Creating a notify action

To configure a Notify action, you define basic information, such as the delivery mechanism, the recipients, and the contents of the notification message. You can configure the notify action to determine any of these options at runtime.

For notifications that will (or might) be delivered by email, you also specify email-related information, such as a subject, additional message header information, attachments and data content, and a template, if any. These options can also be determined at runtime. See Entering additional email information.

 To define the delivery mechanism, recipients, and contents

1. Right-click the If Action or the Else Action panel header.
2. Select Add Action > Notify.
3. In the Mechanism field, select the notification mechanism:
   • Alert — The specified users are notified with entries in the Alert Events form. Users can view their list of alerts and open the originating requests.
   • Email — The notification is sent to the specified recipients by email. You can identify BMC Remedy AR System server recipients by their BMC Remedy AR System user or group names, or enter email addresses to notify any recipient inside or outside of BMC Remedy AR System server.
   • User Profile Default — The specified users are notified using the default method specified in their User form record.
   • Cross Reference — The specified users are notified with the mechanism specified by an integer or selection field in the current request. Use this option to determine the notification method at runtime. See Using a dynamic delivery method.
   • Other — The specified users are notified using the mechanism specified in the Other Code field. In this case, the notification is written to a file. Use this option to create your own delivery method. For example, you can set up your system to page users when they receive a notification. See Using an external delivery mechanism.
4. In the Priority field, enter a number from 0 through 10 to set the priority.
    The priority appears in the Priority field of the Alert Events form to allow the user to sort the alert list by priority.
5. In the User field, enter information to identify the recipients of the notification.
    The user field is limited to 255 characters. If you enter more than one recipient, separate each recipient by entering a hard return (press Enter). The server evaluates each line separately.
    To specify one or more recipients, enter the recipient information in any of the following formats:
   • AR System user names
     • Alert notifications are entered in the Alert Events form, with the user name appearing in the User field.
     • Email notifications are sent to the email address specified in the User form entry for the user.
   • AR System group names — BMC Remedy AR System server takes the group name from the entry in the Group form, searches the User form for all users belonging to this group, and delivers the notification for each member.
     • For Alert notifications, an entry is made in the Alert Events form for each group member.
     • Email notifications are sent to the email address specified in the User form entry for each user.
        For more information about users, groups, and the User and Group forms, see:
       • Adding-and-modifying-user-information.

       • Groups-in-BMC-Remedy-AR-System.

         Best practice
         To broadcast a notification to a large group, we recommend that you send the notification to a mailing list or alias on the email server, instead of using a BMC Remedy AR System server group. This avoids the need to create all the notifications on the BMC Remedy AR System server, which can impact performance.

   • Email addresses — In addition to obtaining the email address from the User form, in filters you can enter email addresses directly or by using a keyword, such as $USER$. This allows the Notify action to send messages to users outside of BMC Remedy AR System server, including aliases or an email address that represents a program.
      Include the email domain name in the address, for example, Joe.User@calbro.com or $USER$@calbro.com.
   • A field reference, AR System keyword, or expression — To allow the notification recipients to be determined at runtime, enter an expression using field names or keywords:
     • Type a dollar sign ($) and select the field name or keyword from the content assist list, or click the ellipsis to open the Expression Editor dialog box. For example, to send a message to the user who created the request, enter $Submitter$.
        Entering a field name indicates that the name of the user or group to notify is in that field in the current request. You must create workflow to populate the field. The field can contain one or more recipients in the form of a user name, group name, or email address, separated by hard returns. The field cannot contain another field reference.
        Make sure that the data entered in the User field at runtime does not exceed 255 characters. If it does, the notification might not be delivered to some recipients.
        When you select a keyword, the current value of the keyword is substituted at runtime.
        To resolve the contents of the User field, BMC Remedy AR System server first checks for a matching request in the User form. If found, the notification is sent to that user. If not found, the server checks for a matching request in the Group form. If the name corresponds to a group name, the notification is sent to all members of that group.
        If the contents of the User field do not match an existing User or Group definition, BMC Remedy AR System server interprets the field contents as a literal address and sends the notification to that address, using the SMTP, MAPI, or EWS mail protocols.
6. In the Text field, enter the content of the notification message.
    The size limit for this field depends on the notification type. There is no limit on the message content in an email notification. For an Alert notification, enter no more than 4000 characters.
    To include field values or keyword values in the notification text, use the Expression Editor dialog box or the content assist feature to select fields and keywords from the list. You must enter field names and keywords in the variable format, for example, $Short Description$. For information about using the expression editor, see Using buttons and menu bar items to execute active links.

Notify action example

The following figure shows an example of a Notify action. In this example, the user in the Assigned To field of the current request will receive a priority 1 notification by either Alert or an email message, depending on the default set in the recipient's User form record.

If the notification is an Alert, the contents of the Text field will appear in the Alert Text column of the Alert List, including the name of the submitter and the time stamp. If the notification is an email, the subject line will include the request ID, and the contents will include the contents of the Text field, along with a URL to the request, and the contents of the request's Short Description field.

Example Notify action
 (Click the image to expand it.)