Creating Email Templates to get data from parent work items
Sean_Terry
Customer Advanced IT Monkey ✭✭✭
We have just created an SCSM 2019 environment and we want create email templates to get parent work item data. We have this forum item Notification for Activities (microsoft.com) but maybe some of the data is missing because the blog linked seems to have moved.
I've taken this screenshot from the link above. We have a situation with RA activities within the PA. We want to include CR data in the RA emails:-
I have some old templates where we have the code from the article that appears within the email:
In an ideal world, we would have code/email that could be used for CR/SRs so we can use a single process through the Cireson Notify Analyst. We just need to include some CR/SR data in the email to go with the RA data.
From the page I think I need a MP that has been updated to include an alias for this 'CustomSystem_WorkItem_Activity_Library' shown above? There may be more to it though. I was looking for some advice from the Cireson Community to cover what I'm missing :) Maybe there are some posts I'm missing that covers the xml requirements. I would be creating a new MP.
If anyone can offer some guidance on this would be really appreciated.
Answers
@Sean_Terry - There's a new product from Cireson called Notification Activity that may actually help with this.
Install Notification Activity (cireson.com)
You could potentially replace your Notify Analyst notifications with Notification Activity notifications. There is a new notification template editor that comes with Notification Activity that lets you add "Root Parent" properties to your templates.
@Justin_Workman Thanks for the reply. I briefly looked at the app. I noticed the activity doesn't have a prefix option yet which isn't the end of the world. I did struggle to get it working in our dev environment so it was something I was going to revisit. Maybe I should try again and raise a support call?
This is the error in the log I got:
2022-03-17 09:46:45.277 - [1 of 1] Failed to send email to 'sean.terry@-----': Server does not support secure connections.
Server does not support secure connections.
at System.Net.Mail.SmtpConnection.GetConnection(ServicePoint servicePoint)
at System.Net.Mail.SmtpClient.GetConnection()
at System.Net.Mail.SmtpClient.Send(MailMessage message)
at Cireson.Notification.Activity.Workflow.ActivityInProgressWorkflow.MainCodeActivity_ExecuteCode(Object sender, EventArgs e)
at Cireson.Notification.Activity.Workflow.ActivityInProgressWorkflow.Execute(ActivityExecutionContext executionContext)
Server does not support secure connections.
at System.Net.Mail.SmtpConnection.GetConnection(ServicePoint servicePoint)
at System.Net.Mail.SmtpClient.GetConnection()
at System.Net.Mail.SmtpClient.Send(MailMessage message)
at Cireson.Notification.Activity.Workflow.ActivityInProgressWorkflow.MainCodeActivity_ExecuteCode(Object sender, EventArgs e)
at Cireson.Notification.Activity.Workflow.ActivityInProgressWorkflow.Execute(ActivityExecutionContext executionContext)
Did you have Use SSL checked in the Notification Activity Settings? Try unchecking that.
Thanks. I will take a look again. I remember tweaking a few things.
@Justin_Workman It looks like I can create notification templates ok and select what I hope is parent WI data. I just can't use it as part of the notify analyst app:
Within the notify analyst settings I can't find the highlighted template to select it:
I guess its related to the targeted class, so the notify analyst app doesn't pick it up:
If the Notification app allows us to change the class then I guess it could be used. It's greyed out for me.
@Sean_Terry - because of the unique template variables that Notification Activity uses, it can only use its own templates. My suggestion is to replace Notify Analyst RA notifications with Notification Activities immediately preceding your RAs.
@Justin_Workman Thanks. I'll speak to the team and see what we can do.
The only issue I can think of, is when a RA is added to an existing ticket, instead of being predefined.
We had separate processes for SR/CR RAs. We were looking to use the notify analyst app to combine them into a single process. It was just this issue with CRs, where the RAs sit inside a PA. We hoped to get the CR data on the email.
I guess my initial impression of the notification activities was that it would be good to replace some RBs that are used for notifications.
Unchecking SSL helped. The email came through ok. Thanks. I can see the notification activity being useful for some templates.
Unfortunately, I don't think it will help us with change requests which is what prompted my initial question. We have RA activities within a PA. I think the notification activity may complete before approvers are added.
If Cireson was able to release functionality to create email templates, similar to this notification app, but for any class, that could cover my question. Having a template that is triggered from the Cireson Notify Analyst app could cover the different examples that crop up in our environment.
I have the technet link in the first post but I think its missing some data about the MP manipulation. Not sure if there are any other guides/KAs out there?