Creating Notification Rules for Alerts

You add, manage, and edit your notification rules in VMware Aria Operations. To send notifications to a supported system, you must configure and activate the settings for outbound alerts.

Before you can create and manage your notification rules, you must configure the outbound alert plug-in instances. For details on configuring outbound plug-ins, see Adding Outbound Notification Plug-Ins.

You use the Notifications page to manage your alert notification rules. The rules determine which VMware Aria Operations alerts are sent to the supported target systems.

Notification rules are filters that limit the data sent to external systems by using outbound alert plug-ins that are supported, configured, and running. Rather than sending all alerts to all your email recipients, you can use notification rules to send specific alerts. For example, you can send health alerts for virtual machines to one or more of your network operations engineers. You can send critical alerts for selected hosts and clusters to the virtual infrastructure administrator for those objects. Before you can create and manage notification rules, you must configure the outbound alert plug-in instances.

1. To manage your notifications, from the left menu, click Configure > Alerts, and then in the right pane, click Notifications. On the toolbar, click Add to add a rule, or click the vertical ellipsis and select Edit to edit the selected rule.
2. Enter the following notification details.

   Option	Description
   Name	Name of the rule that you use to manage the rule instance.
   Description	Description of the rule.
   Notification Status	Either activate or deactivate a notification setting. Deactivating a notification will stop the alert notification for that setting and activating it will activate the alert notification.

3. Click Next.
4. Define criteria for the notification rule.

   Option	Description
   Object Scope
   Criteria	Object Type, Object, Tags, Applications, and Tiers for which you are filtering the alert notifications. After you select the type, you select the specific instance. For example, if you select Object, you then select the specific object by name and determine whether to include any child objects.
   Alert Scope
   Category	Alert Types/Subtypes, Alert Impact, or Alert Definition that triggers the alert. After you select the criteria, you can configure the specific selections associated with the criteria. For example, if you select Alert Definition, you then select the alert definition that limits the data to alerts with this definition. You can select multiple alert definitions as conditions for a notification to trigger.
   Criticality	Defined criticality of the alert that results in the data being sent to an external system. For example, if you select Critical, then the data that is sent to the external system must also be labeled as critical.
   Control State	State of the alert, either opened, assigned, or suspended.
   Notify On
   Status	Current state of the alert, either canceled, updated, or new.
   Notification Heartbeat
   Heartbeat	Set this to Active if you want to send repeat notifications for the active alerts. The frequency of the notification depends on the collection interval set for the adapter whose object is being evaluated. By default, this checkbox is not selected. Note: Setting this option to Active can cause a potential surge in the notifications that are generated.
   Advanced Filters: By Collector
   Collector/Group	Select a collector or group if you want to receive notifications for the objects that receive data from the selected collector/group.
   Note: If you do not define any alert filters in the Define Criteria tab, then the notification will be sent for all the alerts without applying any conditions for the object scope, alert scope, or alert state.

5. Click Next.
6. Select the outbound method that you want to use to send your notification.

   Option

   Description

   Outbound Method

   Select Plug-In Type: Type of plugin. Select one of the outbound alert plug-in types: Standard Email Plugin, Rest Notification Plugin, Webhook Notification Plugin, Service-Now Notification Plugin, and Slack Plugin. Select Instance: Select the configured instance for the type of plug-in. Create New Instance: You can also create a new outbound instance for the plug-in type you select. For details, see Adding Outbound Notification Plug-Ins.

