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Reload alerts for Qlik Sense Cloud

Butler offers a lot of flexibility when it comes to alerts when reloads fai in Qlik Sense Cloud.

Learn how to set up the desired features, the alert layout, formatting and more.

Alert types

These alert types are available:

  • Reload task failure. Send alerts when reload tasks fail, no matter if they were started on schedule or manually from the QMC.
  • Reload task aborted. Send alerts when reload tasks are manually aborted in the QMC.
  • Reload task success. Send alerts when reload tasks complete successfully.

Alert destinations and options

Alerts can be sent to these destinations, with different options available for each destination.
Each destination can be individually enabled/disabled in the config file.

Destination Reload task failure Reload task aborted Reload task success Enable/disable alert per reload task Per reload task alert recipients Flexible formatting Basic formatting Comment
Email ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ Basic emails can be sent using a log appender.
InfluxDB ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ The failed reload’s script log is available in InfluxDb.
New Relic ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ The failed reload’s script log is available in New Relic.
Signl4 ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ Alerts are presented in Signl4’s own format in their mobile app.
Slack ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅
MS Teams ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅
Outgoing webhook ✅ ✅ Formatting is not relevant for webhooks
MQTT ✅ ✅ Formatting is not relevant for MQTT messages

How it works

In order for Butler initiated alerts to become a reality, Butler must somehow be notified that the event of interest (for example a failed reload task) has occurred.
This is achieved by adding a log appender to Qlik Sense Enterprise on Windows.

Log appenders offer a way to hook into Qlik Sense’s logging subsystem, which is called log4net.

By adding a carefully crafted .xml file in the right location on the Sense server(s), you can make Sense notify Butler by means of UDP messages when the events of interest occur. Conceptually it looks like this:

Butler high level system overview

So what happens when a scheduled reload task fails?
Let’s look at the steps:

  1. A reload task is started by the Sense scheduler, either on a time schedule, as a result of some other task(s) finishing or manually by a user in the QMC or from the Hub.

  2. When the task’s state changes, entries are written to the Sense scheduler’s log files using log4net (which is built into Qlik Sense). If the filter defined in the log appender (= the .xml file on the Sense server) matches the log entry at hand, the associated action in the log appender will be carried out.

  3. Log appenders can do all kinds of things, everything from writing custom log files, sending basic emails, writing to databases and much more.
    Here we’re interested in the log appender sending a UDP message from Qlik Sense to Butler.

  4. The log appender provided as part of Butler will make log4net send a UDP message to Butler, including various info (reload task ID, timestamp, host name etc) about the reload task that just failed or was stopped/aborted.

  5. Butler will look at the incoming event and determine what it is about.
    For example: Is the event about a reload task failure, a reload that has been aborted/stopped, or something else?
    Butler thus first works as a dispatcher. In a second step, after the initial dispatch, the event is sent to the relevant handler function within Butler.

Response times are usually very good - Butler will typically get the UDP message within a few seconds after (for example) the reload failing, with alerts going out shortly thereafter.

Warning

The log appenders that catch failed and aborted reloads in the Qlik Sense engine and scheduler must be set up on all Qlik Sense servers where reloads are happening for this feature to work.

Failing to do so will result in Butler not being notified about some reload failures/aborted reloads.

Tip

The concept above is the same also for aborted and successful reload tasks.

Adding a log appender

This is possibly the trickiest part to get right when it comes to setting up log4net based alerts.
Still, if you start from the sample .xml file provided in the Butler repository on GitHub it’s not too hard.
Those sample .xml files are also included in the release Zip files available on the Butler releases page.

The steps are:

  1. In this case you want to be notified when certain events occur in the scheduler log files.

    This is important: Qlik Sense Enterprise on Windows consists of many different subsystems (engine, proxy, scheduler, printing etc) - here we’re interested in log events from the scheduler subsystem.

    Add a file LocalLogConfig.xml in the C:\ProgramData\Qlik\Sense\Scheduler folder on the Sense server whose scheduler you want to get events from. If you have multiple Sense servers with schedulers running on them, the .xml file should be deployed on each server (assuming you want events from all the servers).

  2. The contents of LocalLogConfig.xml will determine what events are forwarded to Butler, or what other actions will be taken by log4net. See below for examples.

  3. Sense will eventually detect and load the new xml file, but it might take a while (minutes). Restarting the Qlik Sense Scheduler Windows service will make the changes take effect immediately.

alt text

Forwarding reload task events to Butler

Here’s the XML that should go into C:\ProgramData\Qlik\Sense\Scheduler\LocalLogConfig.xml to enable the various kinds of Butler task reload alerts.

  • The remoteAddress property should be set to the host name or IP where Butler is running.

  • The remotePort property should match the port number specified in Butler’s config file. Note that Butler uses different ports for task related and user activity related events.

