CA Service Management

We are running on 14.2 cumm#2 (Win 2012 R1) . We have upgraded from 12.7. We see a new behavior while creating a ticket. After opening a ticket if any of the users in the initial group are missing an email, the system logs a comment (under Log --> Activities)under the person who reported the ticket identifying that there are no email address for the specified contacts. But this information is not at all required in the log activities. Is there any way to stop this unnecessary logging on the Activities --> Log ?

Thanks

ArunavaS

Usually we see this logging in the stdlog. But not sure how/why it is getting logged in the GUI :S

Hi Arunava,

May you check the solution in the following technical document and let us know if it helps:

Document ID: TEC1543348

Title: In CA Service Desk Manager (CA SDM) 14.1, a new feature was added that allows notification failures to be logged to the ticket's Activity Log. Can this feature be disabled?
Read more at http://www.ca.com/us/support/ca-support-online/product-content/knowledgebase-articles/tec1543348.aspx

Regards,

Karen

Hello Karen,

Thanks for the article and that is what I did and outcome is 50% working

I drilled drown the behavior for this extra logging. There are two types of log appearing with the following root causes :

1. No Email address specified for the contact xxxxx [ If a contact record have no email address listed in contact profile but notification method is defined(email or something)]
2. No Notification method specified for the contact xxxxx [If a contact record have email address listed in contact profile but notification method is defined empty]

In contrary :

c. If Email address is not specified and notification method is also empty no log appears.

d. If Email address is specified and notification method is also set, no log appears.

This is an OOTB feature and we can control this behavior with a change in NX.env file. There are two variables which actually controls this feature :

1. NX_SKIP_NO_NOTIFICATION_LOG ---- controls b
2. NX_SKIP_NO_EMAIL_NOTIFICATION_LOG ----- controls a

I ran a test to set this two variable as 1 which I expected will stop the extra logging in the activities log. Now I can see the logging has been stopped for item b but for item a still it is logging an activity.

Thanks

ArunavaS

Hello ArunavaS,

Thank you for the clarification. Along with the message "AHD0537" message this has let us research further.

We went to CA Software Engineering.  Please log an Idea to address this. There was a new feature included in ITSM 14.1 which creates these Activity log entries in the web client.

Or make sure that the email addresses are populated.

Here is the response.

_________________________________________

ISSUE

AHD05377:No email address specified

A lot of these email addresses errors log. How can they be turned off?

ANSWER

This is an addition to the document TEC1268396 - How to stop email messages in the stdlog, of the forms "No notification method" or "Email address is not set."

http://www.ca.com/us/support/ca-support-online/product-content/knowledgebase-articles/tec1268396.aspx

There are two new features in SDM 14.1:

• "Notification Failures Logged in Ticket Activity Logs" and
• "Manual Notify Check to Verify Email Address"

The suggestion in this TEC document is related to what is written to the logging.

The new feature of updating the Activity Log in the ITSM 14.1 web client interface is not affected by these log variables by design.

CA Sustaining Engineer advise that there is no way to turn off these new web client logs at this point.

Please submit idea/suggestion in support web site Communities to have a way to turn off the new feature in the Activity Log.

_________________________________________

I'll put a suggestion through to the document author.

I searched but didn't find an existing Idea. If you could create an Idea, it would be appreciated - better if these come from customers.

Thanks, Kyle_R.

Kyle,

Thanks for the details and suggestion. I have posted an idea on this community : "AHD05377:No email address specified for Contact"- Mute on Activities Log

Thanks

ArunavaS

Until CA come with a solution. a small workaround can be to modify the activities tab macro in the corresponding detail form like below adding some where

like from:

<PDM_MACRO name=tab title="Activities" height=450 id=alg src="OP=SEARCH+FACTORY=alg+QBE.EQ.call_req_id=$args.persistent_id+QBE.EQ.internal=0" tooltip="Activity Log">

to:

<PDM_MACRO name=tab title="Activities" height=450 id=alg src="OP=SEARCH+FACTORY=alg+QBE.EQ.call_req_id=$args.persistent_id+QBE.EQ.internal=0+QBE.IN.action_desc='AHD05377'" tooltip="Activity Log">

to be tested for performance as this filter on string....

you may also want to add a <PDM_IF> so this stay visible for admin for more easy troubleshooting

/J

Have you considered updating all the contacts who have no email address to set their (four) notification methods to "Notification"?

Thanks Lindsay,

Often the simplest ways are the best. This is something that I do on all of our lab boxes (for various benefits), but it makes sense in a production environment also.

Thanks, Kyle_R.

Hello Lindsay,

Thanks for the suggestion. And yes we are now banging on Data Synchronization(if email address is there, notification method must be set and Vice Versa) and Data accuracy to bypass this behavior.

Thanks

ArunavaS

Hello ArunavaS,

Can you please make the "best" answer as the "Correct Answer"?

That will help people identify the important information in this thread.

I'm marking this as Assumed Answered in the meantime.

Thanks, Kyle_R.

Mod.

I came across the same thing.  I'm addressing it from 3 angles:

1) Turning on both options you mentioned above

2) Addressing how the contact records are created so that a bad email address defaults to an Empty Method

3) A data partition constraint on the Update action of each Role that's in use to prevent saving a bad pairing.  

Below is a sample of the constraint I'm planning to implement.  Basically you can't save a contact if the email address doesn't have an @ sign and a . after it.  And if you have a blank address you're not allowed to select the email method.   Same for the pager_email field combinations.

Constraint
(email_address like '%@%.%' or (email_address is null and (notify_method1 is null or notify_method1 != 1800)
and (notify_method2 is null or notify_method2 != 1800)
and (notify_method3 is null or notify_method3 != 1800)
and (notify_method4 is null or notify_method4 != 1800)
))
and
(pemail_address like '%@%.%' or (pemail_address is null and (notify_method1 is null or notify_method1 != 1803)
and (notify_method2 is null or notify_method2 != 1803)
and (notify_method3 is null or notify_method3 != 1803)
and (notify_method4 is null or notify_method4 != 1803)
))

Thanks for the feedback Brett.