System Center: Service Manager Engineering Team Blog

Creating notification for an unassigned Incident or Service Request in Service Manager

2013-05-16T16:29:16Z

Babulal Ghule | Support Escalation Engineer

Hi everyone, Babulal Ghule here again and in this blog post I will walk you through the steps to configure the notification workflow so that it will notify you if the assigned to user field is empty for an Incident or Service Request in System Center 2012 Service Manager (SCSM 2012).

We seem to get a few requests from customers on how to create this notification workflow as this is something that currently is not possible out of the box, however it can be achieved by using some XML magic. For this blog post I'll create a notification workflow that will notify the helpdesk every 10 minutes until the Incident or Service Request is assigned.

NOTE: For detailed steps on creating notification workflow in Service Manager, please refer this TechNet link:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh519719.aspx

Step 1: Create the notification template

Refer this TechNet article to create the template: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh519719.aspx

Step 2: Create the notification workflow (periodic subscription)

I selected the target class as Incident but if you want to notify for Service Request then select Service Request.

Add 'First assigned date' in the criteria. This field will be updated with the date/time when Incident/Service Request is assigned to a user. If this field is empty then the incident is not assigned to any user yet, so we need to check if this field isNull or isEmpty but we don't have these operators in the UI. For now, add any temporary criteria here such as "is less than or equal" to '05/05/2013' as the UI will not allow us to click Next until we specify something here. But don’t worry, we will modify this MP and add the isNull operator in the XML.

If you like, you can also add additional criteria here based on specific requirements (e.g. you have multiple helpdesks). Make sure that you add all the criteria that you need here along with first assigned date as we will not be able modify this workflow from the UI after we make our changes in XML.

In the recurring notification section, specify the criteria that suits your requirement for recurring notifications. For this scenario, I want to notify the helpdesk every 10 minutes until the incident is assigned to an analyst. If you want to notify once then you can set 'End after number of occurrences' = 1. This workflow will run every 10 minutes if thecriteria is true. This criteria will be false when incident has assigned to user.

Select the notification template and add the required recipients on the next screen.

Now we are done creating notification workflow from the UI, so it’s time to modify it using XML. To begin, export the management pack and open it in XML editor. Locate the <Criteria> section in the MP for "First assigned date" as below:

<Criteria>

<Expression>
       <SimpleExpression>
               <ValueExpressionLeft>
                <Property>$Context/Property[Type='CustomSystem_WorkItem_Library!System.WorkItem']/FirstAssignedDate$</Property>
               </ValueExpressionLeft>
                <Operator>LessEqual</Operator>
                 <ValueExpressionRight>
                <Value>2013-04-27T18:30:00</Value>
                </ValueExpressionRight>
          </SimpleExpression>
</Expression>

</Criteria>

We need to replace the lines between the tag <Expression> and </Expression> with the code below.

<UnaryExpression>
<ValueExpression>
            <Property>$Context/Property[Type='CustomSystem_WorkItem_Library!System.WorkItem']/FirstAssignedDate$</Property>
       </ValueExpression>
       <Operator>IsNull</Operator>
</UnaryExpression>

So when we’re done it will look like this:

<Criteria>
<Expression>
<UnaryExpression>
        <ValueExpression>
              <Property>$Context/Property[Type='CustomSystem_WorkItem_Library!System.WorkItem']/FirstAssignedDate$</Property>
        </ValueExpression>
           <Operator>IsNull</Operator>
      </UnaryExpression>
   </Expression>
</Criteria>

Those are all the changes we need to make so go ahead and save the management pack and re-import it back into SCSM.

Note: Once you modify and re-import the MP, do not modify it from the UI as it will break the XML code.

I have attached a sample MP with this post.

To download the MP click here

Hope this helps!

Babulal Ghule | Support Escalation Engineer | Microsoft GBS Management and Security Division

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MVP Speaker Series Presentation Tomorrow: Building Workstation and Application Deployment Automation with Service Manager and Orchestrator

2013-05-16T07:00:13Z

We are hosting another MVP Speaker Series session tomorrow (Thursday) morning at 8 A.M. Redmond time. The speaker will be Nate Lasnoski, one of the Windows Server/System Center MVPs, and one of the top speakers at the Microsoft Management Summit.

You can find the meeting invite by following this link where you can add all the meeting invites to your calendar for the rest of the series and listen in and participate.