  • The first appender looks for the text “Max retries reached” in the System.Scheduler.Scheduler.Master.Task.TaskSession log stream. That log entry will be created when a reload task has failed and also carried out all its retries. Once the search string is found a UDP message will be sent to port 9998 on IP 10.11.12.13.

  • The second appender looks for “Execution State Change to Aborting” in the System.Scheduler.Scheduler.Master.Task.TaskSession log stream. That log entry occurs when a user stops a running reload from the QMC’s task view, or using the Sense APIs. When the search string is found a UDP message is once again sent to 10.11.12.13:9998, but with a different messsage (as specified in the conversionpattern property of the appender).

  • The third appender looks for “Reload complete” in the System.Scheduler.Scheduler.Slave.Tasks.ReloadTask log stream.
    That log entry occurs when a reload task has completed successfully.

Here is an XML file that would forward log events as UDP messages to Butler:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<configuration>
    <!-- Appender for detecting reload task failures. Only the last of potentially several retries is reported -->
    <appender name="TaskFailureLogger" type="log4net.Appender.UdpAppender">
        <filter type="log4net.Filter.StringMatchFilter">
            <param name="stringToMatch" value="Max retries reached" />
        </filter>
        <filter type="log4net.Filter.DenyAllFilter" />
        <param name="remoteAddress" value="<IP of server where Butler is running>" />
        <param name="remotePort" value="9998" />
        <param name="encoding" value="utf-8" />
        <layout type="log4net.Layout.PatternLayout">
            <converter>
                <param name="name" value="hostname" />
                <param name="type" value="Qlik.Sense.Logging.log4net.Layout.Pattern.HostNamePatternConverter" />
            </converter>
            <param name="conversionpattern" value="/scheduler-reload-failed/;%hostname;%property{TaskName};%property{AppName};%property{User};%property{TaskId};%property{AppId};%date;%level;%property{ExecutionId};%message" />
        </layout>
    </appender>

    <!-- Appender for detecting aborted reloads -->
    <appender name="AbortedReloadTaskLogger" type="log4net.Appender.UdpAppender">
        <filter type="log4net.Filter.StringMatchFilter">
            <param name="stringToMatch" value="Execution State Change to Aborting" />
        </filter>
        <filter type="log4net.Filter.DenyAllFilter" />
        <param name="remoteAddress" value="<IP of server where Butler is running>" />
        <param name="remotePort" value="9998" />
        <param name="encoding" value="utf-8" />
        <layout type="log4net.Layout.PatternLayout">
            <converter>
                <param name="name" value="hostname" />
                <param name="type" value="Qlik.Sense.Logging.log4net.Layout.Pattern.HostNamePatternConverter" />
            </converter>
            <param name="conversionpattern" value="/scheduler-reload-aborted/;%hostname;%property{TaskName};%property{AppName};%property{User};%property{TaskId};%property{AppId};%date;%level;%property{ExecutionId};%message" />
        </layout>
    </appender>

    <!-- Appender for detecting successful reload tasks -->
    <appender name="ReloadTaskSuccessLogger" type="log4net.Appender.UdpAppender">
        <filter type="log4net.Filter.StringMatchFilter">
            <param name="stringToMatch" value="Execution State Change to FinishedSuccess" />
        </filter>
        <filter type="log4net.Filter.DenyAllFilter" />
        <param name="remoteAddress" value="<IP of server where Butler is running>" />
        <param name="remotePort" value="9998" />
        <param name="encoding" value="utf-8" />
        <layout type="log4net.Layout.PatternLayout">
            <converter>
                <param name="name" value="hostname" />
                <param name="type" value="Qlik.Sense.Logging.log4net.Layout.Pattern.HostNamePatternConverter" />
            </converter>
            <param name="conversionpattern" value="/scheduler-reloadtask-success/;%hostname;%property{TaskName};%property{AppName};%property{User};%property{TaskId};%property{AppId};%date;%level;%property{ExecutionId};%message" />
        </layout>
    </appender>

    <!-- Send message to Butler on task failure -->
    <!-- Send message to Butler on task abort -->
    <!-- Send message to Butler on reload task success -->
    <logger name="System.Scheduler.Scheduler.Master.Task.TaskSession">
        <appender-ref ref="TaskFailureLogger" />
        <appender-ref ref="AbortedReloadTaskLogger" />
        <appender-ref ref="ReloadTaskSuccessLogger" />
    </logger>

</configuration>

The above configuration is enough to support all task reload alerts currently supported by Butler.

Sending basic alert emails from Qlik Sense/log4net

If you are happy with the more basic/limited reload-failed alert emails provided by log4net, you can add a SMTP appender like this (the example below is for sending emails using Google GMail, customise as needed).

