Sending out the most recent Analyst Comment from the Action Log in Service Manager 2012

When an analyst adds a comment to the action log, it may be desirable to send this new comment out to the affected user with a nice email update like this:

This blog post walks through how to do it.

Firstly, in order to get a nicer looking email like the one above, start by creating the email in word how you want it to look:

I use these menu options to get my table:

and when done, save this as an HTML doc:

Open the HTML file in notepad or your text editor of choice.

Then create a notification template based on the class ‘Trouble Ticket Analyst Comments’

Copy the HTML from your text editor into the Service Manager template and don’t forget to click the “send as HTML’ checkbox!!!:

You remembered to check ‘Send as HTML’ right? I always forget that one Smile

And then you can add your values. I came across some slightly bizarre behavior here (if I figure out the ins-and-outs of this, I will blog it, or if you know – please feel free to comment Smile ) in that you had to add the value in a different way depending on if it is a service request or incident being updated. Therefore, in order for this to apply to both incidents and service requests, every value you insert has to be inserted twice using a slightly different format.

Let’s start with the subject line:

To add the ID if it’s an incident, click the Insert button, then’ Has Analyst Comment’, then in Available Properties, type ID, scroll down and choose the ID value shown under Work Item and click the Add button:

The only difference for the SR value, is that you click ‘Work Item has comment log’ rather than ‘Has Analyst Comment’, then in Available Properties, type ID, and then scroll down and choose the ID value shown under work item and click the Add button:

NOTE be sure to have a space between 2 strings, as shown below

$Context/Path[Relationship='CustomSystem_WorkItem_Library!System.WorkItem.TroubleTicketHasAnalystComment' SeedRole='Target' TypeConstraint='CustomSystem_WorkItem_Library!System.WorkItem']/Property[Type='CustomSystem_WorkItem_Library!System.WorkItem']/Id$$Context/Path[Relationship='CustomSystem_WorkItem_Library!System.WorkItemHasCommentLog' SeedRole='Target' TypeConstraint='CustomSystem_WorkItem_Library!System.WorkItem']/Property[Type='CustomSystem_WorkItem_Library!System.WorkItem']/Id$ Updated with Comment

Next you need to find all the placeholders you put in the word doc, and use the ‘Insert’ button to replace these with the strings that will bring in the actual values from the Incident / SR. In my experience, you always seem to find it about two thirds / three quarters of the way down if you created the HTML using word like I did:

Highlight over the placeholder (placeholderID in this case) and then click the Insert button

(Notice how I’m missing ‘Send as HTML’ above – that’s just me checking you’re paying attention Smile )

Now it’s the same as how you added the ID in the subject line (remember to do once using the ‘Has analyst comment’ related class, and once using the ‘Work Item Has comment Log’ related class, to catch it for both Incidents and service requests.

And then repeat this for the other placeholder fields. So for instance with Title, use the ‘Has Analyst Comment’ title first:

Please don’t forget the space! And then do the same for ‘Work Item Has comment log’:

For My ‘Assigned Analyst’ I use the Entered by value under ‘Trouble Ticket Analyst Comments’ (this only needs to be selected once):

For comment you can use this one and it only needs to be selected once also:

I ended up with this as my body:

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Your Incident / Service Request was just
updated:<o:p></o:p>

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ID<o:p></o:p>
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Status<o:p></o:p>
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$Context/Path[Relationship='CustomSystem_WorkItem_Library!System.WorkItem.TroubleTicketHasAnalystComment' SeedRole='Target' TypeConstraint='CustomSystem_WorkItem_Incident_Library!System.WorkItem.Incident']/Property[Type='CustomSystem_WorkItem_Incident_Library!System.WorkItem.Incident']/Status$ $Context/Path[Relationship='CustomSystem_WorkItem_Library!System.WorkItemHasCommentLog' SeedRole='Target' TypeConstraint='CustomSystem_WorkItem_ServiceRequest_Library!System.WorkItem.ServiceRequest']/Property[Type='CustomSystem_WorkItem_ServiceRequest_Library!System.WorkItem.ServiceRequest']/Status$<o:p></o:p>
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Assigned
Analyst<o:p></o:p>
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$Context/Property[Type='CustomSystem_WorkItem_Library!System.WorkItem.CommentLog']/EnteredBy$<o:p></o:p>
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Comment<o:p></o:p>
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$Context/Property[Type='CustomSystem_WorkItem_Library!System.WorkItem.CommentLog']/Comment$<o:p></o:p>
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< /tr>
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<o:p> </o:p>

From
the IT ServiceDesk<o:p></o:p>

<o:p> </o:p>

</div>

</body>

</html>

and this was my subject:

$Context/Path[Relationship='CustomSystem_WorkItem_Library!System.WorkItem.TroubleTicketHasAnalystComment' SeedRole='Target' TypeConstraint='CustomSystem_WorkItem_Library!System.WorkItem']/Property[Type='CustomSystem_WorkItem_Library!System.WorkItem']/Id$ $Context/Path[Relationship='CustomSystem_WorkItem_Library!System.WorkItemHasCommentLog' SeedRole='Target' TypeConstraint='CustomSystem_WorkItem_Library!System.WorkItem']/Property[Type='CustomSystem_WorkItem_Library!System.WorkItem']/Id$ Updated with Comment

And all we need to do now is create the subscription.

Be sure to use ‘When an object of the selected class is created’ (we are keying off a new comment being created – remember the class we picked) and select the same targeted Class we based the notification template on (Trouble Ticket Analyst Comments):

You may also like to add the following clause in ‘Additional Criteria’ so that if the Analyst marks it as Private, it does not get sent out to the Affected User (you might want to test this first Smile ):

In the template page, you will select the template we just put all that fine work into:

We will not select anyone in Recipient as instead we are going to take advantage of ‘Related Recipients’:

In Related Recipients, choose the affected user for both ‘Has Analyst Comment’ and ‘Work Item Has Comment Log’ and then we will send it out to the affected user regardless of if it is an incident or a service request: