Prior to vCommander® 4.7.2, email notifications were configured for service requests and service workflows in a related email notifications tab. These options still exist in vCommander so you don’t need to change anything once you upgrade, if you’re happy with the way notifications are currently handled. 

But the workflow steps available to send emails are far more powerful, allowing for dynamic selection of email recipients whose addresses you previously would have had to explicitly name in your workflows. We’ll look at these using two scenarios in this article.

When configuring a workflow step, the Variable Assistant may be accessed to display the available variables for that workflow/step type.

View a complete list of available variables in the Online Documentation here.

Let’s look at a few examples:

Emailing the Requester

In our first scenario, we’ll look at providing information back to the user who made the request. Doing so in an approval workflow means you can actually keep records on their agreeing to terms you provide in the email body, for example, that they understand the budget impact for their department when deploying VMs that consume application licenses.

Using #{request.requesterEmail} in the address list means that the user who made the request receives the email. Until they approve, and accept the billing, nothing gets deployed.

Emailing All Owners

In our next scenario, we address the problem making sure all owners (including IT Contacts), get notified. This makes sure that none of the users able to interact with the VM are surprised by any changes.