Note

If sending alert emails from Log4Net you will not get any of the nice formatting, script logs or other features that Butler provides in its alerts.

The email will instead just tell you that a task failed, and include some basic information about the task (task name, specifically).

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<configuration>
    <!-- Mail appender-->
    <appender name="MailAppender" type="log4net.Appender.SmtpAppender">
        <filter type="log4net.Filter.StringMatchFilter">
            <param name="stringToMatch" value="Message from ReloadProvider" />
        </filter>
        <filter type="log4net.Filter.DenyAllFilter" />
        <evaluator type="log4net.Core.LevelEvaluator">
            <param name="threshold" value="ERROR"/>
        </evaluator>
        <param name="to" value="<email address to send failed task notification emails to>" />
        <param name="from" value="<sender email address used in notification emails>" />
        <param name="subject" value="Qlik Sense failed task (server <servername>)" />
        <param name="smtpHost" value="smtp.gmail.com" />
        <param name="port" value="587" />
        <param name="EnableSsl" value="true" />
        <param name="Authentication" value="Basic" />
        <param name="username" value="<Gmail username>" />
        <param name="password" value="<Gmail password>" />
        <param name="bufferSize" value="0" /> <!-- Set this to 0 to make sure an email is sent on every error -->
        <param name="lossy" value="true" />
        <layout type="log4net.Layout.PatternLayout">
            <param name="conversionPattern" value="%newline%date %-5level %newline%property{TaskName}%newline%property{AppName}%newline%message%newline%newline%newline" />
        </layout>
    </appender>

    <!--Send mail on task failure-->
    <logger name="System.Scheduler.Scheduler.Slave.Tasks.ReloadTask">
        <appender-ref ref="MailAppender" />
    </logger>
</configuration>

References

  • Qlik’s documenation around log appenders and how to hook into the Sense logs is somewhat brief, but does provide a starting point if you want to dive deeper into this topic.

  • The main log4net documentation (log4net is the logging framework used by Qlik Sense Enterprise) can also be useful.

These links describe how emails can be sent from the log4net logging framework itself, directly to the recipient. Butler includes sameple XML files for this use case too, but Butler takes things further by using the data in the Sense logs to pull in more data around the failed or stopped reload.

In other words - Butler’s alert emails are significantly more flexible and contain information (such as script logs) that are not availble using purely log4net.

1 - Reload alerts sent as emails

Description of the various kinds of alert emails Butler can send.

What’s this?

Butler can send two kinds of alert emails:

  • When a reload task fails during execution.
  • When a running reload task is somehow stopped/aborted.
  • When a reload task completes successfully.

Butler has a de-duplication feature that ensure each email address that has qualified for an alert email only gets ONE email per alert.

See the Concepts section for additional details and sample alert emails.

Basic vs formatted email alerts

If you want Butler to send email alerts you must provide an email template file.

For some other alert destinations (Slack and Teams) Butler offers a “basic” option. A fixed format alert is then sent by Butler.
The closest thing available for emails is to use the mail log appender described here, but if you set up a log appender AND have Butler running, you might as well use the formatted email option as it provides much more flexibility than log4net’s email appender.

Rate limiting

Butler has rate limiting feature to ensure alert recipients are not spammed with too many alert emails.

The rate limit is configured (in seconds) in the main config file and can be set independently for reload-failed and reload-aborted emails.
The corresponding config settings are Butler.emailNotification.reloadTaskFailure.rateLimit, Butler.emailNotification.reloadTaskAborted.rateLimit and Butler.emailNotification.reloadTaskSuccess.rateLimit.

Rate limiting is done based on task ID + email address.

Sending test emails to verify correct settings

It can be tricky to find the correct settings to use Butler with email servers.
Butler itself uses a very generic email components to send emails, but corporate email servers may impose restrictions on from where/what servers emails will be accepted, encryption may be used together with non-standard network ports etc.

Butler offers a command line option that when used will send a simple test email to the specified email address.
This makes is very easy to test if the email settings in Butler’s config file are working or not.
When this command line option is used Butler will start normally, but also send a test email during startup.

The command line option is --test-email-address <address>.
The sender of the test email can be specified with --test-email-from-address <address>.

PS C:\tools\butler> .\butler.exe
Usage: butler [options]

Butler gives superpowers to client-managed Qlik Sense Enterprise on Windows!
Advanced reload failure alerts, task scheduler, key-value store, file system access and much more.

