Windows Script Monitor - Return/Display message output (in alerts/email/etc)

I am using a WMI Service Monitoring script to monitor all the automatic services on our servers. It's working nicely, but right now if I hover over the the application list or the application nodes (which I've displayed on a network map), it simply returns the status of "Critical" or "Up".

However, if I dig into the APM Application Details page of that node, and hover over the "info" button it displays more information -- it actually shows which services are down. I'd like to display this message in the front instead of having to dig into Solarwinds and even display it in our email alerts since not everyone on our team has Solarwinds access.

Is the message (the "echo" part) passed to a variable I could use to output it in our email alerts? Or is there any other way to do this?

I attempted to use ${StatusOrErrorDescription} but that did not seem to return a value in the email.

Thanks

Below is the script:
'==========================================================================
'
' VBScript Source File -- Created with SAPIEN Technologies PrimalScript 3.1
'
' NAME: ServiceMonitorAPM1.vbs
'
' AUTHOR: Bob McDermand, State of Wa , DIS
' DATE : 20091002
'
' COMMENT: For use with APM monitoring template, credit to Solarwinds for "borrowed"
' logic.
'
'
'==========================================================================

Option Explicit
Const SUCCESS = 0, FAIL = 1, wbemFlagReturnImmediately = &h10, wbemFlagForwardOnly = &h20
Dim strComputer, strUser, strPassword, sCount, strServiceList, objItem, colItems, objSWbemLocator, objSWbemServices
Dim objArgs
Set objArgs = WScript.Arguments
'Use the following syntax for Script Arguments field in APM Monitor script:
'${IP} ${USER} ${PASSWORD}

strComputer = objArgs(0)
strUser = objArgs(1)
strPassword = objArgs(2)

Set objSWbemLocator = CreateObject("WbemScripting.SWbemLocator")
Set objSWbemServices = objSWbemLocator.ConnectServer _
(strComputer, "root\cimv2", strUser, strPassword)
objSWbemServices.Security_.ImpersonationLevel = 3
Set colItems = objSWbemServices.ExecQuery("SELECT * FROM Win32_Service where StartMode = 'Auto' and State = 'Stopped'", "WQL", _
wbemFlagReturnImmediately + wbemFlagForwardOnly)

sCount=0
For Each objItem In colItems
Select Case objItem.Name
  'If a service name is listed in the following Case statement, it will be ignored.
  'The service name is case sensitive and must be an exact match.
  Case "SysmonLog"
  Case "TBS"
  Case Else
   If sCount=0 Then
    strServiceList = objItem.DisplayName & " (" & objItem.Name & ")"
   Else
    strServiceList = strServiceList & ", " & objItem.DisplayName & " (" & objItem.Name & ")"
   End If
   sCount = sCount + 1
End Select
Next

If sCount > 0 Then
WScript.Echo "Message: Auto Start Services Down: " & strServiceList
WScript.Echo "Statistic: " & CStr(sCount)
WScript.Quit(SUCCESS)
Else
WScript.Echo "Message: All Auto Start Services Are Up"
WScript.Echo "Statistic: 0"
WScript.Quit(SUCCESS)
End If

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lchance

Just curious but have you done any customizing in your EDIT MAP TOOLTIPS for APM Components to get more details?

FormerMember

Where do I go to get this section? Is this editable via the webpage or do I need to log on the server?

lchance

While viewing your map you can click EDIT (far right) and get to tooltips editing. Click the CUSTOMIZE MAP TOOLTIPS.

FormerMember

Thanks. That's a nifty feature, but I'm thinking that's not exactly what I'm looking for.
My issue is whether we can use a "custom variable" which can be used as ${BlahCustomVariable} and displayed anywhere want it.

Here's our current setup. On our main page we have a network map, I've set it up so that the Node and also the APM for that node is displayed. (Using your suggestion, I put some sample text (i.e. the "Hi! and other stuff underneath which apparently I haven't gotten working):

But if I drill down and select the actual "Service Monitor" link for that specific Node, I get a lot more details instead of simply "Object status is Up." :

Notice that it's more detailed, since the text here is displayed via the ECHO command from the vbscript. I was wondering if there was a way to pass THIS text as a value... and then be able to use it at the "higher level" network map or even use it on an email alert.

Does Solarwinds provide any "custom" variable we could use for this purpose???

FormerMember

I'm also interested in the variables that I can re-use in the Advanced Alert Manager. Like the OP, I'd like to use the Message and Statistic values that I echo back to APM from the Windows Script monitor. The statistic value is nicely graphed by APM but I'm returning information in the Message that would be really helpful in diagnosing problems, yet the only time I've ever seen the Message text appear anywhere in Orion is when a component is currently down. Once the component is back up, the message appears to be gone for good. We are troubleshooting intermittent problems which may only last a minute or two, so the chances of catchiong the error messages "live" is quite small.

I was wondering if since the reply above, the Message and Statistic elements from a Windows Script monitor were available as variables?

We also use the HTTP component monitor - is the response time of the HTTP monitor available anywhere in a variable, in particular for the Alert Manager?

Thanks!

Steven

aLTeReGo

The statistic value is nicely graphed by APM but I'm returning information in the Message that would be really helpful in diagnosing problems, yet the only time I've ever seen the Message text appear anywhere in Orion is when a component is currently down. Once the component is back up, the message appears to be gone for good. We are troubleshooting intermittent problems which may only last a minute or two, so the chances of catchiong the error messages "live" is quite small.

If you'd like to keep track of this information over time, even after the alert has cleared, then I recommend creating an alert action to write an event to the Orion event log using the appropriate variables so the message contains all the information you need.

I was wondering if since the reply above, the Message and Statistic elements from a Windows Script monitor were available as variables?

The ${StatisticData} and ${ComponentMessage} macros can be used with script monitors in alerts to return the statistic and message value results of a script monitor as part of an alert.

We also use the HTTP component monitor - is the response time of the HTTP monitor available anywhere in a variable, in particular for the Alert Manager?

For this you would use the ${ResponseTime} macro