Server Event Alerts Guide

Server Event Alerts are a highly configurable SimpleHelp feature that be used to detect a range of events as they occur on your server and to automatically carry out actions in response. For example:

• Log the duration and chat logs of Support and/or Access sessions with one or more customers to a file
• Tag a machine that has had a specific Tool run on it
• Send notifications and/or emails to specified Technicians when one or more remote machines come online

Server Event Alerts are available with Standard and above licenses.

(v4.2 and below) Server Event Alerts were introduced in SimpleHelp v4.3, and replaced the old Data, Logging and Export functionality. You can still view the legacy documentation here.

You can find Server Event Alerts in the Technician Console's Alerts tab and selecting Events. For the Business and higher license tier Monitoring Alerts feature under "Alerts", see this guide.

Configuring Event Alerts

You can create an alert by pressing New Server Alert.

When an alert is selected the alert's details are presented in the details panel below. The header of the details panel offers the following controls:

X	X
	Show the type of events that this alert is able to accept.
	Set conditions that can be used to filter the events in order to decide whether or not they should be processed.
	Specify an action to take once an event is processed.
	Alerts will only process events in the server if they are active.
	Delete this alert.

Picking Event Types to Process

A Server Event Alert can be triggered by one or more events occurring on your SimpleHelp server. Certain selected triggering event types offer data values that can be used in a filter so only some events trigger the alert, see Filtering Events below. The list of possible events include:

X	X
Remote Machine Online	A remote machine comes Online, registering with the SimpleHelp server.
Remote Machine Offline	A remote machine goes Offline, no longer actively registering with the SimpleHelp server.
Remote Machine Offline Extended Duration	As above, but triggering only after a five minute period to exclude restarts etc.
Monitoring Configured	Monitoring for a remote machine is toggled to enabled or disabled.
Remote Work Configured	Remote Work for a remote machine is toggled to enabled or disabled.
Condenser Configured	A Remote Access Service has been configured to be a Condenser Service.
Access Session Ends	A remote access session has ended. The contents of this event is configured via the Session Summary tab.
Support Session Ends	A remote support session has ended. The contents of this event is configured via the Session Summary tab.
Customer Joins Queue	A customer has joined the remote support waiting queue.
Customer Joins Technician's Queue	A customer has joined the waiting queue, and is visible to this technician. This event is generated for each technician that can see the customer.
Customer Leaves Queue	A customer leaves the waiting queue.
Customer Joins Session	A customer joins a remote support session with a technician.
Customer Leaves Session	A customer ends a remote support session with a technician.
Technician Logs In	A technician successfully logs into SimpleHelp.
Technician Logs Out	A technician logs out of SimpleHelp.
Technician Failed Login	A technician attempted a failed login.
Technician Failed Multi-Factor Authentication	A technician entered incorrect Multi-Factor Authentication information.
Temporary IP Address Ban	A user has failed to login and their IP has been temporarily banned.
Temporary Account Ban	A user has failed to login and their Technician account has been temporarily banned.
Blocked Login Attempt	A technician attempted to login from a blocked IP range.
Technician Joins Support Session	A technician has joined a remote support session with a customer.
Technician Leaves Support Session	A technician has ended a remote support session with a customer.
Technician Joins Access Session	A technician has started a remote access session.
Technician Leaves Access Session	A technician has ended a remote access session.
Toolbox Item Modified	A Tool has been changed and the changes saved to the Toolbox.
Toolbox Item Removed	A Tool has been deleted from a Toolbox.
Toolbox Item Run	A Tool has been run by a technician or by an alert.
History Entry Removed	A record of a session in the History tab has been deleted.
History Report Request	A technician has requested a report extract from the History.
Alert Modified	An alert has been changed.
Alert Removed	An alert has been deleted.
Presentation Starts	A presentation has begun.
Presentation Registered	A presentation has been registered.
Presentation Attendee Joins	An attendee has joined a presentation.
Presentation Ends	A presentation has ended.

Filtering Events

By default, a Server Event Alert will be triggered if any events matching the alert's selected event types occur. Event filtering allows you to specify which events should trigger the alert and which should be ignored. The filtering configuration appears as follows:

Each filter is presented on a line. Only a single filter needs to match for the event to be processed. Each event contains a set of standard information (such as the time it was generated) and a set of event-specific information. Any of these fields can be used to filter on.

Alert Actions

Alerts can be configured to perform actions when a selected trigger event occurs. The Actions Configuration allows you to control how the server processes the event information, and how you wish to be notified of the event. For example, you might wish to log information to a file on disk, or send an email to a technician. There are currently four actions that can be taken:

• Save to File
• Send an Email
• Run a Command
• Send to Web Site
• Notify a Technician
• Assign Tags

Save to File

Use the Save to File target to save event information to disk, either as a log file or as a file containing XML data:

X	X
Log file name	The name of the log file to which the data will be appended.
Logging directory	The directory where the log file should reside. This is relative to the server installation directory.
Log event descriptions in XML	Choose to write XML descriptions of the events. This is particularly relevant if you wish to automatically parse these at a later date.
Timestamp log entries	Choose whether to timestamp log file entries with the date and time that the event occurred.

Send an Email

SimpleHelp is also able to send emails whose subject and body can be configured. In order to send an email select the Send an Email option:

The email configuration is split into two components: first specify the recipients of the email, and secondly configure the subject matter for each of the selected events. The following properties can be set:

X	X
Email Recipients	Enter in the recipients email addresses. You can also specify variables that allow recipients to be based on data contained within the events. To add a variable recipient select the + button and choose an option from the resulting list.
Selected Events	Select the event that you wish to configure the email content.
Subject	Specify the subject of the email. To include event details in the subject select the detail from the Event Details list and click Insert to add it.
Body	Specify the body of the email. To include event details in the subject select the detail from the Event Details list and click Insert to add it.

Run a Command

If you wish to perform more advanced post processing of event data then SimpleHelp can be configured to run a command on the SimpleHelp server. When configuring a command to run you can specify variables into which event data will be substituted before the command is run. This is particularly useful if you wish to automate the population of a third party server or database, for example.

Send to Web Site

The SimpleHelp server can post event details to a website of your choice. This provides a simple way to integrate SimpleHelp, for example, by posting event data to a website to generate reports and update dashboards.

To configure website integration: - Populate the HTTP Web Address field with he URL of the web site that the event data will be posted to - Select a HTTP Post Mode from one of the options: - JSON - XML - Encoded text - Custom payload

Custom payload will allow you to specify a Content Type, and manually construct the posted data with the event's details as variables.

Notify a Technician

Send a configurable notification message to specified technicians when an event alert is triggered. These will appear in their Technician Console's Notifications list. The configuration of technician notifications is shown below:

Using the Select Technician button you can easily pick the technicians (or groups of technicians) that you wish to notify. The title and message of the notification is configurable and can include event data using the drop-down menu and Insert.

Managing Server Event Alerts

Create an alert by pressing New Server Alert. Delete alerts by selecting them in the list on the right and using the trash can button.

Alerts can be toggled between active and inactive, and are initially inactive when created. Inactive alerts will never trigger.

Server Event Alerts can be grouped together. Groups are listed in a hierarchy to the left. A new group can be created at any time by pressing the green + button. An alert listed on the right can then be dragged onto the new group on the left to assign it to that group, or a new alert can be created within the currently selected group.