Introduction

Hey everyone!  This is a visual, step-by-step how-to guide to both 1.) create a notification message and workflow to email-notify the assignee of a Work Order that the worklog of a ticket has been updated by someone else, and 2.) add the actual worklog note to the email notification.  We're finding this customization to be very helpful to our Support Staff, and hope you will find success with it, too!

Here's how our Email Notifications appear.  The addition of the worklog note saves our support staff a lot of time!

This customization was created and tested in Remedy 8.1.01.

Notify the Assignee of a Worklog Update for Work Order

First step is to create workflow to email-notify the Assignee of a Worklog update.  Here, you will create one filter for Work Order.

Step 1.  Create New Notification message Tag Record for Work Order

You will need to create a new Notification Message Tag record to exclusively handle the worklog update email notification.  Fill in the record as needed and save.  The Email Body Text can contain whatever values you want your Support Staff to see in the email--we will add the worklog note later in this tutorial.

Step 2.  Create a New Notification Filter for Work Order

This filter will handle the workflow specific to a worklog update, and kickstart the notification process.  There are two actions for the Work Order filter.

Also, we've added an expression to the Run If Qualification where the Submit Date != Last Modified Date and Assignee is not you.  We did this to avoid an email notification being sent to the Assignee at the time of ticket creation (since they're probably getting notified of an assignment in a separate email notification), and to avoid an email notification when Assignee is yourself.

First Set Field Action:

Second Set Field Action:

Call Guide Action:

Add Worklog Note, Submitter Name, Submitter ID to the Worklog Update Notification for Work Order

The purpose of this section of the guide is to add the worklog note, submitter name, and submitter ID values to the email notification message.

Work Order Workflow Explanation

Before we begin with steps, it's important to understand the workflow of the Work Order Notification.  here's a diagram of some important objects, below:

Enable Read/Write of the SYS:Form Field Selection Form

First thing's, first...We'll need to allow read/write access to the Selection Code field on the SYS:Form Field Selection form.  We opted to do this to manually key our own codes when creating new records.  In DEV Studio, navigate to the SYS:Form Field Selection form and enable Read/Write access to the Selection Code field.

Step 1.  Add Custom Fields to the SYS:Form Field Selection form

Navigate to the SYS:Form Field Selection form.  You will need to create a new record with Notification Message as the Selection Type.

In the example below, we've created a WorkLog Notes record for use with Work Order Notifications.

Step 2.  Create new worklog fields on the WOI:WorkOrder form

Open the WOI:WorkOrder form in DevStudio.

Select Show Fields Not In View

Right click over any field and select, Create New Field -> Character

Create the below three fields:

Be sure the WL_Note field has an input length of 0.  This will allow any character amount to be saved in the worknote; otherwise, if your users input a worklog of >255 characters, then by default they will receive an error message stating you've reached the max size for this field.

Step 3.  Add fields to the WOI:WorkOrderInterface form

Add the newly craeted fields to the join form named, WOI:WorkOrderInterface

Step 4.  Create new field on the WOI:WorkInfo form

Open the WOI:WorkInfo form in DevStudio

Select Show Fields Not In View button

Right click over any field and select Create New Field -> Character.

Create the below field:

Step 5.  Create new worklog fields on the NTE:SYS-NT Process Control form

Create three new fields on the NTE:SYS-NT Process Control form.  It is not recommended by BMC to add additional fields to this form (there's a big message in red at the top of the form suggesting that you don't, hehe) as it will eventually slow DB performance...if you can find some fields to recycle (and it doesn't conflict with other workflow), it's best to re-use fields.  We opted to create new fields to completely isolate the worknote workflow.

Be sure the WorkLog Note field has an input length of 0.  This will allow any character amount to be saved in the worknote; otherwise, if your users input a worklog of >255 characters, then by default they will receive an error message stating you've reached the max size for this field.

Step 6.  Modify the WOI:WOI:CreateWorkLog_InLessMode_Btn Active Link

This is an out-of-the-box object you will be modifying, so you'll have to add an overlay to it.  Here, you will add two additional actions.  Be sure to place them in the below order:

Set Field action to provide your custom fields on WOI:WorkOrder with worklog and user ID

Set Field action to collect and set the Full Name of the user from CTM:People

Step 7.  Modify the WOI:WOL:CreateWorkInfo_700_Request`! Filter

This filter is responsible for pushing the worklog information to WOI:WorkOrderInterface.  Here, we add a Set Field action to translate the Full Name of the Submitter, and then push the workinfo information to WOI:WorkOrderInterface form.

Add Set Field to get Full Name of Submitter from CTM:People

Add the below Set Field action and place it in position before the Push Field action.

We are again collecting the Full Name of the Submitter.  This is to ensure internal and external emails will update the worklog; otherwise, a redundancy for a keyed worklog update in Work Order.  Add the Set Field action, below:

Add worklog information to push to WOI:WorkOrderInterface

Step 8.  Add worklog fields to the WOI:WOI:NotificationGenerator`! Filter

There is only one Push Field action in this filter OOTB.  Simply add the three worklog fields from WOI:WorkOrder to push values into the NTE:SYS-NT Process Control form.

Step 9.  Create a new filter to Translate the worklog fields on the NTE:SYS-NT Process Control form

This will need to be accomplished with a filter.  In this example, we're attempting to push the worklog, submitter name, and submitter ID values from WOI:WorkInfo to the NTE:SYS-NT Process Control form fields.  In the next step, we'll be inserting this filter into a Call Guide.  The Work Order value translations take place between 658 and 660 Execution Order, so this filter we create will execute at 659.

Set Field 1

Set Field 2

Set Field 3

Step 10.  Add the Filter to the NTE:NPC:TranslateNTMessages Call Guide in the appropriate order

The Work Order translations take place at the 658-660 Execution Order.  So let's place this, in-between:

Step 11.  Edit the Notification Message Tag record on the SYS:Notification Messages Form

Insert the new worklog values into the Email Message Body as desired.

Enjoy!

If you're interested in other consoles, here is a link to the Incident Guide of Worklog Notes in Notifications I created.