Setting Up Email Notifications

Versions: 8.0+

Versions:3.0+

Email Notifications

QuerySurge's notification feature allows users to create custom email notifications that will be automatically generated when a certain criteria is met. These notifications are highly customizable and can be adjusted to apply to a wide range of situations.

In this section

• Viewing Notifications
• Creating a Notification
• Events, Event Criteria, and Data Fields
• Creating an Email Template
• Adding Users and Roles
• Email Settings

Viewing Notifications

Notifications can be accessed from the Administration Tree listed under the Notifications folder. There are three different grids that display the notifications:

1. All Notifications
2. By User
3. By Role

The All Notifications grid provides a list of all notifications that have been created. By default these are sorted by Notification Name but can be filtered or re-sorted by any column. From this grid, you can add, edit, copy or remove notifications. It is also possible to enable or disable notifications by clicking the Enabled check-box in the leftmost column.

The By User grid displays notifications and all users that have been specified to receive the notification, including users holding the specified roles. This becomes especially useful when filtering specific users to see what notifications they are receiving.

The By Role grid is similar to the By User grid but instead it displays the notification based on the Roles that are specified to receive it.

Creating a Notification

In order to create a notification, select the Add button in the All Notifications grid. This brings up the Notification Details window. Each notification must be given a name then the corresponding notification details can be added.

Each notification is broken up into three areas:

1. Event and Event Criteria
2. Email Template
3. Users and Roles

Events, Event Criteria, and Data Fields

An Event is the notification's main trigger. It determines when the email will be generated, as well as what options are available to select for Event Criteria. This also determines what Data Fields will be available to include within the emails.

Available Events:

• Scenario Started
• Scenario Ended

Note: The Scenario Ended event includes only Scenarios that have properly ended. This does not include Scenarios that are killed (which ends the execution but does not result in a normally concluded Scenario execution). Therefore, if a Scenario is killed, the 'Scenario Ended' event does not fire, and no email is sent.

An Event Criteria is a more granular requirement that must be met in order to trigger the notification. It allows a comparison to be specified that will be performed on a chosen Data Field.

To add an Event Criteria click   and fill in the corresponding cell values. To remove an event criteria click  to remove the row from the grid.

Available Data Fields:

• Scenario Started
  • Scenario Name
  • Owner
  • Start Time
  • Number of QueryPairs
• Scenario Ended
  • Scenario Name
  • Owner
  • Start Time
  • End Time
  • Number of QueryPairs
  • Outcome
  • Duration
  • Pass Rate
  • QueryPairs Passed
  • QueryPairs Failed
  • QueryPair Errors
  • QueryPairs Killed
  • QueryPair Warnings
  • Detail Results Info

Note: There can be multiple criteria selected, which all must be met in order for the notification to be sent. If any criteria are not met, the notification will not be triggered.

When a data field is selected, it populates the types of comparisons that can be done and determines the kind of value that can be used.

Email Template

The Notification Email template editor is located in the middle of the Notification Details form. This determines how the email will look and what information it will contain.

You are required to create a subject, which will be used as the email subject for the Notification. Below is the area to create the email body. The body editor has some built in formatting options available or the message can be edited directly as html by clicking on the  button.

It is also possible to add data field placeholders to the email notifications by clicking on  . This will display a dropdown menu that allows you to select the data fields that should be inserted into the email.

Note: Data Fields can be added to an email body using   or they can be typed in manually in either the body or subject fields using the ${Data Field Name} format.

Adding Users and Roles

The last section of the Notification Details form allows you to select which users should receive the notification email. This can be specified by adding users directly or adding roles, which will include every member of that role.

To add a user or role click   and select a user or role from the list. To remove the user or role click  to remove the row from the grid.

 Best Practice: It is important to make sure these details have been filled in and are correct for the applicable users because the email address for each user will be obtained from their user details.

Email Settings

The outgoing Email Settings that will be used for sending the Notifications, can be accessed from the Administration Tree, under the Notifications folder.

The following settings are available:

• Host - The address of the email server
• Port - The port which is used for the SMTP connection (often 25, 465, or 587)
• Authentication - Whether or not the server requires a username and password to be specified (Defaults to ‘Y’)
• Username - If authentication is enabled, the username must be specified
• Password - If authentication is enabled, the password for the corresponding user is required
• Encryption - The type of encryption in use by the SMTP server [TLS, SSL, or None]
• From Email Address - The address from which the email notifications will be sent from

To test the email settings that you inserted, you can click on the  button. This should send a confirmation email to the address used in the From Email Address field. If the email sends successfully, you should receive the confirmation email. If you receive an error, or the email does not send successfully, you may need to modify the settings used above or update the firewall settings on the machine. You may also need to talk to your System Administrator to validate the correct settings to use.

You can find some example Email Settings for Outlook 365 and Gmail in the following article: 

Email Settings for Outlook 365 and Gmail Accounts 

Note: The From Email Address usually must match the account for the given username/password

 Best Practice: It is often best to create a dedicated email account on the mail server for use with the notifications in order to keep the automated notification emails distinct