Using One Email Alert, but Having Node Specific Recipients

Question

During the ThwackCamp "Tips and Tricks" session, Dez​ showed the one alert which triggered an e-mail could be defined to send to node specific recipients. I haven't totally figured out how to do that. In this manner you do not need to create separate alerts for each set of recipients.

First, she went to All Settings/Manage Custom Properties. The property she showed was EmailTo. At least in SAM, it is not a default property, so I added it.

Second, you select the EmailTo property and go to View/Edit Values. In the demo, this provided a table of host names, IP addresses, and the EmailTo field, which provided a way to enter the addresses en masse. However, I don't get the newly created EmailTo column. Don't know why. In Dez​, defense, if I select a different custom property, I do get that field; go figure?

Last step is to go into an Alert and define the email trigger. I made a copy of the Node Down alert as a test, rather than modify the default. But I do not know the syntax to have it populate with the EmailTo field as a variable.

Tried contacting Dez​ directly, to no avail. Any help would be appreciated.

Orion Platform 2018.2 HF6, DPAIM 11.1.0, SAM 6.7.0.

elevate · Answer

Assuming the above allowed you to see the property, the next piece would be in the alert trigger action.

When you select the email action you can plug in that variable into the To: section.

When the email action is then sent out it will populate the To: field with that custom property.

sturdyerde · Answer

Did you ensure that your EmailTo property was create as a Node custom property? Sorry if this is old info for you, but custom properties can be assigned to Nodes, Applications, or to other object types. That might explain why you don't see the property.

Super basic troubleshooting steps that you may have already done:

* Make sure you created the property as a Node custom property and not an Application or Component custom property.
* At your "Manage Custom Properties" page (https://[SERVER]/Orion/Admin/CPE/Default.aspx, try using the 'Group By' filter and choose object. Then click Nodes for the filter.
* If you still don't see your EmailTo property in the list of custom properties...try creating it again to see if it objects about one already being there. 
* The 'Edit Values' button will only work after you have select a custom property to assign values to.
* If Orion thinks that the property does exist, try using the search box in the custom property listing.

Hope this helps!

Sam