Options:
  -V, --version                        output the version number
  -c, --configfile <file>              path to config file
  -l, --loglevel <level>               log level (choices: "error", "warn", "info", "verbose", "debug", "silly")
  --new-relic-account-name  <name...>  New Relic account name. Used within Butler to differentiate between different target New Relic accounts
  --new-relic-api-key <key...>         insert API key to use with New Relic
  --new-relic-account-id <id...>       New Relic account ID
  --test-email-address <address>       send test email to this address. Used to verify email settings in the config file.
  --test-email-from-address <address>  send test email from this address. Only relevant when SMTP server allows from address to be set.
  --no-qs-connection                   don't connect to Qlik Sense server at all. Run in isolated mode
  --api-rate-limit                     set the API rate limit, per minute. Default is 100 calls/minute. Set to 0 to disable rate limiting.
  -h, --help                           display help for command
PS C:\tools\butler>

If the settings in the config file’s Butler.emailNotification.smtp section are valid and correct a command like this can be used:
butler.exe -c ./config/production.yaml --test-email-address myname@somedomain.com. Adapt config file location and email address as needed.

The resulting email looks like this:

Test email from Butler

Sending alert emails to app owners

Butler can optionally send alert emails to the owner of apps that failed reloading/were aborted.

Note

App owner notification email can only be sent to app owners that have an email stored in their Qlik Sense user profile.
This is typically the case if the Qlik Sense user directory has been synced from a Microsoft Active Directory - but there is no guarantee this is the case.

If there is no email available for an app owner, he/she will simply not receive a notification email.

This feature is controlled by the config file properties Butler.emailNotification.reloadTaskAborted.appOwnerAlert.enable and Butler.emailNotification.reloadTaskFailure.appOwnerAlert.enable.

If set to true the app owner will be added to the send list of alert emails, in addition to the recipients specied in Butler.emailNotification.reloadTaskAborted.recipients and Butler.emailNotification.reloadTaskFailure.recipients.

The sections of the config file dealing with app owner notification emails looks like this:

appOwnerAlert:
  enable: true              # Should app owner get notification email (assuming email address is available in Sense user directory)
  includeOwner:
    includeAll: true                            # true = Send notification to all app owners except those in exclude list
                                                # false = Send notification to all app owners in the include list
    user:
      - directory: <Sense user directory>
        userId: <userId>
      - directory: <Sense user directory>
        userId: <userId>
  excludeOwner:
    user:
      - directory: <Sense user directory>
        userId: <userId>
      - directory: <Sense user directory>
        userId: <userId>

It works like this:

  • If appOwnerAlert.enable is set to false no app owner emails will be sent. If it’s set to true the rules below apply.
  • If appOwnerAlert.includeOwner.includeAll is set to true all app owners will get notification emails when apps the own fail/are aborted…
    • … except those app owners listed in the appOwnerAlert.excludeOwner.user array.
    • That array thus provides a way to exclude some app owners (e.g. system accounts) to receive notifcation emails.
  • If appOwnerAlert.includeOwner.includeAll is set to false it’s still possible to add individual app owners to the appOwnerAlert.includeOwner.user array.
    Those users will then receive notification emails for apps they own.

Send alerts only for some reload tasks

Some reload tasks may be more important than others.
I.e. some tasks should generate alert emails when they fail/abort/succeed, but others not.

Butler controls which tasks to send alerts for by looking at a specific Qlik Sense custom property.

Note

The concept described below is the same for failed, aborted and successful reload tasks.
Each of these three types of tasks have their own settings in the config file.

  • If the config file setting Butler.emailNotification.reloadTaskFailure.alertEnableByCustomProperty.enable is set to false, all failed reload tasks will cause alert emails.
  • If that setting is true only some tasks will cause alert emails:
    • If a task has the value specified in Butler.emailNotification.reloadTaskFailure.alertEnableByCustomProperty.enabledValue set for the custom property named as specified in Butler.emailNotification.reloadTaskFailure.alertEnableByCustomProperty.customPropertyName, the alert will be sent.
    • If a task does not have that custom property set, no alert will be sent for that task.
      • A task can still cause an alert to be sent if a specific email address is specified for the task, see below for details.

Some configuration is needed to make this work:

  1. Make changes to the config file. Specifically the three settings mentioned above needs to be reviewed and updated as needed.
  2. Create a custom property in Sense.
    1. The name and value of the custom property must match the one in the config file, Butler.emailNotification.reloadTaskFailure.alertEnableByCustomProperty.customPropertyName and Butler.emailNotification.reloadTaskFailure.alertEnableByCustomProperty.enabledValue.
    2. The custom property should be available on reload tasks.
  3. Set the custom property for reload tasks for which alert emails should be sent.

Aborted reload tasks (as compared to the failed reload tasks described above) are handled the same way, with their own settings in the config file.

In the QMC the custom property can look like this:

QMC custom property for controlling reload alerts

Send alerts to specific people, for some tasks

It’s possible to send alert emails to specific email addresses and control this on a per-task basis.

This is achieved by using a Sense custom property that contains the email addresses alerts should be sent to, for the task in question.

