Creating a folder monitor to monitor an empty folder.

Good day, I wanted to create a folder monitor for an empty folder and when the folder receives files, it will alert and send an email. Basically, we are using this as a way to alert our team of files that need to be processed in the folder.

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bobmarley

Sounds like a powershell script running under a SAM template may be your ticket

shuth

As @bobmarley mentioned, you could run a PowerShell script. Alternatively you could use the File Count Monitor (there is an out-of-the-box template or you can add the component monitor to a new template). Specify the location and any filters and it will come back with a file count. You can set the thresholds to be warning or critical at greater than 0, and then set up an alert to monitor that specific application/component status.

https://documentation.solarwinds.com/en/success_center/sam/content/sam-file-count-monitor-sw3221.htm

Or you can use the File Exists component monitor but I think that only has a Down/Red option not a warning/critical.
https://documentation.solarwinds.com/en/success_center/sam/content/sam-file-existence-monitor-sw4755.htm

SteveK

Both @shuth and @bobmarley solutions should work for a file detection monitor. Since you mentioned that files are there when they need to be processed, I would probably go with Bob's approach. We have something similar in our environment that gets picked up by a different application and if a file is there for longer than X minutes, then we need someone to hop on and intervene.

Here is something we have used before. In the same monitor you set 2 script arguments, the first one is the file path. The 2nd one is the amount of time a file can exist before its considered stale.

So your script argument would be something like:

C:\Temp,10

Any file that exists in C:\Temp for more than 10 minutes would trip the alarm.

#Build out file path variable
    If ([String]::IsNullOrEmpty($Args[0])) {
        Write-Host "Message:  File path [Argument 0] cannot be null"
        Exit 5
    } Else {
        $FilePath = $Args[0]
    }

#Build out Age variable
    Try{
        Switch ([String]::IsNullOrEmpty($Args[1])) {
            "True" {[Int]$FileAge = 0}
            "False" {[Int]$FileAge = $Args[1]}
        }
    } Catch {
        Write-Host "Message:  Error setting file age"
        Exit 5
    }

#Retrieve File Information
    Clear-Variable FileObj,FileCount -ErrorAction Ignore
    Try {
       $FileObj = Get-ChildItem -Path $FilePath -ErrorAction Stop | Where-Object {($_.PSisContainer -eq $False) -and ($_.LastWriteTime -lt ((Get-Date).AddMinutes("-$($FileAge)")))}
       $FileCount = ($FileObj | Measure-Object).count
    } Catch {
         Write-Host "Message:  unable to retrieve files from $($FilePath) - $($Error[0].Exception)"
         Exit 1
    }

#SolarWinds Output 
    Write-Host "Message:  $($FileCount) objects exist in $($FilePath) | $($FileObj.Name -Join ',')"
    Write-Host "Statistic: $($FileCount)"
    Exit 0

This tends to work really well for local files. If its on a remote file share, milage will vary pending the permissions in place.

HillyBilly

I would use Shuth solution, set the Warning or Critical level to Greater Than or Equal to 1
The you can create an email alert based upon the file counter monitor targeting the correct Teams.

if you are looking for a particular File Name or Extension, the change those element

ie.
Only Log file. Entension "Log"
Only MyLogfile_<Date>.* File Name "MyLogfile*", Extension "*"