You will need the Lync client application to join the meeting. We will also be posting the recording afterwards if you can’t make it live.

How to configure notifications for assignment/re-assignment as well as action log and user comment updates for Incidents and Service Requests in SCSM

2013-05-13T20:34:05Z

Babulal Ghule | Support Escalation Engineer

Hey there again! This is Babulal Ghule from the System Center team and today I wanted to walk you through the steps to configure the notification for assignment/re-assignment, action log/user comment updates for Incident/Service Request.

In System Center Service Manager 2010 (SCSM 2010) we used an xml based management pack to create notifications for action log/user input updates. Now with System Center 2012 Service Manager (SCSM 2012) we have new classes that we can use for notifications.

ref: http://blogs.technet.com/b/servicemanager/archive/2010/08/30/notifying-the-affected-user-when-the-analyst-has-updated-the-action-log.aspx

In this article I will cover the following scenarios:

1. Notify the Analyst when a user adds comments from the portal for an Incident or Service Request.

2. Notify the End User when the Analyst updates the action log from the console for an Incident or Service Request.

If you are using the Exchange connector to process emails to create and update emails:

3. Notify the Analyst when an end user replies to email notifications with comments (or provides new information) for an incident or Service Request.

4. Notify an End User when analysts reply to emails requesting more information (reply to assigned to user notification or analyst notification which will be logged as Analyst comments on the Incident or Service Request)

5. We will modify assignment/re-assignment management pack to notify for assignment or re-assignment of a Service Request.

Step 1: Creating Notifications

For detailed steps on creating notifications in Service Manager, please refer this TechNet link:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh519719.aspx

We also have a very good blog post on creating Notification templates here:

http://blogs.technet.com/b/servicemanager/archive/2009/09/28/creating-notification-templates-in-system-center-service-manager.aspx

Scenarios 1 and 3

First create the notification template:

Select the target class “Trouble Ticket Analyst Comments” (Click on Browse and Select All Basic classes). This contains the analyst comments for Incident and Service Request class.

If you are sending notification for incidents, to get the incident ID select ‘Has Analyst Comment ‘-> WorkItem –> ID:

If you are sending notification for Service Requests, to get the SR ID select ‘Work Item Has Comment Log‘-> WorkItem –> ID.

Using this same method you can get the Title and Status fields from the respective class as above.

To get the Assigned to user for Incident/Service Request:

To get the Analyst comments for the Incident/Service Request. (Note: This will only include recent comments):

Lastly, don’t forget to select “Send as HTML”:

Step 2: Creating the Notification workflow (subscription)

Select “When Object of selected class is created” and Target class as “Trouble Ticket Analyst Comments”:

Select the template that we created:

Add related Recipients. For Incident it looks like this:

For Service Request it looks like this:

At this point we are done creating a subscription for an action log update.

Scenarios 2 and 4

This is the same as scenarios 1 and 3 above, only here we create the notification subscription/template where the target class will be “Trouble Ticket User Comments”.

Scenario 5:

This blog post provides instructions on how to create the notification workflow for Incident assignment/re-assignment:

http://blogs.technet.com/b/servicemanager/archive/2009/12/15/custom-notification-workflow-on-incident-assignement-or-re-assignment.aspx

We will use that as a reference but we will modify it so that it will notify for Service Request assignment/re-assignment.

But first let’s understand how this Management Pack works. This MP has two main sections that we need to understand before we make our modification.

1. When to notify (criteria section)

<Rule ID="IncidentAssignmentChanges" Enabled="true" Target="SystemCenter!Microsoft.SystemCenter.SubscriptionWorkflowTarget" ConfirmDelivery="false" Remotable="true" Priority="Normal" DiscardLevel="100">
< Category>Discovery</Category>
< DataSources>
< DataSource ID="DS" TypeID="SystemCenter1!Microsoft.SystemCenter.CmdbInstanceSubscription.DataSourceModule">
< Subscription>
< RelationshipSubscription RelType="$MPElement[Name='WorkItem!System.WorkItemAssignedToUser']$" SourceType="$MPElement[Name='CoreIncident!System.WorkItem.Incident']$" TargetType="$MPElement[Name='System!System.Domain.User']$">
< AddRelationship>
< /AddRelationship>
< /RelationshipSubscription>

Our only change will be SourceType.