Note

The concept described below is the same for failed, aborted and successful reload tasks.
Each of these three types of tasks have their own settings in the config file.

These config setting Butler.emailNotification.reloadTaskFailure.alertEnableByEmailAddress.customPropertyName controls which custom property is used to store email addresses for failed reload tasks.

Email specific alert recpients is independent from the feature where alerts can be switched on/off for individual tasks (see above).

In other words: If an email address has been designated as recipient of alert emails, that address will always receive alert emails for all failed reload tasks.

Having set two different (blurred out) recipients of alert emails for a reload task:

QMC custom property for sending alert emails to specific email addresses

Settings in config file

Warning

Don’t forget to create the log appender .xml files on the Sense server(s).
This page describes how.

Those xml files are the foundation on top of which all Butler reload task alerts are built - without them the alerts described on this page won’t work.

---
Butler:
  ...
  ...
  # Qlik Sense related links used in notification messages
  qlikSenseUrls:
    qmc: <Link to Qlik Sense QMC>
    hub: <Link to Qlik Sense Hub>
  ...
  ...
  # Settings needed to send email notifications when for example reload tasks fail.
  # Reload failure notifications assume a log appender is configured in Sense AND that the UDP server in Butler is running.
  emailNotification:
    enable: false
    reloadTaskSuccess:
      enable: false
      # Custom property used to control which task successes will cause alert emails to be sent
      # If this setting is true, alerts will not be sent for all tasks, but *only* for tasks with the CP set to the enabledValue.
      # If this setting is false, alerts will be sent for all failed reload tasks.
      alertEnableByCustomProperty:
        enable: false
        customPropertyName: 'Butler_SuccessAlertEnableEmail'
        enabledValue: 'Yes'
      # Custom property used to say that alerts for a certain task should be sent to zero or more recipients
      # These alerts will be sent irrespective of the alertEnableByCustomProperty.enable setting.
      alertEnabledByEmailAddress:
        customPropertyName: 'Butler_SuccessAlertSendToEmail'
      rateLimit: 60              # Min seconds between emails for a given taskID. Defaults to 5 minutes.
      headScriptLogLines: 15
      tailScriptLogLines: 25
      priority: high              # high/normal/low
      subject: '✅ Qlik Sense reload success: "{{taskName}}"'
      bodyFileDirectory: path/to/email_templates
      htmlTemplateFile: success-reload-qseow
      fromAddress: Qlik Sense (no-reply) <qliksense-noreply@ptarmiganlabs.com>
      recipients:
        - <Email address 1>
        - <Email address 2>

