• Article

How to Enable an Email Notification Channel

 

Updated: May 13, 2016

Applies To: System Center 2012 R2 Operations Manager, System Center 2012 - Operations Manager, System Center 2012 SP1 - Operations Manager

To configure alert notifications for System Center 2012 – Operations Manager, your first task is to enable a notification channel. This topic describes how to configure a channel that will send alert notifications to subscribers by using email.

Before you begin, gather the following information:

  • SMTP server information

    • Fully qualified domain name (FQDN).

    • Port number for the SMTP server.

    • Authentication method for the SMTP server. You have two choices: anonymous or Windows Integrated.

  • Return email address. This address is used for all email notifications on this channel and will receive any replies to notifications.

  • Email subject and body text that you want subscribers to receive. For more information, see How to Customize Message Content for Notifications.

To enable an email notification channel

  1. Log on to the computer with a user account that is a member of the Operations Manager Administrators role.

  2. In the Operations console, click Administration.

  3. In the navigation pane, under Notifications, right-click Channels. Click New channel and then click E-mail (SMTP).

  4. Type a name for the channel, such as SMTP channel and optionally provide a description. Click Next.

  5. In the SMTP servers area, click Add.

  6. In the Add SMTP Server dialog box, type the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) of a Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) server, type the port number, select the authentication method used by the SMTP server, and then click OK.

    Note

    You can add one or more additional servers to act as backup servers. If the primary SMTP server is unavailable, notifications are sent through the secondary server.

  7. Type the Return Address that should appear on email notifications, and then in the Retry interval list, select the number of minutes to wait before trying to resend a notification to the primary SMTP server. Click Next.

    Note

    If you have only one SMTP server and it’s unavailable, the Retry interval has no effect. The Retry interval is used when you have a secondary server and mail sending to the primary server fails. When this happens, Operations Manager switches to the secondary server and checks the Retry interval time. If the Retry interval time has passed, Operations Manager tries to use the primary server.

  8. In the Default e-mail notification format area, specify the E-mail subject and E-mail message text or leave the default selections, select the Importance level that you want the emails sent with, and then specify the Encoding type. You can click the right arrow next to the E-mail subject and E-mail message boxes for a full list of available variables. For more information, see How to Customize Message Content for Notifications.

  9. Click Finish, and then click Close.

Next task: How to Create and Configure the Notification Action Account