<Rule ID="ServiceRequestAssignmentChanges" Enabled="true" Target="SystemCenter!Microsoft.SystemCenter.SubscriptionWorkflowTarget" ConfirmDelivery="false" Remotable="true" Priority="Normal" DiscardLevel="100">
< Category>Discovery</Category>
< DataSources>
< DataSource ID="DS" TypeID="SystemCenter1!Microsoft.SystemCenter.CmdbInstanceSubscription.DataSourceModule">
< Subscription>
< RelationshipSubscription RelType="$MPElement[Name='WorkItem!System.WorkItemAssignedToUser']$" SourceType="$MPElement[Name='WorkItem_ServiceRequest!System.WorkItem.ServiceRequest']$" TargetType="$MPElement[Name='System!System.Domain.User']$">
< AddRelationship>
< /AddRelationship>
< /RelationshipSubscription>

2. Who to notify

This will decide who we send the notification to and is based on your requirements.

<WorkflowArrayParameter Name="UserAliasOrRelationships" Type="string">
< Item>$MPElement[Name='WorkItem!System.WorkItemAssignedToUser']$</Item></WorkflowArrayParameter>
< /WorkflowParameters>

Attached to this blog is a ZIP file that contains two MPs for use in all 5 scenarios.

Management Packs download MP.ZIP

Enjoy!

Babulal Ghule | Support Escalation Engineer | Microsoft GBS Management and Security Division

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Microsoft Virtual Academy: Service Manager Data Warehouse and Reporting

2013-05-01T18:06:53Z

I recently (well, that’s relative!) recorded a series of sessions on extending, customizing, and using the Service Manager data warehouse and reporting. Those are now posted on Microsoft Virtual Academy. After you watch the sessions, you can take the self-assessment test and score bragging points on Microsoft Virtual Academy. Enjoy!

Microsoft Virtual Academy: System Center 2012 SP1 Extensibility: Service Manager: Data Warehouse & Reporting - Part 1 – Overview

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/video/mva-system-center-2012-sp1-extensibility-service-manager-data-warehouse-and-reporting-part-1-overview

Microsoft Virtual Academy: System Center 2012 SP1 Extensibility: Service Manager: Data Warehouse & Reporting - Part 2 - Data Modeling

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/video/mva-system-center-2012-sp1-extensibility-service-manager-data-warehouse-and-reporting-part-2-data-modeling

Microsoft Virtual Academy: System Center 2012 SP1 Extensibility: Service Manager: Data Warehouse & Reporting - Part 3 - Data Warehouse Concepts

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/video/microsoft-virtual-academy-system-center-2012-sp1-extensibility-service-manager-data-warehouse-reporting-part3-data-warehouse-concepts.aspx

Microsoft Virtual Academy: System Center 2012 SP1 Extensibility: Service Manager: Data Warehouse & Reporting - Part 4 - Demo Authoring Data Warehouse Extensions

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/video/microsoft-virtual-academy-system-center-2012-sp1-extensibility-service-manager-data-warehouse-reporting-part4-demo-authoring-data-warehouse-extensions.aspx

KB: System Center 2012 Service Manager: Recommended OS Fixes and Updates for Management Server computers

2013-04-30T16:32:54Z

We just published a short KB that mentions the fixes and updates recommended for Microsoft System Center 2012 Service Manager Management Server computers. You can find the details here:

KB2843587 - System Center 2012 Service Manager: Recommended OS Fixes and Updates for Management Server computers (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2843587)

J.C. Hornbeck | Knowledge Engineer | Microsoft GBS Management and Security Division

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SCSM - Exchange Connector 3.0 RTM Released & Supported

2013-04-27T03:13:20Z

At long last! We have released a version of the Exchange Connector which has been thoroughly tested, passed on strict security audit process, and most importantly is officially supported! It’s been a long time coming, but finally the day is here!

This version of the Exchange Connector is just an evolution of the Exchange Connector 3.0 RC where we have fixed a few bugs and added some security-related features.

In order to use the Exchange Connector 3.0 RTM you need to:

Have System Center 2012 SP1 – Service Manager Cumulative Update 2. It is a prerequisite due to a workflow change required to support the new ability in the Exchange Connector to specify a Run As Account similar to the other connectors.
Uninstall Exchange Connector 3.0 RC first. Do this by deleting all of the Exchange Connectors you have in the Connectors view (you might want to take screenshots of the properties dialogs or something to remind you of how to set everything back up again). Then delete the Exchange Connector management pack from the Management Packs view. Then delete the .dll in the Service Manager Program Files directory.

