Creating an Event Notifications subscription

Destinations subscribe to topics. Multiple destinations can subscribe to a single topic. An email subscription is a list of all emails IDs, and an SMS subscription is a list of all phone numbers that a notification is routed to. A webhook subscription links a webhook destination to a topic.

Of these, IBM Cloud Email service and IBM Cloud SMS service are supported out-of-the box.

Creating a subscription

  1. Click Topics in the Event Notifications instance. Create a new topic or select an existing topic to configure the subscription for.

  2. If you are creating a new topic, configure Topic, Filters, and Subscriptions in the flow. For an existing topic, click Edit in the Options menu and click the Subscriptions tab.

  3. Enter the following subscription details in the Create subscription dialog:

    • Subscription name: Enter a name for the subscription.
    • Subscription description: Optionally, enter a description for the subscription.
    • Topic: Select a topic.
    • Destination type: Select a destination type. For more information, see Selecting a destination type.

  4. Click Create subscription.

Enabling the subscription

Click Create subscription in the subscription dialog to enable the subscription.

You can subscribe to or unsubscribe from a specific Event Notifications subscription. Users can also opt out of receiving notifications for any subscription.

Selecting a destination type

The destination type determines how notifications are delivered. The following sections describe the additional details required for each destination type.

IBM Cloud SMS service

  • You can add up to 3 phone numbers for the Lite plan and 100 phone numbers for the Standard plan to the recipient list.
  • When you click Create subscription after adding phone numbers, the numbers are added to the Invited tab. The Active tab displays the phone numbers of recipients who confirmed receiving SMS notifications for the selected topic.
  • When a recipient clicks the Unsubscribe link, the recipient's number is moved to the Unsubscribed tab. To restart the subscription, the recipient must contact the IBM Event Notifications service administrator to add the number back to the subscription.
  • In some cases, the carrier service allows keywords like START and STOP. When a recipient sends a STOP response, notifications are disabled immediately. However, the phone number is moved to the Unsubscribed tab only on the next attempt to send an SMS to that number. The recipient can restart notifications by sending a START response.

IBM Cloud Email service

  • You can add up to 10,000 email addresses to the recipient list. The Invited tab displays a list of users who have not yet accepted the invitation. The Active tab displays a list of recipient email addresses and the date that each address was activated. The Unsubscribed tab displays a list of recipients who have opted out of receiving email notifications for this subscription.
  • Add any additional information that is required for the destination type.

If you are providing Assigned to and Assignment group values, make sure that they have proper settings and are linked otherwise ServiceNow will reject requests with 403. Also make sure that there are no Business Rule blocking assignment to these groups and users.