Following on from Paul Ostwick’s excellent article, HTML Emails in SDE, I decided to put his guidance into practice and come up with my own email templates. I am really pleased with the result and as such thought I would share just in case it suits your needs.
To begin with I created the Header and Footer Notification Business Rule Templates exactly as Paul describes and then made a couple of modifications to the styles etc.
_HTML_HEAD Template
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Service Desk Notification</TITLE>
<STYLE TYPE="text/css">
* { margin: 0px; padding: 0px; }
body { font-size: 80%; font-family: 'Lucinda Grande', Verdana, Sans-Serif; margin: 10px; }
h1 { font-size: 150%; font-weight: bold; color: white; }
h2 { font-size: 110%; font-weight: bold; margin: 0 0 10px 20px; }
p { font-size: 100%; line-height: 150%; margin: 20px; }
.header { padding: 10px; border: 1px solid #000000; background-color: #336699; height: 40px; color: #EEEEEE; width: 100%; }
.content { margin-left: 25px; }
th { text-align: left; font-weight: bold; padding-right: 10px; }
.footer { padding: 10px; border: 1px solid #000000; background-color: #336699; height: 20px; color: #EEEEEE; width: 100%; }
</STYLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<TABLE>
<TR><TD class="header">
<H1>Service Desk Notification</H1>
</TD></TR>
<TR><TD>
_HTML_FOOT Template
<P>The progress of your ticket can be obtained via <A HREF="http://{APPSERVER}/HelpDesk">Self-Service</A> or the Service Desk on +44 (0) XXX-XXXX.</P>
</TD></TR>
<TR><TD class="footer">
{EVENTMODULE} {EVENTMETHOD} / {RULENAME}
</TD></TR>
</TABLE>
</BODY>
</HTML>
Incident Logged Template
I then created the Incident Logged template with the Header and Footer Templates added:
{TEMPL,_HTML_HEAD}
<P>Dear {TR,First Name},</P>
<P>
An Incident (# {TR,Incident #}) has been logged on your behalf. The details of this incident are shown below:
</P>
<H2>Incident Details</H2>
<TABLE class="content">
<TR>
<TH>Service:</TH>
<TD>{TR,Service Description}</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TH>Category:</TH>
<TD>{TR,Subject Description}</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TH>CI Assembly:</TH>
<TD>{TR,CI Assembly ID}</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TH>Configuration Item:</TH>
<TD>{TR,Asset/Tag #} - {TR,CI Description}</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TH>Description:</TH>
<TD>{TR,Incident Description}</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TH>Status:</TH>
<TD>{TR,Status ID:} </TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>
{TEMPL,_HTML_FOOT}
Result
The result, in my humble opinion, is really quite pleasant:
Summary
So, if you haven’t had a play with HTML emails yet – have a go. I converted all my emails in around 1/2 hour once I got the header and footer template sorted. As always, comments (positive or negative) are always welcome.
JOATIT 
good job
many thanks
br
Reinhard
Are there any readability issues concerning PDAs, specifically the Blackberry as they don’t support HTML emails well at all?
Hi Reinhard,
Many thanks for the compliment – it is much appreciated.
Regards,
Alan
Hi CJW,
To be honest I am not sure other than to say the iPhone seems to support them very well. There are a vast number of resources on the net about the troubles associated with HTML emails (and not just on PDAs – Outlook 2007 was a pain to please).
I don’t have a Blackberry to test with but would be very happy to hear any feedback regarding them. Alternatively, someone could always buy me one and I would then test with it 🙂 Or not 😦
Regards,
Alan
Hi Alan,
This was really awsome and welcome. I just have a issue with this tho. I have created the Templates and placed them in notification,but i get a blank notification. Any idea why.
A. Robinson
Hi Ashit,
Glad you liked the article. When you created the templates did you remember to select the appropriate module for the Header and Footer e.g. Incident?
Regards,
Alan
Hi Alan,
Yes i did. I finally tried it again, it works..the strange thing is that the footer does not work at all, even tho i put the code as it is in a notification. Guess something got to do with the HREF link i guess.
But this is real good Alan. Thanks a lot.
Rgds,
A.Robinson
Hi Alan,
I need some help on how we can use/configure Cisco Call Manager with BMC SDE. We have a guy come in from Cisco and he mentioned that there is no way, and we know that it is possible, just don’t know how to go about it. We are planning to use push so that whenever a user calls, based on his ext # the Incident form will pop up with his client info from SDE, on the Helpdesk Staff screen who answers the phone.
Could you please provide some insight on this.