Please see the documentation included in the download package for all the other information you need to know.

The Send Email solution is no longer included in the Exchange Connector package. We have moved it to the TechNet Gallery. It is still not a supported solution. We will work on productizing this at some point in the future. Also, keep in mind that Patrik Sundqvist (MVP) has created a version of SendEmail for service requests that is also on the TechNet Gallery.

The Exchange Connector 3.0 RC download has been taken down now. Exchange Connector 2.0 RTM is still available for customers that are using SCSM 2010, but that is still not a technically supported solution. The Exchange Connector 3.0 RTM will not work on SCSM 2010.

Thank you to everyone for your testing and patience as this critical solution has evolved.

Here is the download location:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=38791

Service Manager 2012 SP1 secondary Management Server–Cannot set availability on a health service that doesn’t exist

2013-04-22T20:07:34Z

Just a heads up, in Service Manager 2012 SP1, we made certain changes to custom actions in setup which renders fresh installs of the secondary management server incapable of connecting to the Management Group. This issue was first surfaced in a blog post at http://shaunlaughton.wordpress.com/2013/03/07/service-manager-2012-sp1-secondary-management-servercannot-set-availability-on-a-health-service-that-doesnt-exist/. Please read this blog post for a detailed explanation of the problem.

Once again, this issue ONLY impacts SCSM 2012 SP1 new installs. It does not impact those customers who are either upgrading from Service Manager 2012 RTM, or are installing only the primary management server. The recommended workaround to address this issue yourself is to install System Center Service Manager 2012 RTM and then upgrade to SP1. If for any reason you are unable to do this, please reach out to support so that they can provide assistance.

KB: Installing SharePoint Portal in Service Manager fails with "An error occurred while executing a custom action"

2013-04-11T20:31:46Z

Just a quick note to let you know about a new KB article we published. This one describes an issue where you get the following error message when trying to install SharePoint Portal in System Center 2012 Service Manager:

Configure portal SharePoint Web site
An error occurred while executing a custom action:_CreateSharePointWebSite
This upgrade attempt has failed before permanent modifications were made

For all the details please see the following:

KB2834776 - Installing SharePoint Portal in Service Manager fails with "An error occurred while executing a custom action" (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2834776)

J.C. Hornbeck | Knowledge Engineer | Microsoft GBS Management and Security Division

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Update Rollup 2 for System Center 2012 Service Pack 1–Service Manager updates

2013-04-11T18:15:21Z

Update Rollup 2 for Microsoft System Center 2012 Service Pack 1 (SP1) is now available and includes the following updates for Service Manager 2012 SP1:

Issue 1: If the number of "Manual Activities" that are displayed in the Service Manager Portal exceeds a certain limit, page loads may time out and do not render correctly. This results in a blank page.

Issue 2: Incorrect cleanup of a custom related type causes grooming on the EntityChangeLog table to stall. This causes the table to grow significantly.

Issue 3: Service requests complete unexpectedly because of a race condition between workflows.

Issue 4: The console crashes when you double-click a parent incident link on an extended incident class.

Issue 5: PowerShell tasks that were created by using the authoring tool do not run because of an incorrect reference to certain assemblies.

Issue 6: The Exchange management pack is stuck in a Pending state after management pack synchronization.

You can get all the details and a download link here:

KB2802159 - Description of Update Rollup 2 for System Center 2012 Service Pack 1 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2802159)

J.C. Hornbeck | Knowledge Engineer | Microsoft GBS Management and Security Division

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KB: Selecting a report in Service Manager fails with "Cannot impersonate user for data source 'DWDataMart'"

2013-04-11T15:07:32Z

Just a quick note to let you know about a new KB article we published. This one describes an issue where selecting a report in the System Center 2012 Service Manager console fails with the following error:

An error has occurred during report processing (rsProcessingAborted)
Cannot impersonate user for data source 'DWDataMart' (rsErrorImpersonatingUser)
Log on failed. Ensure the User name and password are correct. (rsLogonFailed)
The parameter is incorrect

For all the details please see the following:

KB2834789 - Selecting a report in Service Manager fails with "Cannot impersonate user for data source 'DWDataMart'" (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2834789)

J.C. Hornbeck | Knowledge Engineer | Microsoft GBS Management and Security Division

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