Notification Management

You can use notification management to

  • Define recipients and recipient lists so that they receive  e mail or SMS notifications about events. Recipients and Recipient Lists are used in multiple applications in SAP Solution Manager where e mail or SMS notifications are required. SAP Solution Manager can send  automatically  information about new alerts, about upcoming planned downtimes or SAP EarlyWatch Alert reports to Recipients or recipient lists.
  • Define e-mail or SMS templates for work mode management and IT event notification.
  • Define schedules in which automatic notifications for planned events are sent

Example: 

  • E mails informing about an upcoming planned downtime for an ERP system are sent out automatically to the business users 2 hours before the planned downtime  starts.
  • SMS informing about an upcoming planned downtime for an ERP system are sent out automatically to the administration team 15 minutes before the planned downtime  starts.
  • E-mails or SMS informing about new alerts are sent to the support team

The high-level process is as follows:

  1. Import or maintain recipients into the global recipient pool
  2. Group recipients into recipient lists
  3. If you want to configure work mode or IT Event notifications. Define templates, schedules and other configurations so that e mail and SMS notifications are send out in advance of planned work modes or IT Events.
  4. If you want to configure alert notifications: Include the recipients or recipient lists into Notification Variants as described under Setup and Configuration for System Monitoring.

Global Recipient Pool

The global recipient pool contains all recipients that should be notified per e mail or SMS about different events.

Proceed as follows to maintain recipients:

  1. Open the Launchpad.
  2. Select Technical Administration 
  3. Select Global Recipient Pool

You have the following options:

  • Import recipients from SAP Solution Manager or from managed ABAP systems. You can read users and import their communication data (e mail and SMS ) into the Global Recipient Pool. They can be used directly as recipients for notifications or grouped into recipient lists. Prerequisite is that the selected users have valid e mail and /or phone numbers (for SMS) maintained.
  • Import business partners from SAP Solution Manager or from managed ABAP systems. You can read business partners and import their communication data (e mail and SMS ) into the Global Recipient Pool. They can be used directly as recipients for notifications or grouped into recipient lists. Prerequisite is that the selected business partners have valid e mail and /or phone numbers (for SMS) maintained.
  • Define external recipients. You can define recipients manually including e mail and SMS.
  • Reload System Users. This will update the recipients  communication data from the users or business partners if they have changed.
  • Activate or deactivate all recipients. If they are inactive, no mail will be send to them. 


Recipient Lists

You can group multiple recipients into recipient lists as follows:

  1. Open the Launchpad.
  2. Select Technical Administration. 
  3. Select Recipient Lists.

 

You have the following options:

  • Create a new recipient list.
  • Add recipients from Global Recipient Pool or include recipient lists into the selected recipient list.
  • Include recipient list from LDAP server distribution list.
  • Reload System Users. This will update the recipients  communication data from the users or business partners if they have changed.
  • Activate or deactivate the selected recipient list . If a recipient list is inactive, no mail will be send to it's recipients.

Templates, Schedules and Auto Notification Settings

Due to technical restrictions, automatic notifications can only be sent  if the event is scheduled in IT Calendar at least 1 hour in advance. Automatic notifications for work modes and IT Events scheduled less than 1 hour in advance are not supported. Use instant notifications from the scheduling UI instead.

You can define that e mail or SMS notifications for planned work modes or IT events are sent out automatically at defined schedules before the event starts. The contents of notification e mails or SMS is freely customizable.

Proceed as follows to do the necessary configurations:

  1. Open the Launchpad
  2. Select Technical Administration 
  3. Select Notification Resources

Define Templates

Use templates to define the content and appearance of e mail or SMS notifications:

  1. Select Template Maintenance.
  2. Choose whether you want create a notification template for work modes or IT events.
  3. Select the Create button.
  4. Enter a title for your template.
  5. Select whether the template is for email or SMS.
  6. Define the subject of the template. You can optionally make use of the available key words. They will automatically be replaced by actual values when the notification is sent out.
  7. For e mail notifications you can choose between e mail body in Rich Text or HTML. Choose HTML if the notification e mail shall contain customer logos and other HTML documents. If this is not required, choose rich text.
    • If you choose rich text editor, type in the text hat shall be shown in the e mail notification. Use the keywords wherever appropriate. You  can also choose "Suggest" to get a suggested  text .
    • If you choose HTML, you can upload an existing HTML file and use it as template for the e mail notifications. The HTML template can contain  customer logo and html formatting. Include the required keywords in the  HTML template. 
  8. Select Preview button to check if the keywords are being detected and substituted.
  9. Select Save button.


