Create a "Check Alert in Google" lookup task in SCOM 2007

In System Center Operations Manager you can create custom tasks in the console to perform actions based on a alert. A really easy to create, and incredibly useful console task is a “Check Google” alert task. What this task will do is open up a browser and query Google for the name of a particular alert. Google then may find more information or possibly solution for the alert in Technet, blogs, or many of the SCOM websites.

To Create the Google lookup console task:

1. Open Up the System Center Operations Manager 2007 Console
2. Click on the Authoring tab
3. Expand Management pack objects
4. Right Click Tasks and Select Create a New Task… This will start the Create Task Wizard
5. In the Task Type pane Select Alert Command Line Under Console Tasks
6. Select a Management Pack to store the task in ( I recommend creating a separate management pack for this) Click Next
7. Type a name for the task such as !Check Google – Note: This is the label for the task in the action pane of the console. Click Next
8. Under Application: type (with quotes) “%programfiles%\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe”
9. Under Parameters: type (without quotes) “http://google.com/search?q= $Name$”
10. Uncheck Display output when this task is run and then click OK

Another cool thing you can do with this is search internal knowledge bases using SharePoint search. Just swap out your SharePoint search URL for Google in the Parameters.

Remember to keep the $Name$ Parameter because this actually passes the Alert Name to the search URL.

You can also search the public “Research this” knowledge base by substituting “http://www.systemcenterforum.org/search/ $Name$” (no quotes) in for the parameters.

Dave Pavone
M3 Postmasters
www.m3tg.com