Notify Rules Overview

At our organization we have been using the Altiris Helpdesk Module for nearly two years. In that time we have made customizations to forms, added custom lookups, and generally taken advantage of the flexibility available in the Helpdesk module. All the while we've found the technical documentation to be adequate, but sometimes a quick guide with practical examples on using the various Admin options within the Helpdesk module can be more advantageous.
Previously I covered the differences between Validation, Incident, and Routing rules. This time I plan on covering the general basic options that are found in Notify Rules and e-mail templates.

Notify Rules:

Notify Rules are those rules that send e-mail notifications from the Helpdesk module to workers, contacts, or even other specified e-mail addresses. There are two major parts to a notify rule, the rule itself and an e-mail template.

The Rule Itself

The rule part of a notify rule has five major sections. The first includes information such as the name of the rule, a small comment and which e-mail template will be used. In this example we're going to send an e-mail to the assigned worker when "Juice" is in the title of the incident.

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The second section allows you to choose who to send the e-mail to. Options include the owner of the incident, the assigned worker, the worker who created the incident, previously assigned worker, and each worker or queue that is currently active and only those queues that include an e-mail address.

Each option can be selected to be sent either To, Cc, or Bcc. Including the option to send e-mails to specified e-mail boxes that may not have either a queue or worker account associated with them. A great feature to note in this section is the "Don't send mail to worker editing the incident".

For our example we have selected "To" for the Owned by worker.

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The third section is for file attachments that will go along with the notification.

We don't happen to have anything applicable for our example, but some good examples of times you might want to include that information is when you are closing an incident that included a request to install a new software application. Perhaps you would want to include basic documentation on using the new product. In that case you should send the e-mail to the current contact and upload the document to the attachment section.

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The fourth section is much like others you've seen on rules or tasks. This specifies the conditions of when a notification rule will be executed.

For our example we've selected "Title" contains "Juice".

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The final section is unique to a notify rule. You see four check boxes listed here each with a short description next to it. It is important to note that when a notify rule is Visible you can see it as a selectable option on the edit screen of an incident.

For our example we have selected visible, but not default. This means that the box will show up, but not be automatically checked.

Also just because a rule has been selected does not mean the e-mail will be sent out. The incident must still meet the criteria you have set in the fourth section, before an e-mail notification will be generated by the Helpdesk Module.

E-Mail Templates

The second major part of a notify rule is the e-mail template. An e-mail template is exactly as it sounds. The template can be either plain text or HTML if you want it to be a little prettier. As with notify rules there is an option to attach files to e-mail templates.

I highly recommend using some of the helpdesk macros to get dynamic information into your e-mails. Items like Workitem number, title, contact, and category are great information to be sure to include when you are updating your workers with e-mails.

The most basic macro I can share with you is Workitem(column_name). When using this macro you can display information from nearly anything you find within the workitem_current_view view. Take some time and use your SQL tools to see what is within that view. You may end up finding a very simple solution to a frustrating problem you've been fighting for longer than you'll want to admit.

You can get some great ideas by looking at the built in e-mail templates and copying then modifying those items. Don't forget though that "Preview with context" can be your best friend when developing HTML e-mails.

With some careful planning you can come up with some great options for using notification rules.

At our organization we are using the typical notifications; ticket has been assigned to you or your queue, ticket modified by another worker, ticket entered on your behalf. We are also using some other combinations of options. For example we have a task that prompts our new equipment coordinator to enter a note with a specific type of comment that then posts the update with a custom action. That custom action is keyed to a notify rule that e-mails the contact and their department representative that work on a new computer has been scheduled with any additional comment that our equipment coordinator may have made to the incident.

The most important advice I can give you is to take some time and map out your business processes. As we cover each of these rule types you will often find that many things you are currently doing manually can be done automatically with these rules. Notifying customers, workers, and even teams can be done easily by looking at these rules.