First step – Notification Rule

CI, Contract or KB Article notification - Notification rule

1.  Name – Choose a name that makes it easy to identify the notification in the Notification lists.

2.  Type – This field shows what type was selected on creation and it cannot be changed.

3.  Entity Type – Choose Entity Type from dropdown list. What is available varies due to chosen tab and if it is an Event based notification or a Scheduled.

Event based Notification: Both the main Entity Type and all its sub category are available.

Scheduled Notification: you can only choose types containing date/time field that are set to be able to trigger scheduled notifications.

4.  Description – Write a text makes it easy for you to find the notification you are looking for in the notification list.

 

Second step – Event based Condition

In this step you choose condition for the Event based Notification. In Notify on you have two choices:

•   Any property change – a notification is sent every time anything is changed on the Entity.

•   Specific property change – a notification is sent when a change is made in a specific field on the Entity. Pick this field in Select property *.

 

Notification Condition

Below the property setting you can define additional Notification Condition that shall also be fulfilled to the notification to be sent. Here you can delimitate so notification is sent only for a specified product, status, group, etc.

The condition is built of a logical hierarchical structure of Conditions and Sub conditions. The different conditions are linked by operators All (AND operator) and Any (OR operator). You can select All to require match of all the linked conditions, or Any if match any single condition from the linked conditions defined is enough. The notification is sent only if the result of the complete logic expression is true.

The section is initially displayed with one empty condition row, Add condition and Add sub condition buttons, Delete button and operator selection All/Any.

Condition: A condition row consists of three parts, a property selection dropdown, an operator and a value.

•   Property dropdown contains all available properties for the selected entity.

•   Operator is a dropdown where available alternatives differs due to property type. Could be e g equal, not equal, begins with, does not begin with, contains, does not contain, ends with, does not end with, is empty, is not empty, is null, is not null for a text field.

•   Value field is changed due to current selected property. Could be a text field, numeric field, user combo box, status combo box, etc.

Example:

In below example for a Contract Scheduled Notification a reminder should be sent 1 week (7 days) before contract End Date. Three additional conditions are defined where all have to be fulfilled. The last of the three conditions consists of two sub conditions.

The notification is sent 7 days before End date if contract  Vendor is Company and Contract owner is user John Jones and contract Status is either Active or Active (Renewed).

Contract Notification example

 

Second step – Scheduled Condition

 CI, Contract or KB Article notification - Notification Condition

In this step you choose Select reference date and when the notification shall be sent in correlation to this point in time, a number of [minutes/hours/days/weeks/month/years] [before/after]. Note! You set the time in relation to chosen date 00:00 on the System maintenance host (ask your system admin if you need to know).

There are a specific set of date fields available depending on what Entity type you have chosen in step 1. You can choose all Entity types that contains at least one date/time property.

These are the dates for the different types in basic NSP configuration:

CI> Software: Last audit date, Installation date, License expiry date.

CI> Assets: Last audit date, Purchase date, Depreciation end Date.

Contract: Termination date, Start date, End date.

KB Article: -

Below the time setting you can define additional Notification Condition that shall also be fulfilled to the notification to be sent. This condition is built similar to Event-based Condition, se above.

 

Third step – Notification Recipients

In this step you define notification recipients. This form contains list of all added recipients, possibility to add new recipient, edit or delete existing ones.

CI, Contract or KB Article notification - Recipients

To add new recipient click on Add Recipient button just above the list. Choose the Recipient type that then determime your choices in the next field:

•   User -  a individual appointed person.

•   Group – according to the alternative under Manage> People>Group.

•   Role - according to the alternative under Manage> People>Role.

•   Concerned people – persons chosen in fields on the Entity that triggers the notification.
For CIs it is Used by and Managed by. For Contracts it is Requester and Approver. For KB Article it is Author.

Last you set Notification method to Email.

To edit recipient and notification method choose Edit button in action dropdown rightmost on row in the list, or choose Delete to delete recipient.

 

Fourth step – Notification Template

Define what Template is to be used when the notification is sent. It decides the text content of your notification. You can create a New template or use an already existing (Select template). It is also possible to use an existing template, clone it and tweak it to meet your needs.

Notification Template

When you click on Select Template following form shows:

Notification Templates

This form displays a list of all existing templates. To preview the content you expand template using the arrow to the far left (1). Here you can also change what language to look at.  To select template choose Select button in action dropdown rightmost on row in the list. You can also Clone template or Delete. Templates already in use in notifications cannot be deleted.

Regardless of what choice you make, the following form is ultimately shown.

CI, Contract or KB Article notification – Edit Notification Template

1.  Name – Be sure to give the template an explanatory name so it is easy to find if you want to reuse it.

2.  Description – The description can be used to give a quick idea of what the template is used for

3.  Title – Enter Header of the Email

4.  Body – this box is used to define the email body text in HTML format. Use placeholders to add information about the specific Entity that is the origin of the notification.

5.  Tags – consists a list of all properties referred to chosen entity type. Double-click the placeholder to include it in the template along with other text. These tags will be replaced with the actual Entity value when the notification is send to the user.

6.  Add language definition – Select the language from the list to create Template for the specific language. Define Title and Body for the selected language in respective textbox. Repeat the procedure for every language needed. User will receive the notification in chosen user default language.