    reloadTaskAborted:
      enable: false
      appOwnerAlert:
        enable: true              # Should app owner get notification email (assuming email address is available in Sense user directory)
        includeOwner:
          includeAll: true                            # true = Send notification to all app owners except those in exclude list
                                                      # false = Send notification to app owners in the include list
          user:
            - directory: <Sense user directory>
              userId: <userId>
            - directory: <Sense user directory>
              userId: <userId>
        excludeOwner:
          user:
            - directory: <Sense user directory>
              userId: <userId>
            - directory: <Sense user directory>
              userId: <userId>
      # Custom property used to control which aborted tasks will cause alert emails to be sent
      # If this setting is true, alerts will not be sent for all tasks, but *only* for tasks with the CP set to the enabledValue.
      # If this setting is false, alerts will be sent for all aborted reload tasks.
      alertEnableByCustomProperty:
        enable: true
        customPropertyName: 'Butler_AbortedAlertEnableEmail'
        enabledValue: 'Yes'
      # Custom property used to say that alerts for a certain task should be sent to zero or more recipients
      # These alerts will be sent irrespective of the alertEnableByCustomProperty.enable setting.
      alertEnabledByEmailAddress:
        customPropertyName: 'Butler_AbortedAlertSendToEmail'
      rateLimit: 600                                  # Min seconds between emails for a given taskID. Defaults to 5 minutes.
      headScriptLogLines: 15                          # Number of lines from start of script to include in email
      tailScriptLogLines: 15                          # Number of lines from end of script to include in email
      priority: high                                  # high/normal/low
      subject: 'Qlik Sense reload aborted: "{{taskName}}"'  # Email subject. Can use template fields
      bodyFileDirectory: path/to/email_templates      # Directory where email body template files are stored
      htmlTemplateFile: aborted-reload                # Name of email body template file to use
      fromAddress: Qlik Sense (no-reply) <qliksense-noreply@mydomain.com>
      recipients:                                     # Array of email addresses to which the notification email will be sent
        - <Email address 1>
        - <Email address 2>
    reloadTaskFailure:
      enable: false
      appOwnerAlert:
        enable: true              # Should app owner get notification email (assuming email address is available in Sense user directory)
        includeOwner:
          includeAll: true                            # true = Send notification to all app owners except those in exclude list
                                                      # false = Send notification to app owners in the include list
          user:
            - directory: <Sense user directory>
              userId: <userId>
            - directory: <Sense user directory>
              userId: <userId>
        excludeOwner:
          user:
            - directory: <Sense user directory>
              userId: <userId>
            - directory: <Sense user directory>
              userId: <userId>
      # Custom property used to control which task failures will cause alert emails to be sent
      # If this setting is true, alerts will not be sent for all tasks, but *only* for tasks with the CP set to the enabledValue.
      # If this setting is false, alerts will be sent for all failed reload tasks.
      alertEnableByCustomProperty:
        enable: false
        customPropertyName: 'Butler_FailedAlertEnableEmail'
        enabledValue: 'Yes'
      # Custom property used to say that alerts for a certain task should be sent to zero or more recipients
      # These alerts will be sent irrespective of the alertEnableByCustomProperty.enable setting.
      alertEnabledByEmailAddress:
        customPropertyName: 'Butler_FailedAlertSendToEmail'
      rateLimit: 600                                  # Min seconds between emails for a given taskID. Defaults to 5 minutes.
      headScriptLogLines: 15                          # Number of lines from start of script to include in email
      tailScriptLogLines: 15                          # Number of lines from end of script to include in email
      priority: high                                  # high/normal/low
      subject: 'Qlik Sense reload failed: "{{taskName}}"'   # Email subject. Can use template fields
      bodyFileDirectory: path/to/email_templates      # Directory where email body template files are stored
      htmlTemplateFile: failed-reload                 # Name of email body template file to use
      fromAddress: Qlik Sense (no-reply) <qliksense-noreply@mydomain.com>
      recipients:                                       # Array of email addresses to which the notification email will be sent
        - <Email address 1>
        - <Email address 2>
    ...
    ...
    smtp:                                             # Email server settings. See https://nodemailer.com/smtp/ for details on the meaning of these fields.
      host: <FQDN or IP or email server, e.g. smtp.gmail.com>
      port: <port on which SMTP server is listening>
      secure: true                                    # true/false
      tls:
        serverName:                                   # If specified the serverName field will be used for TLS verification instead of the host field.
        ignoreTLS: false
        requireTLS: true
        rejectUnauthorized: false
      auth:
        enable: true
        user: <Username, email address etc>
        password: <your-secret-password>
  ...
  ...
  udpServerConfig:
    enable: false                                     # Should the UDP server responsible for receving task failure and session events be started? true/false
    serverHost: <FQDN or IP (or localhost) of server where Butler is running>
    portTaskFailure: 9998
  ...
  ...

Templates: Configuring email appearance

Alert emails use standard HTML formatting. Inline CSS can be used (if so desired) for fine tuning the visual look of the alert email.

Butler’s process for sending alert emails is

  1. Figure out which email body template file should be used. This is determine by two set of fields in the main config file:
    1. For reload failure emails these config file properties are used: Butler.emailNotification.reladTaskFailure.bodyFileDirectory and Butler.emailNotification.reladTaskFailure.htmlTemplateFile
    2. For aborted reload emails these config file properties are used: Butler.emailNotification.reloadTaskAborted.bodyFileDirectory and Butler.emailNotification.reloadTaskAborted.htmlTemplateFile
  2. For email subjects, these config properties are used: Butler.emailNotification.reladTaskFailure.subject and Butler.emailNotification.reloadTaskAborted.subject
  3. Process the body template, replacing template fields with actual values.
  4. Process the email subject template, replacing template fields with actual values.
  5. Send the email.

A couple of sample template files are found in the src/config/email_templates directory of the GitHub repository.

Template fields reference

A complete list of template fields - including descriptions - is available in the Reference section.

2 - Reload alerts via Slack

Description of how reload alerts can be sent as Slack messages.

What’s this?

Butler can send two kinds of alert messages via Slack:

  • When a reload task fails.
  • When a reload task is stopped/aborted.

See the Concepts section for additional details.

A complete reference to the config file format is found here.

Basic vs formatted Slack alerts

Slack alerts come in two forms:

  • Customizable formatting using a template concept. A standard template that will fit most use cases is included with Butler. Using this option the first and last parts of the script log can be included in the message, allowing you to tell from the Slack message what caused the reload to fail.
    You can also add buttons to the message that can be used to open any URL you want, or open the app that failed reloading.
  • A fixed, more basic format that is built into Butler. No template file needed.

Which option to go for depends on whether you want just a notification that something went wrong, or if you want as much detail as possible in the Slack message.

Sample message with custom formatting

Note

The concept described below is the same for failed and aborted reload tasks.
Each of these have their own settings in the config file.