Thanks a lot for all your inputs on this Web Site, which is far better from the BMC Support.
regards,
A.Robinson
Kuwait
Hi Ashit,
There is an addon called BMC Service Desk Express Computer – Telephony Integration that you can get from your BMC Partner that does exactly what you are suggesting. You can configure it, for example, so that you press 1 for a new call (which automatically opens a new incident form) or press 2 for an existing call (which after the user enters the incident number followed by the # key, the complete incident is shown to the Service Desk Agent even before the call is passed through.
Hope this helps.
Regards,
Alan
Hi Alan,
Do the users get a message when they call the helpdesk with options to enter 1 or 2.
How does it work…we have CTI application within the BMC CD but dont knw how to go abt it.
Thanks for ur reply.
Ashit Robinson
This template looks great. To answer the question regarding Blackberry display, I have seen a lot of issues with HTML on Blackberrys including mailto links. Unfortunately it varies quite a bit by BB version so the only way to really know is test it in your environment. And if you have users with multiple different BB versions, test it on all of them.
Hi Ashit,
To be honest my knowledge of the CTI module is pretty limited. The 1/2 options etc. are set up on your telephony system (not in SDE) which then pass data to SDE via the VBScripts and the Push Service. It only works with certain telephony systems I seem to recall.
There is a whole section (Appendix E) in the Administrator’s Guide pdf on your CD.
Your BMC Partner should be able to give you a lot more information.
Hope this helps.
Best regards,
Alan
Hi Alan,
I’ve only just come across your site and it’s extremely handy.
I’ve been busy downloading everything i can get my hands on 😉
I’ve gotten my hands on a whitepaper from BMC which explains the telephony integration in more detail.
I’ll send it to you directly…
Regards,
Matthew
Ireland
Great article, got a test up and going in no time. Now waiting to see how the bosses like it.
As far as blackberry it depends on the OS version. I had one of our supervisors view a test on his, with the latest OS and it displays it beautifully, another manager couldn’t view the HTML formatting but at least it didn’t display the HTML tags, only the actual text.
Thanks again for article.
Hi Matthew,
Thanks for the kind comments. The more knowledge shared the better as far as I am concerned. Thanks for the Whitepaper BTW.
Regards,
Alan
Hi Moises,
Really glad you liked the article although to be fair, as mentioned in the article, the credit is Paul Ostwick’s as all I did was build on his great article that he wrote for my blog.
The Blackberry info is interesting – must get myself one of those at some point 🙂
Best regards,
Alan
Alan,
like the templates, just one quick one – any thoughts on why the colours don’t work for us? The header honoured the white text but it was invisible because it made the blue box white. any hints?
Cheers,
Simon
Hi Alan,
this is excelent.
I’ve been working with SDE for sometime now. Often I do my own ‘little’ projects of enhancing SDE functionality. I just wonder we can collaborate or in other words share some knowledge in SDE?
Alex
Hi Simon,
Sorry for the tardy response – been a little busy lately. It is possible that you have cut and pasted from my blog and the apostrophes and quotation marks have been incorrectly transposed. This is the bane of my life.
Let me know how you get along.
Regards,
Alan
Hi Alex,
Glad you liked. Sharing SDE (and other IT) knowledge is the sole purpose of this blog. Drop me an email to alan@14j.co.uk if you have something specific in mind.
Regards,
Alan
Hi Alan,
Have retyped all the HTML from scratch and it still has the same problem. Have tested it by creating a simple web page using that HTML and it looks as it should. I assume it is something to do with a style sheet within the application. Another quick point that I hadn’t mentioned in the last comment as that I was attempting to combine the advice from a couple of your posts by using HTML email conversations, not sure if that muddies the waters.
We have ended up going with plain text for now as it looked horrible without the right formatting. Additionally something (I assume the stylesheet) is adding text at the bottom in a different font along the lines of:————————————————————————————
Note: This E-mail is sent with reference to Incident #xxx Kindly mention Reference Number ‘ref#24-xxxx’ for further E-mail communication in this regard.
The dashes as a line break are in the text that’s added to the bottom of all of our email conversations.
Any clue you could add would be greatly appreciated.
Cheers,
Simon
Hi Simon,
The email conversation module adds the text at the bottom of the email and that is not configurable. What client are you using? As a suggestion try sending the email to an email address that you can access using a WebMail client and take a look at what it looks like there. It may be that the client is in some way affecting the output.
Regards,
Alan
Hi Alan,
Your site has been so helpful to me — thank you so much for your great articles!
Our clients often submit requests via email and include screen captures they have pasted into their message. I wondered if it was possible to use HTML to then include those images in the notifications that go out to our staff when the incident is assigned? It currently looks like this in the notifications:
[cid:image001.png@01CA0AB7.EC5448C0]
Thank you,
AJ
Thanks Mr Alan,
When itry to add this code in BR template, it will give me the following error:
”
A potentially dangerous Request.Form value was detected from the client (6=”…false”%>
<STY…").
