N1 Service Provisioning System 4.1 User's Guide

Working with Notifications

You can be notified when any system, administrative, or custom event that you specify occurs. You can define a notification rule to apply to a single host or a host set, to an event containing a particular message, to be triggered by an event of a specified severity, or by an event of that severity or higher. You can specify what email address or addresses a notification will be sent to.

When you installed the provisioning software, you specified:

the email address from which the provisioning software sends notifications
the subject line that should appear in the header of notification email messages

The notification email address is set during installation of the provisioning software, and the default subject line text is “N1 Service Provisioning System Notification.”

Notifications User Interface

The Notifications Page

The plans page list notifications, view notifications details, and create notifications.

Rule: A user definable text string that names the notification object. By default, the notifications are listed in alphabetical order by notification name.
Description: An optional user defined text string that describes the notification object. This attribute is not used by the provisioning software but can provide meaningful information to the user.

Action: Links that take you to other notification related pages to either create a new notification or view more information about a notification.
(Check Box): Marks a notification for inclusion when one of the actions are clicked in the Actions for Checked plans area. When clicked, Actions for Checked plans delete all checked notifications.
Actions for Checked Plans: From this area you can delete notification(s).

The Notifications Details Page

The Notifications Details page allows you to view and edit a notification's information and attributes. Along with notification information and attributes this page contains buttons that allow you to save, save as, and delete a notification.

Rule

A text filed that allows you to name an new notification or change the name of an existing notification.

Description

A text filed that allows you to describe the notification object.

For Events meeting ALL of the Following Criteria

This section of the notifications details page allows you to define the criteria for notifications. Within in this section there are two radio buttons (Event Type and Event Severity) that are mutually exclusive. By selecting on, you deselect the other.

Event Type

Selecting this radio button enable the associated pull down menu that allows you to select from a list of events that will trigger a notification. The menu include the following events:

Any Event
Plan Starts
Plan Ends Abnormally
Plan Completes normally
Comparison Starts
Comparison Ends Abnormally
Comparison Completes normally
System Events
Administrative Events
Custom Events

Event Severity

Selecting this radio button enable the two associated pull down menus that allows you to select from a list of thresholds that will trigger a notification. The left menu include the following levels of severity.

Information
Warning
Error

The right menu include the following logical operators that sets limits on the severity level.

This Severity Only
This Severity or Worse

Event Text Contains

A text filed that allows you specify the body of the email message.

Event Occurs

This section has two fields that determines which host or hosts will be monitored of the specified event.

On Host

A text box that allow you to specify which host to monitor for the specified event. If this field is left empty then you can specify a host set in the following field.

Or On Host Set

A pull down menu that allow you to specify which host set to monitor for the specified event. If this on host field is left empty then this field is evaluated.

Take The Following Action

A text box that allow you to specify one or more email addresses to send a notification when a triggering event is detected.

Buttons

By clicking one of these buttons you initiate one of the following functions.

Save: Saves the notification using the current name.
Save As: Saves the notification using the different user specified name.
Delete: Removes the notification from the database.
Cancel: Takes you to the notifications page without saving anything.

How To View Notifications

Step

In the left-hand navigation menu, click notification rules.

The HTML user interface displays the notifications page, which lists the notifications already saved in to the database.

How To View Notifications Details

Steps

In the left-hand navigation menu, click notification rules.

The HTML user interface displays the notifications page, which lists the notifications already saved in to the database.

Find the row listing the notification you're interested in, and click details.

The HTML user interface displays a notifications Details page for the notification.

How To Create Notifications

Steps

In the left-hand navigation menu, click notification rules.

The HTML user interface displays the notifications page, which lists the notifications already saved in to the database.

In the top row of the table listing rules, enter a name and a brief description for the rule you want to create, and click create.

The HTML user interface displays the Notification Rules Details page.

Use the controls on this page to specify:
- the event or events that will trigger the notification
- the email address that the notification should be sent to.

Select an event type from the Event Type drop-down list, or select a severity level.

Events

You can create a notification rule for any of the following events:
- any event that occurs
- a plan starts
- a plan ends abnormally
- a plan completes normally
- a comparison starts
- a comparison ends abnormally
- a comparison ends normally
- any system event occurs
- any administrative event occurs
- a custom event occurs
Severity Levels

The severity levels you can choose from are:
- Information
- Warning
- Error
You can specify whether you want the notification to be triggered when an event of a particular severity occurs, or whether an event of that severity or higher occurs. To determine what the severity of a particular type of event is, refer to Table 8–2.

Choose This Severity Only or This Severity or Worse from the drop-down list.

If you want to select events based on the messages they automatically generate, you can specify part or all of an event text message in the event text contains field.

If you want to match a specific Event message, refer to the list of event messages in Table 8–1. You can use special character * to match any number of characters.

If you want to specify that this rule applies only when events occur on a particular host or a particular host set, enter the name of a hosts or hosts in the on host field or select a host set from the on host set drop-down list. To specify multiple hosts by name, lists the names in the on host field and separate them with spaces, semicolons, or commas.

Enter an email address for the recipient of this notification.

You can specify multiple addresses by separating them with spaces, semicolons, or commas.

When you have finished specifying the notification rule, click save.

The HTML user interface saves the notification rule, which will now be listed on the Notification Rules page.