Autotask Service Tickets with WhatsUp Gold

Size: px

Start display at page:

Download "Autotask Service Tickets with WhatsUp Gold"

Nathan Hicks
9 years ago
Views:

1 Autotask Service Tickets with WhatsUp Gold Introduction The Autotask Add Ticket E mail Service has the functionality to allow you to configure the service to work with a monitoring alert system. At this time, this functionality is not supported between Autotask and WhatsUp Gold. This paper provides a work around for this problem that sends notifications to Autotask. These notifications are then converted by Autotask to Service Desk tickets. WhatsUp Gold v11 Page 1 of 5

At this time, this functionality is not supported between Autotask and WhatsUp Gold.

2 Autotask Add Ticket Service and WhatsUp Gold The Autotask Add Ticket E mail Service has the functionality to allow you to configure the service to work with a monitoring alert system that will handle multiple alerts. At this time, this functionality is not supported between Autotask and WhatsUp Gold. As a work around, you can configure WhatsUp Gold to send notifications to Autotask through an Action. The notifications are then converted by Autotask to Service Desk tickets. WhatsUp Gold configuration This section provides the required WhatsUp Gold configuration information. Important! Configuration of the Autotask Add Ticket E mail Service must be completed prior to configuring WhatsUp Gold. If you have not yet configured the Add Ticket E mail Service, please consult the Autotask product documentation. Step 1 Assigning Devices to Autotask an Account Within Autotask, your customers should be set up as individual accounts. An account name is necessary for creating tickets in the Autotask system, so for every device that belongs to a customer account, you will need to apply a Device Attribute for the account name. The quickest and easiest way to apply a device attribute to all of the devices in an Autotask account is to place all of the devices into a device group in WhatsUp Gold. You can then perform a Bulk Field Change on the group to add the account name Attribute. To perform a Bulk Field Change for a Device Attribute: 1. Verify that all of the devices associated with the Autotask customer account are in a device group. 2. From the Device List, select device group and right click. From the right mouse menu, select Bulk Field Change > Attribute. The Bulk Field Change: Attribute dialog appears. 3. Enter the appropriate information in the following fields. 4. Click OK. Name. Enter a name for the Attribute. You will use the same name in the Autotask XML Token at a later point. Attribute value. Enter the Attribute value. The value must match an account name from Autotask; case and spacing must match the account name exactly. You will see a confirmation dialog that informs you of the number of devices that were successfully changed. WhatsUp Gold v11 Page 2 of 5

As a work around, you can configure WhatsUp Gold to send email notifications to Autotask through an Email Action. The email notifications are then converted by Autotask to Service Desk tickets.

3 When you view the Device Properties for any of the devices within the account device group, and go to the Attributes section, you will see the information that you just entered. For the purposes of this example, I set the Attribute value to Ipswitch, Inc., to match an account in Autotask with the same name. Step 2 Create an Action 1. Open the Action Library. On the web interface, select GO > Configure > Active Monitor Library. or On the console, from the main menu, select Configure > Action Library. The Action Library appears. 2. Click New. The Select Action Type dialog appears. Select Action, then click OK. The New Action dialog appears. WhatsUp Gold v11 Page 3 of 5

Open the Action Library. On the web interface, select GO > Configure > Active Monitor Library. or On the console, from the main menu, select Configure > Action Library.

4 3. Enter the appropriate information into the following fields: Name. Enter a unique name for this action. Description. Enter a short description of the action. This is displayed in the Action Library along with the entry in Name. SMTP Mail Server. Enter the IP address of Host (DNS) name of your server. Port. Enter the port number on which the SMTP server is installed. Mail to. Enter [email protected] 4. Click Mail Content. The Mail Content dialog appears. The next step is entering the appropriate information into this dialog. Step 3 Editing the Mail Content Enter the appropriate information into the fields of the Mail Content dialog. From. Enter the address that will appear in the From field of the that is sent by the Action. Subject. The subject of the that is sent to Autotask becomes the Ticket Title in your Autotask system. It is recommended that you use a descriptive subject line, such as, A problem has occurred with %Device.DisplayName. When WhatsUp Gold processes the alert, the percent variable is translated into the name of the device that triggered the alert. Message body. The body of the message sent to Autotask becomes the description section of the ticket in your Autotask system. Edit the message body to contain as much information as you see fit. Step 4 Adding the Autotask XML Token After configuring the message body, you must append the Autotask XML token to the end of the message. This token is what the Autotask system uses to identify you particular instance within Autotask. Copy and paste the XML token into the message body field of the Mail Content dialog. Enter your unique ID and password within the quotes. These values can be found on the Add Ticket E mail Service configuration popup. If you named the device attribute something other than AutotaskAccountName, then you will need to change that as well. <Autotask> <ID name=" "/> <PW name=" "/> <Customer name="%device.attribute.autotaskaccountname% "/> </Autotask> Important! This code must be appended to the end of the message body. Any text after the code will be ignored by Autotask. WhatsUp Gold v11 Page 4 of 5

Enter the port number on which the SMTP server is installed. Mail to. Enter addticket@autotask.net 4. Click Mail Content. The Mail Content dialog appears.

5 After pasting the code into the Message body field, and have made any necessary chances to the code, click OK to save the action and add it to the Action Library. Now you are ready to assign the new Action to your group devices. Step 5 Assigning the Action through an Action Policy Although you have created the Action, it isn t valuable until you assign it to the devices in the customer account device group. Rather than assigning the Action to each device in the group one at a time, you can create an Action Policy that includes the Action, and apply to the group with a Bulk Field Change. To create the Action Policy for the Action: 1. On the console, from the main menu select Configure > Action Policies. The Action Policies dialog appears. 2. Click New. The New Action Policy dialog appears. 3. Click Add. The Action Builder appears. 4. On the Select or Create Action dialog, select Select an action from the Action Library. Click Next. The Select Action and State dialog appears. 5. Select the Action that you just created. 6. Under Execute the action on the following state change, select a state change after which the Action will be fired. 7. If applicable, under Only if the following state change was reached, select a state. 8. Click Finish to exit the Action Builder. The new policy is added to the Action Policy dialog. You can now apply the policy to the customer account device group with a Bulk Field Change. To apply the Action Policy with a Bulk Field Change: 1. In the Device List, select the device group and right click. From the right mouse menu, select Bulk Field Change > Action Policy. The Bulk Field Change: Action Policy dialog appears. 2. Select Apply this Action Policy, then select the newly created policy from the list. 3. Click OK. You will again see a confirmation dialog that informs you of the number of devices that were successfully changed. WhatsUp Gold v11 Page 5 of 5

Step 5 Assigning the Email Action through an Action Policy Although you have created the Email Action, it isn t valuable until you assign it to the devices in the customer account device group.

Using Actions and Alerts

Using Actions and Alerts Depending on the responses received from polling, or the types of messages received, WhatsUp Gold can be set up to fire actions to notify you of any change on your network. Actions