A “reload task failed” Slack message using the custom formatting option could look like this:

alt text

Here’s how to set this up:

  1. Create an incoming webhook in Slack, take note of its URL (you will need it in step 2 below).

  2. Edit the Slack section of the config file, i.e. the settings in Butler.slackNotification.reloadTaskFailure.

    The messageType property should be set to formatted.
    The basicMsgTemplate property is not used with formatted messages and can thus be left empty,

  3. Edit the template file if/as needed, the file is specified in Butler.slackNotification.reloadTaskFailure.templateFile. It uses the Handlebars templating engine, to which Butler provides template fields with actual values.

    The available template fields are described here.

    Sample template files are included in the release Zip file, and are also available in the GitHub repository’s src/config/slack_templates directory.

  4. Restart Butler if it’s already running.

Sample message with basic formatting

Note

The concept described below is the same for failed and aborted reload tasks.
Each of these have their own settings in the config file.

A “reload task failed” Slack message with basic formatting could look like this:

alt text

To set it up:

  1. Create an incoming webhook in Slack if you don’t already have one, take note of its URL (you will need it in step 2 below).

  2. Edit the Slack section of the config file, i.e. in Butler.slackNotification.reloadTaskFailure.

    The messageType property should be set to basic.
    The basicMsgTemplate property is the message that will be sent via Slack. Template fields can be used.

  3. Restart Butler if it’s already running.

Customizing Slack messages

When using the formatted Slack alerts you have full freedom to create the alert you need.
Behind the scenes Slack messages are constructed from blocks defined in a JSON object. Each block can then contain either plain text, Markdown, images, buttons etc.

The Slack documentation is the best place for learning how to customize messages.

When it comes to Butler, it uses the Handlebars templating engine to render the template files into Slack JSON objects that are then sent to Slack via their APIs.

A few things to keep in mind when creating custom Slack messages:

  • The handlebars syntax itself must be correct. If incorrect no Slack JSON object will be created. And no Slack messages sent.
  • The handlebars template must result in a JSON object that adheres to Slack’s API specifications.
    If the JSON syntax is somehow invaid the Slack API will return errors and no messages sent. JSON can be pretty sensitive to details, there should for example not be any trailing commas in properly formatted JSON objects.

Some useful links to Slacks’s documentation:

How it works

Warning

Don’t forget to create the log appender .xml files on the Sense server(s).

This page describes how.

Those xml files are the foundation on top of which all Butler alerts are built - without them the alerts described on this page won’t work.

The concept is the same for for all alert types, see the email alerts for details.

Settings in config file

---
Butler:
  ...
  ...
  # Settings for notifications and messages sent to Slack
  slackNotification:
    enable: false
    restMessage:                      
      webhookURL: <web hook URL from Slack>   # Webhook to use when sending basic Slack messages via Butler's REST API 
    reloadTaskFailure:                # Reload task failed in QSEoW
      enable: false
      webhookURL: <web hook URL from Slack>
      channel: sense-task-failure     # Slack channel to which task failure notifications are sent
      messageType: formatted          # formatted / basic. Formatted means that template file below will be used to create the message.
      basicMsgTemplate: 'Qlik Sense reload failed: "{{taskName}}"'      # Only needed if message type = basic
      rateLimit: 300                  # Min seconds between emails for a given taskID. Defaults to 5 minutes.
      headScriptLogLines: 10
      tailScriptLogLines: 10
      templateFile: /path/to/slack/template/directory/failed-reload-qseow.handlebars
      fromUser: Qlik Sense
      iconEmoji: ':ghost:'
    reloadTaskAborted:                # Reload task aborted in QSEoW
      enable: false
      webhookURL: <web hook URL from Slack>
      channel: sense-task-aborted     # Slack channel to which task stopped notifications are sent
      messageType: formatted          # formatted / basic. Formatted means that template file below will be used to create the message.
      basicMsgTemplate: 'Qlik Sense reload aborted: "{{taskName}}"'       # Only needed if message type = basic
      rateLimit: 300                  # Min seconds between emails for a given taskID. Defaults to 5 minutes.
      headScriptLogLines: 10
      tailScriptLogLines: 10
      templateFile: /path/to/slack/template/directory/aborted-reload-qseow.handlebars
      fromUser: Qlik Sense
      iconEmoji: ':ghost:'

  ...
  ...
  udpServerConfig:
    enable: false                                     # Should the UDP server responsible for receving task failure and session events be started? true/false
    serverHost: <FQDN or IP (or localhost) of server where Butler is running>
    portTaskFailure: 9998
  ...
  ...

3 - Reload alerts via Microsoft Teams

Description of how reload alerts can be sent as Microsoft Teams messages.

What’s this?

Butler can send two kinds of alert messages via Teams:

  • When a reload task fails.
  • When a reload task is somehow stopped/aborted.

See the Concepts section for additional details.

A complete reference to the config file format is found here.