"
But, when i put the code directly to the BR in BR Manager, it will not show me this error messagem but its not working correctly, i mean the color and the alignment. What should i do?
Hi AJ,
At the moment SDE doesn’t support the concept of Rich Text Boxes but I understand that that is something that is coming further down the line. Until then I don’t think it is possible.
Regards,
Alan
Hi Motasim,
First suggestion would be to check that the code you have cut and pasted is correct. Unfortunately, quote marks and apostrophes get transposed incorrectly. Check each instance of an apostrophe or quote mark and replace it and let me know how you get on.
Regards,
Alan
This is the actual error:
Server Error in ‘/SDE’ Application.
——————————————————————————–
A potentially dangerous Request.Form value was detected from the client (6=”…”).
Description: Request Validation has detected a potentially dangerous client input value, and processing of the request has been aborted. This value may indicate an attempt to compromise the security of your application, such as a cross-site scripting attack. You can disable request validation by setting validateRequest=false in the Page directive or in the configuration section. However, it is strongly recommended that your application explicitly check all inputs in this case.
Exception Details: System.Web.HttpRequestValidationException: A potentially dangerous Request.Form value was detected from the client (6=”…”).
Source Error:
An unhandled exception was generated during the execution of the current web request. Information regarding the origin and location of the exception can be identified using the exception stack trace below.
Stack Trace:
[HttpRequestValidationException (0x80004005): A potentially dangerous Request.Form value was detected from the client (6=”
…”).]
System.Web.HttpRequest.ValidateString(String s, String valueName, String collectionName) +8721914
System.Web.HttpRequest.ValidateNameValueCollection(NameValueCollection nvc, String collectionName) +111
System.Web.HttpRequest.get_Form() +129
System.Web.HttpRequest.get_HasForm() +8722023
System.Web.UI.Page.GetCollectionBasedOnMethod(Boolean dontReturnNull) +97
System.Web.UI.Page.DeterminePostBackMode() +63
System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequestMain(Boolean includeStagesBeforeAsyncPoint, Boolean includeStagesAfterAsyncPoint) +6785
System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequest(Boolean includeStagesBeforeAsyncPoint, Boolean includeStagesAfterAsyncPoint) +242
System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequest() +80
System.Web.Util.AspCompatApplicationStep.System.Web.HttpApplication.IExecutionStep.Execute() +22
System.Web.HttpApplication.ExecuteStep(IExecutionStep step, Boolean& completedSynchronously) +75
——————————————————————————–
Version Information: Microsoft .NET Framework Version:2.0.50727.3082; ASP.NET Version:2.0.50727.3082
Thanks Alen
I try to create a new template with just tags, but the same error appeare.
So i found the solution:
1- Go to file:
” c:Program FilesBMCService Desk ExpressApplication ServerMBL_Templates.aspx”
2- Add the follwoing code in the first ASP Tag command:
ValidateRequest=”false”
3- the ASP code will be as:
I try it in SDE 9.6, and it’s working.
Thnak Alen
Hi Motasim,
I have the same problem you did but unfortunately know nothing about ASP code. I have tried adding this in but not quite sure where to put it? please could you let me know where you placed it?
Thanks
Jo
PS Alsn, these templates are fab! Just what i needed.
Motasim,
Please forget last message i have now got this working.
Jo
That solution works perfectly! My dev box is 9.8, and it does have the above statement included in the MBL_templates.aspx file.
The other thing that I am running into with 9.6 is when i insert HTML code into a CSBR, in the expression builder on the actions tab. I get the same error that we were getting with the templates. Is there another .aspx file that would need to be modified?
Hi JoeA,
I think BMC would suggest that you shouldn’t be entering HTML code in CSBR’s as they don’t send notifications and the popup messages are Javascript. That said if you opening a new form e.g. Email Conversation then I can see how you might want to use it.
The file in question would be csbr_customization.aspx I would suggest although I haven’t tried it.
Hope this helps.
Regards,
Alan
So my rule would be similar to what you indicated on the Email conversations and mandatory signature blocks. (http://www.joatit.com/wordpress/?p=94)
When an email message is saved, populate the current form with xxx data. What I want to be able to do is make the end user see the message in a better format than just the text. That is where I am using a CSBR. Does that make sense? Thanks for all your help! This blog has helped me immensely!!!
Hi JoeA, I also ran into that same error but after applying the fix that Motasim mentioned and doing a iisrest I got it working. My only dilemma now is that the emailout record the incident detail with full html code. I’m working on a fix.