Notifications question

[Brian Bergin]

I've not had access to my cell carrier until recently so I've not tried setting them up until now.  What I'm finding is if I want to set up a global critical notice I

cannot do that with a cell phone.  I can to my work e-mail but not my cell.  I have to create individual notices for each customer.  With 4 now that's not a problem but if that grows to dozens after the TBA goes RTM that would be a real pain.  There needs to be a way to create notices on a global scale or by putting a check box in a list of customers so that we can pick and choose.  Doing it one at a time will be very time consuming especially if you're looking for the same information from multiple customers.

BTW, since I am new to notices if I've missed something let me know.

Thanks...

[Michael Whitley]

Hi Brian,

If you would like to set up a global critical notification to go to your cell phone, you can. Follow these steps:

1. Ensure you have your cell phone added to your global contact. To do this: log into the portal, Click on Contacts, Choose your Name, then fill out your mobile information and click save.

2. Then click on Notifications > Create Notification Rule

3. Choose the following settings:

Customer: All

Severity: Critical

Contact: (Your Contact Name - See Step 1)

Method: (Your mobile Number)

Take note of the total number and frequency of the events in the list below, this gives a good indication of the number of text messages you might receive in the future from this rule.

4. Click "Create Notification Rule" button

That should do it! If I have misunderstood the nature of your question I apologize in advance.

The concept you have suggested of having check boxes next to customers is a good idea. I will make a note.

Thanks!

Michael Whitley

[Brian Bergin]

Michael,

That's just it, when I do that all I see in the drop down is my work e-mail address under Method.  I've moved around my cell phones in the portal as well to ensure that wasn't the issue buy my cell just doesn't show up as an option.

[Michael Whitley]

Thanks Brian. We will take a look and get back with you in this thread.

[Michael Whitley]

One thing to mention is that the Thunderbolt Portal has 2 "levels" of Contacts.

The first level is Global Contacts; this is for you and perhaps the folks you work with on a daily basis at your company. This contact listing is available when you first log into the portal in the left hand navigation under "Overview", "Notifications", "Reports", "Contacts" etc.

The second level is Customer Contacts. These contacts are tied to the customer account and are intended to be specific to that customer. Perhaps an IT contact at the customer, or the business owner. This contact listing is available in the left hand navigation when working with a given customer.

From looking at your contact configuration it appears you have configured your mobile number under a contact in the Customer Contacts scope rather than the Global Contacts scope. This would explain why you are only able to set the mobile number as a method after you have selected a given customer.

So try setting up the mobile number under your contact at the Global level and see if that works and let me know.

Thanks,

Michael

[Brian Bergin]

Yes, that works.  Perhaps a global contact should not be modifiable under individual customers?  Also, we should be able to select more than one notification method.  I carry 2 cell phones becuase service isn't great in the NC mountains but it looks like I'll have to create a rule for both phones each time.

[Marcos Hernandez]

Brian,

We are currently working on ideas to apply "templates" to customers, either when they are provisioned or after they are provisioned. These templates you would create and customize, and they would allow you to:

1) Define, per device class, a set of monitors. Example: If TBA discovers a Server, enable the "Host Connectivity" and the "IP address change" monitors.

2) Define, per template, recipient (or recipients) for the alerts/notifications.

3) Define, per template, reports that you want created and delivered (to the appropriate recipients)

What do you think about this approach?

Thanks,

Marcos

[Brian Bergin]

Templates are all well nice and good, but you can't account for every situation up front.  If in a year's time I want to create a rule and have it applied to every customer and I have 50 I'm certainly not going to be happy if I have to apply that template to one customer at a time.  The ability to create a rule than have a list of customers where I can either click "All" or put a check box next to each one I want the rule applied to will be much faster.  Almost like selecting which e-mails one wishes to delete in Gmail, you can click All of them or just some of them then click Delete.  Much faster than doing it one at a time.

[Marcos Hernandez]

We will be able to deliver what you are asking for with a combination of templates and multiple selection tool, at the customer level.

Thanks for the feedback.

Marcos