Basic vs formatted Teams alerts

Teams alerts come in two forms:

  • Customizable formatting using a template concept. A standard template that will fit most use cases is included with Butler. With this option the first and last parts of the script log can be included in the message, allowing you to tell from the Teams message what caused the reload to fail.
    You can also add buttons to the message that can be used to open any URL you want, or open the app that failed reloading.
  • A fixed, more basic format that is built into Butler. No template file needed.

Which option to go for depends on whether you want just a notification that something went wrong, or if you want as much detail as possible in the Teams message.

Sample message with custom formatting

Note

The concept described below is the same for failed and aborted reload tasks.
Each of these have their own settings in the config file.

A “reload task failed” Teams message using the custom formatting option could look like this:

alt text

Here’s how to set it up:

  1. Create a workflow in Teams, take note of its URL (you will need it in step 2 below). More information on how to create a workflow further down this page.

  2. Edit the Teams section of the config file, i.e. the settings in Butler.teamsNotification.reloadTaskFailure.

    The messageType property should be set to formatted.
    The basicMsgTemplate property is not used with formatted messages and can thus be left empty,

  3. Edit the template file if/as needed, the file is specified in Butler.teamsNotification.reloadTaskFailure.templateFile.It uses the Handlebars templating engine, to which Butler provides template fields with actual values.

    The available template fields are described here.

    Sample template files are included in the release Zip file, and are also available in the GitHub repository’s src/config/teams_templates directory.

  4. Restart Butler if it’s already running.

Sample message with basic formatting

Note

The concept described below is the same for failed and aborted reload tasks.
Each of these have their own settings in the config file.

A “reload task failed” Teams message with basic formatting could look like this:

alt text

To set it up:

  1. Create an incoming webhook in Teams if you don’t already have one, take note of its URL (you will need it in step 2 below).

  2. Edit the Teams section of the config file i.e. the settings in Butler.teamsNotification.reloadTaskFailure and/or Butler.teamsNotification.reloadTaskAborted sections of the confi file.

    The messageType property should be set to basic.
    The basicMsgTemplate property is the message that will be sent via Teams. Template fields can be used.

  3. Restart Butler if it’s already running.

Customizing Teams messages

When using the formatted Teams alerts you have full freedom to create the alert you need.
Behind the scenes Teams messages are constructed as “Adaptive Cards”, which is standardised JSON format that Teams understands. More information on Adaptive Cards can be found here, here and here.

When it comes to Butler, it uses the Handlebars templating engine to render a template file into an adaptive card JSON object that is then sent to the workflow webhook.

A few things to keep in mind when creating custom Teams messages:

  • The handlebars syntax itself must be correct. If incorrect no Teams JSON object will be created. And no Teams message sent.
  • The handlebars template must result in a JSON object that adheres to Teams’s specifications for JSON payloads.
    If the JSON syntax is somehow invaid the Teams API will return errors and no messages sent. JSON can be pretty sensitive to details, there should for example not be any trailing commas in properly formatted JSON objects.

How it works

Warning

Don’t forget to create the log appender .xml files on the Sense server(s).

This page describes how.

Those xml files are the foundation on top of which all Butler alerts are built - without them the alerts described on this page won’t work.

The concept is the same as for all alert types.

Settings in config file

---
Butler:
  ...
  ...
  # Settings for notifications and messages sent to MS Teams
  teamsNotification:
    enable: false
    reloadTaskFailure:
      enable: false
      webhookURL: <web hook URL from MS Teams>
      messageType: formatted     # formatted / basic. Formatted means that template file below will be used to create the message.
      basicMsgTemplate: 'Qlik Sense reload failed: "{{taskName}}"'      # Only needed if message type = basic
      rateLimit: 300             # Min seconds between emails for a given taskID. Defaults to 5 minutes.
      headScriptLogLines: 10
      tailScriptLogLines: 10
      templateFile: /path/to/teams/template/directory/failed-reload-qseow.handlebars
    reloadTaskAborted:
      enable: false
      webhookURL: <web hook URL from MS Teams>
      messageType: formatted     # formatted / basic. Formatted means that template file below will be used to create the message.
      basicMsgTemplate: 'Qlik Sense reload aborted: "{{taskName}}"'       # Only needed if message type = basic
      rateLimit: 300             # Min seconds between emails for a given taskID. Defaults to 5 minutes.
      headScriptLogLines: 10
      tailScriptLogLines: 10
      templateFile: /path/to/teams/template/directory/aborted-reload-qseow.handlebars
  ...
  ...
  udpServerConfig:
    enable: false                                     # Should the UDP server responsible for receving task failure and session events be started? true/false
    serverHost: <FQDN or IP (or localhost) of server where Butler is running>
    portTaskFailure: 9998
  ...
  ...