Testing EJM Alerts with ServiceNow

Eagle ACCESS uses ServiceNow to raise and track requests and issues. Eagle Job Management (EJM) has been enhanced with the ability to send alerts directly to ServiceNow. This enhancement leverages EJM email features so the alerts are sent to ServiceNow in an email in a predefined ServiceNow format and an actual ServiceNow ticket is automatically generated from the email.

This EJM-Service Now integration is new, and while Eagle has performed initial local testing, to fully test and ensure that the alerts are triggered as expected and contain all the necessary information to help with triaging the issue, Eagle would like to undergo testing with several clients as the next step. 

Second Phase Testing

During this second testing phase, Eagle will be using our test region for ServiceNow. On the client side, EJM alerts need to be configured in the client’s production region (or UAT region, if the client is close to the go-live date). Eagle is looking to have alerts enabled in the higher region to capture actual valid issues rather than alerts from lower regions that may be resulting from ongoing development and testing.

Since the alerts are only generated when specific issues occur, it is difficult to determine exactly how long the second phase of testing needs to occur since we cannot gauge the volume of issues that will be raised. However, Eagle expects that the second phase of testing will occur for at least two (2) months once enabled in the testing clients’ production regions. Eagle will be closely evaluating alert content and volume during that period and will determine whether additional clients or time is necessary for testing completeness.

Alert Patterns for Testing

During this second testing phase, three specific use case alert patterns will be enabled for testing. These include alerts for Job Execution Warning, Missing Files Error, and RTR-TSR Matching Error. Job Execution Warning alerts are generated when a job is taking longer than the expected run time set by the Implementation team. Missing Files Error alerts are genereated when the expected file was not received. And, RTR-TSR Matching Error alerts indicate that there is an issue with how much data was received versus how much data was processed.

ServiceNow Triaging and Testing Scope

While testing is ongoing, Eagle ACCESS standard triaging processes and procedures will be in place and executed as normal. 

The new EJM-ServiceNow alerts sent to Eagle’s test region of ServiceNow will provide an additional layer of information for troubleshooting and help Eagle identify if alerts were not raised, but should have been, as well as evaluate if alerts contained enough details.

Any issues identified during the testing will be investigated and code changes to the EJM-ServiceNow alert process will be made by R&D, if necessary. Once Eagle ACCESS Client and Technical Operation Teams (along with input from R&D, GSS, and GPS) determine the testing window is sufficient and the results are positive, the ServiceNow changes will be scheduled to be moved into the ServiceNow production region.

After the ServiceNow changes are moved into production, the EJM-ServiceNow alerts will be considered production-ready for the three specific alert patterns identified above. At that point, additional client production environments may be enabled to leverage these alerts and Eagle will work with other EJM clients to configure in their environments. The client’s specific version of Eagle as well as EagleML will be factored into when they are able to adopt the new EJM-ServiceNow alerts.