Define Schedule

The schedule defines when a notification is being sent out. Event based scheduled calculate  the time  when a notification is sent out relative to the start time of an event.An example could be that you want to send out a notification 1 hour before the start of a planned downtime. Time based schedules determine the time of the day when a notification is sent out. Only event based schedules  are used for or work modes and IT events. 

  1. Select Schedule  Maintenance. 
  2. Select the Create button.
  3. Select Event based .
  4. Enter a title.
  5. Enter the time relative to the start time of an event when a notification shall be send out. Supported values are between 1 minute and 31 days before an event starts.
  6. Save.

Due to technical restrictions, automatic notifications can only be sent  if the event is scheduled in IT Calendar at least 1 hour in advance. Automatic notifications for work modes and IT Events scheduled less than 1 hour in advance are not supported. Use instant notifications from the scheduling UI instead.

Define Auto-Notification Setting

Here you define, for which  event types and systems systems automated notifications shall be sent out automatically. You can define multiple configurations for the same system.

Example: 

  • E mails informing about an upcoming planned downtime for an ERP system are sent out automatically to the business users 2 hours before the planned downtime  starts.
  • SMS informing about an upcoming planned downtime for an ERP system are sent out automatically to the administration team 15 minutes before the planned downtime starts.

Proceed as follows:

  1. Select Auto Notification Settings.
  2. Select Work Mode Management or IT Events depending whether notifications shall be sent out informing about work modes or IT Events.
  3. Select Create.
  4. Enter a title.
  5. In case of work modes choose whether the notification shall be sent out for all work mode types or only for a specific work mode type (example: Planned Downtime).
  6. Select the systems for which the notifications shall be sent out.
  7. Select the schedules when the notifications shall be sent out.
  8. Select the recipients or recipient lists who shall receive the notification.

Notifications will be sent only for work modes or IT Events that were scheduled on system level. Instance and host based events will not be notified,

Configuration

Setup Email Communication

Follow SAP Solution Manager Configuration: Mandatory Configuration → Infrastructure preparation Step 5: Setup E mail and SMS Communication 


Configure LDAP Server

This is an optional configuration. It is only required if you would like to import distribution lists from LDAP servers into recipient lists .

  1. Please create the LDAP server connection as described in SAP Note 188371.
  2. Enter the LDAP server in SAP Solution Manager Configuration: Mandatory Configuration → Infrastructure preparation Step 5: Setup E mail and SMS Communication → Related Links → Set Up LDAP and SMS Server for Notification Management


Configure SMS Server

This is an optional configuration. It is only required if you would like to send SMS notifications.

  1. Enter the SMS server in SAP Solution Manager Configuration: Mandatory Configuration → Infrastructure preparation Step 5: Setup E mail and SMS Communication →  Related Links → Set Up LDAP and SMS Server for Notification Management

The SMS sending works as follows: 

  • If no SMS server is configured in transaction SCOT: An email with the SMS content will be created with the e mail address <phone number>@<SMS Server>. The e mail server forwards  this e mail to the SMS server which sends out the corresponding SMS. 
  • If a SMS server is configured in transaction SCOT:  SMS sending is triggered directly.

Required Roles

  • Technical Administration composite roles: SAP_TECHNICAL_ADMIN_COMP, SAP_TECHNICAL_ADMIN_DISP_COMP
  • Notification Management Admin and display roles: SAP_NOTIF_ADMIN, SAP_NOTIF_DISP