Specifying Notification Settings for Alarms

Create email groups and custom messages to notify users when alarms are triggered.

Before you set up notifications, use NI SystemLink Server Configuration to configure the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) service on your server through STARTTLS.

1. In Systems Manager, click Alarms.
2. Under Notifications, click Strategies. A notification strategy ensures the right users receive the right information whenever an alarm is triggered.
   1. Under Selected Strategy, choose a preset notification strategy to customize or click New to create a strategy from scratch.
   2. Under Email Group, select a list of users to receive notifications. If you have not created an email group yet, leave Placeholder address group selected.
   3. Under Email Template, choose a preset message template to use or customize.
   4. Click Save.
3. On the Email Groups tab, specify the email addresses you want to receive notifications.
   1. Under Selected Group, select an existing group or click New to create a new email group.
   2. List which email addresses you want to notify.
   3. Click Save.
4. Optional: In the Email Templates tab, customize the message template you selected.
   1. Under Selected Template, select the message template you specified for the strategy.
   2. Specify a subject for the email you will want to send to users to notify them of an alarm.
   3. Decide which information you want to include in the message body. To include specific information about a system, you can use any tag property, as well as special supported parameters, as a variable in the email body. The following table describes special supported parameters for email templates that you can use in addition to any defined tag properties.

      Special Parameter	Description
      <value>	Current value of the tag when the alarm was triggered.
      <minionId>	minionId property, if the tag has one. If not, this parameter becomes the first segment of the tag's path.
      <system>	Hostname of the system associated with the tag whose value triggered the alarm.
      <alarm_link>	Link to the alarm triggered.
      <alarm_name>	Display name of the alarm triggered.
      <server_url>	Link to the SystemLink Server instance.
      <alarm_occurred_at>	Time at which the alarm was triggered.
      <alarm_severity>	The severity level of the alarm.

   4. Write the message template. The following table shows example body text for email message templates and how tags populate the variables in a template with real values from your tag properties.

      Email Message Template String	Message Using Tag Property Values
      CPU usage on '<system>' is high. CPU usage is <value>%.	CPU usage on 'test1' is high. CPU usage is 90%.
      PXI chassis in rack number '<rack_number>' is overheating.	PXI chassis in rack number '154' is overheating.

   5. Click Save.
5. If you created a new email group or template from scratch, assign them to the strategy you want to use.
   1. Click Strategies.
   2. Select the strategy you want to assign the new email group or template to.
   3. Select the Email Group and Email Template you created.
   4. Click Save.
6. Assign the strategy to an alarm rule.
   1. In Systems Manager, click Alarm Rules.
   2. Double-click the alarm rule you want to assign the notification strategy to.
   3. Under Conditions, click next to the severity level that you want to trigger an alarm notification.
   4. Under Notification Strategy, select the strategy you created or modified.
   5. Click Save.

SystemLink immediately notifies the email recipients when an is alarm is created and when it increases to a higher severity level.