone line and accept DTMF input, and the NMPAGE program knows how to send a page to a TAP-compliant paging service.

CA provides you with a starter set of the following REXX programs to use when creating your methods:

• NMPAGE, which allows you to issue TAP-compliant alphanumeric and numeric pages through CA Automation Point's notification services
• NMTAP, which allows you to issue TAP-compliant alphanumeric and numeric pages without the use of CA Automation Point's notification services. The NMTAP REXX program can therefore be user customized to interface with paging services that are not fully TAP-compliant.
• NMPAGE2WAY, which allows you to issue a page request and receive a response to this page request using a paging service that supports either the SNPP protocol or the WCTP protocol
• NMMAILPG, which allows you to issue a page using the local email system
• NMMAIL, which allows you to notify a person or group using the local email system
• NMSPEAK, which allows you to perform speech notification using the TCP/IP network
• NMVOICE, which allows you to perform voice notification
• NMNETSND, which allows you to perform NET SEND notifications from one workstation to another using the TCP/IP network

Using these programs, CA creates the following methods in the sample Notification Manager database that is shipped with the Notification Manager component:

• Voice at work
• Voice in the car
• Voice at home
• Voice 1
• Voice 2
• Alphanumeric Pager 1
• Alphanumeric Pager 2
• Numeric Pager 1
• Numeric Pager 2
• 2-Way Pager 1
• 2-Way Pager 2
• TAP 1
• TAP 2
• EMail 1
• EMail 2
• Email pager via Arch
• Email pager via SkyTel
• Speak 1
• Speak 2
• Net Send 1
• Net Send 2

The open architecture of Notification Manager allows you to create your own REXX programs and use them to define additional methods that Notification Manager can use when attempting to notify people.

Consider the following points as you decide on the set of methods your Notification Manager installation will have:

• Method names are independent of the actual invocation string. Thus, you can choose any name for the methods you create (for example, you do not need to name a method that invokes the NMVOICE REXX program NMVOICE).
• A particular REXX program can be used to create any number of methods (usually with a different set of parameters or parameter values for each method).

While you can simply define a single method that is always used to invoke NMVOICE and another that is always used to invoke NMPAGE, it is probably not in your best interest to do so. Rather, you should use the capabilities of Notification Manager to create methods that have "personality." For example, the NMVOICE program has several parameters that specify the number of times to call a person, the number of times to let the phone ring on each call attempt, and the amount of time to wait between attempts.

You may want Notification Manager to persistently try to notify a particular person, or to run quickly through a whole list of people because you need an answer quickly. You can accomplish this by creating the following methods:

• LongVoice, which invokes NMVOICE and tells it to try to call the person 20 times at intervals of 5 minutes and let the phone ring 10 times on each try
• QuickVoice, which invokes NMVOICE and tells it to try to call the person only 1 time and to let the phone ring only 3 times

It is much easier to specify the LongVoice method during a particular time block than it is to specify the NMVOICE method and the parameters and values that make it behave like the LongVoice method.