7. Click Next.
8. Select the payload template.

   Option	Description
   Payload Template	Select the payload template that you want to include in the notification. Each plug-in has its default template and you can select the default template if no customization is required. The template includes additional information about the alert or the object that is displayed in the notification. You can also customize your payload for a Webhook Notification Plugin. For details on creating payload templates, see Creating Payload Templates for Outbound Plugins.
   The values in this tab differ based on the outbound plug-in you have selected in the previous step.
   Outbound Method -Standard Email Plugin	If you are configuring notifications for standard email, you can add recipients and associated information. Recipient(s). Enter the email addresses of the individuals to whom you are sending email messages that contain alert notifications. If you are sending to more than one recipient, use a semicolon (;) between addresses. Cc Recipients. Enter the email addresses of the individuals that have to be cc'd for the email. Bcc Recipients. Enter the email addresses of the individuals that have to be bcc'd for the email. Notify again. Number of minutes between notifications messages for active alerts. Leave the text box empty to send only one message per alert. Max Notifications. Number of times to send the notification for the active alert. Leave the text box empty to send only one message per alert. Delay to notify. Number of minutes to delay before sending a notification when a new alert is generated. For example, if the delay is 10 minutes and a new alert is generated, the notification is not sent for 10 minutes. If the alert is canceled in those 10 minutes, the notification is not sent. The notification delay reduces the number of notifications for alerts that are canceled during that time. Description. Enter the text to include in the email message. For example, the Attention Host Management team.
   Outbound Method - Service-Now Notification Plugin	If you are configuring notifications for a Service-Now notification plug-in, you can add instances and associated information. Caller. Enter the name of the person who reported the incident or who is affected by the incident. Category. Specify the category to which the incident belongs. Sub Category. Specify the sub-category to which the incident belongs. Business Service. Specify the business service of the incident. Contact Type. Enter the contact type. State. Enter the incident state in digits. Resolution Code. Enter the resolution code for the incident. Resolution notes. Enter the resolution notes for the incident. On hold reason. Enter the reason as to why the incident is on hold. Impact. Set the incident impact in digits. Impact measures the business criticality of the affected service. Urgency. Set urgency for the incident in digits. Urgency defines the number of days taken to resolve an incident. Priority. Enter the priority for the incident. Priority defines the sequence in which the incident must be resolved. Assignment Group. Enter the assignment group for the incident. Assigned To. Enter the details of the person to whom the incident is assigned. Severity. Set the severity for the incident in digits. Upon Approval. Specify the next steps to be taken upon incident approval. Problem. Enter the details of the related problem if it exists. Cause by change. Enter the change request which triggered the incident. Change Request. Enter the details for the related change list if it exists.
   Outbound Method - Slack Plugin	If you are configuring notifications for a Slack plugin, add the Webhook URL of Slack. For example, the Webhook URL is in the format: https://hooks.slack.com/services/T00000000/B00000000/XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX. Create and authorize an app within Slack to obtain the Webhook URL. For details on creating and authorizing an app within Slack, refer to the Slack Documentation. Once you have created the notification rule, the alerts are displayed within that particular Slack channel with a link to the alert. Click the link to view the details of the alert on the Object Summary page.

9. Click Next to test the notification
10. In the Test Notification tab, click Initiate Process to initiate the notification configuration validation process.
11. If you activate the Filter the alert definitions and objects based on criteria outlined in the Define Criteria section option, then the alert definitions and objects displayed below are based on the criteria outlined in the Define Criteria section.
12. Select an alert definition and an object for validation.
13. Click Validate Configuration.
    • Notification Validation Steps: View the steps involved in validating the notification configuration. The steps also indicate an error, if any. The validation steps differ based on the selected Outbound method.

      Outbound Method	Validation Steps
      Standard Email Plugin	Validate Criteria Establish Endpoint Connection Certificates Authentication Send Notification Note: The Standard Email Plugin does not provide a response that can be validated in VMware Aria Operations.
      SNMP Trap Plugin	Validate Criteria Establish Endpoint Connection Send Notification Note: The SNMP Trap Plugin does not provide a response that can be validated in VMware Aria Operations.
      Webhook Notification Plugin	Validate Criteria Establish Endpoint Connection Certificates Authentication Send Notification Endpoint Receives Notification
      Slack Plugin	Validate Criteria Establish Endpoint Connection Authentication Send Notification Endpoint Receives Notification
      ServiceNow Notification Plugin	Validate Criteria Establish Endpoint Connection Authentication Send Notification Endpoint Receives Notification

    • Response: The Response tab in the right pane displays if the test passed successfully or if there were any errors.
    • Body: Displays the content of the notification.
14. Click Create to create the notification rule. You can view the rule you created under Alerts > Notifications.