Servicedesk 7.5 – Enhancing Change Management Email Notifications

Servicedesk has improved its Change Management capabilities in 7.5 to include process automation and rulesets, (along with their associated actions) to make Change Management more useful to businesses requiring change process to provide structure to changes in their environments.

Problem

In the light of providing greater user functionality and configurability, we have required customers to generate their own automation rules, and email templates to more closely reflect specific business formats for email. However, the Change Management process does not currently provide email notification to assigned users when tasks are created for them to complete. The following workflow process adds that capability.

Solution

The following attached project - SendEmailOnChangeTaskAssignment, was developed to provide an email notification for the assigned users as soon as a task is created and assigned to them, using the premise that that last task created would also be the newest. It also performs the following functions and capabilities:

• Once determined, the latest task assignees are sent an email reminding them of their assignment
• A Process History message is also added, leaving a process audit trail that the system had sent an email reminder.

Implementation of the Solution

As an overview, to implement the solution, you will need to perform the following tasks.

1. Open and configure the "Send Email" and "Add Process Message that Email Has Been Sent" components in the SendEmailOnChangeTaskAssignment package to deliver the email and Process Message information that meets your specific business needs.
2. Publish the SendEmailOnChangeTaskAssignment package to your Servicedesk server.
3. Add a Process Automation Ruleset and Rule to automatically execute the published workflow.
4. Note that these instructions assume basic workflow knowledge, specifically the ability to publish a project, change component configuration, etc.

We will address the specific steps now.

Step 1 and 2 - Configuring the Send Email and Add Process Message that Email has Been Sent components, and Publishing The Process

1. Download, and open the SendEmailOnChangeTaskAssignment package to your Servicedesk server. Once downloaded and open, you should see a screenshot similar to the one below.

2. Find the Send Email Component and double- click on it. You will want to change the configuration for the fields circled in red, as shown below. Click the ellipsis next to each to modify them.

3. Click OK
4. Now double-click on the "Add Process Message that Email Has Been Sent" process message component. Change the fields circled in red to meet your specific needs.

5. Once these are properly configured, and you have saved the project, click on the top-level of the project tree in the upper left of your screen, and then click on the publishing tab. Your screen should be similar to the one below.

6. Make note of the Service Name and Method Name field values. If necessary - copy them to a text window temporarily. You will need that information when you create the automation rule.
7. Now you can publish the package. Find the publishing icon in the toolbar, and click on Publish Project.
8. Under Standalone Servers, click the box next to (local) and click Next, then Next, then Next. You will see the following screen. Make note of the URL in the red circle. Copy this to the same note pad in Step 6, for you will use this also to create the automation rule.

Step 3 - Adding Process Automation Ruleset and Rule

1. Open ProcessManager as an administrative user
2. Click on Admin>Process Automation
3. Click the chevron to the left of Change Management, and then click the Service Dashboard button.
4. You will need to create a new RuleSet, Click the Add Ruleset Button, as shown below.

5. You will see the Add RuleSet Dialog. Name this Ruleset "OnTaskCreated". Provide a description if needed. Check the Ruleset Type radio button next to Data Event. This will open the dropdown list for available events. Find the TaskCreated event. Review your work according to the screenshot below. When correct, Click Save. This completes the creation of the ruleset.

6. Now we need to create the rule. After clicking Save, you will see that the ruleset you just created, has expanded to allow for individual rule creation. Click the lightning bolt next to the OnTaskCreated Ruleset, and select Add Rule.
7. You will now see the Add Rule dialog. First, Under Condition Groups, select the "Any Group Satisfies" radio button, and click Add Group. The [Group:1] condition entry box opens. Again, select the "Any Condition satisfies" radio button., then click "Add Condition" , drop down the list of conditions and select "Any", then click the blue plus icon. This determines that the rule will run under any condition.
8. Now we need to add an action. Under Actions: Click the "Add Action": link, drop the selection action dialog down, and find "Send Change to Workflow. This is now where you will use the information that you stored in a notepad text file earlier. Paste the URL in the space for the URL, and then add the Workflow Service Name, and the Workflow Start Method Name in the correct boxes. Verify your screen matches the one below, and click the blue plus icon on the right side. Then Click Save.

9. This completes the RuleSet and Rule Configuration.

Last Steps: Testing

You should take the opportunity to test this process under different Change Management task conditions, with all of the different and varying change management tasks.

Conclusion

While this application addresses a specific need for user notification via email of assigned Change Management workflow tasks, this has many other potential application ideas. There are a lot of things that might be important in your organization that could occur when a change task is created. Your specific business requirement may dictate those. In any environment, the Send Change to Workflow rule provides a lot of flexibility.