Creating Metadata Actions

You can create metadata actions that can be used in metadata rules.

To create a metadata action:
  1. From IBM Control Center Monitor Web Console, select Manage.
  2. From the left hand side navigation panel, click Metadata Actions > Create Action on the top right of the Create Metadata Action page.
  3. Type a Name and Description for the new metadata action and click Next to continue.
  4. On the Metadata page, enter a metadata value for any field you want to have set when the metadata action is performed.
  5. To include a variable as part of the metadata value for a field, click Insert Var next to the field. Select a variable from the Variable listing. Click Insert to insert a variable and return to the Insert Variables wizard.

    When specifying values for Metadata Actions, if you only want to include a portion of an event element value for any of the user data fields, instead of the whole value, you can do so by using a special expression (that includes a regular expression), the event element name whose value the expression will be applied to, and the specific regular expression match to use.

    By specifying =regex(<regex pattern>,<event element>,<match #>), the system will apply the specified regex pattern to the element value specified and return just the specified match.
    Note: If the match specified is not found, the entire element value will be used.
    Example: If you are monitoring a B2Bi business process where process data consists of a list of semicolon separated values like, "TrackingID; DataDirection; Process#; etc.", and you would like to assign the tracking ID value to USER DATA 1, the data direction value to USER DATA 2, and the process # value to USER DATA 3, you could associate the following Metadata Action with an appropriate Metadata Rule: 
    USER DATA 1: =regex([^;\s][^\;][^;\s]*,&processData;,1)
USER DATA 2: =regex([^;\s][^\;][^;\s]*,&processData;,2)
USER DATA 3: =regex([^;\s][^\;][^;\s]*,&processData;,3)
    This will work because the regular expression [^;\s][^\;][^;\s] will find all the semicolon separated values in the specified input, which in this case is the value of the event's processData element.
    Given a processData value of "57,inbound,123456789"
    • The first match value is "57" and it will be assigned to USERDATA1 because match 1 was specified in the =regex value for USERDATA1,
    • The second match is "inbound" and it will be assigned to USERDATA2 because match 2 was specified in the =regex value for USERDATA2, and
    • The third match is "123456789" and it will be assigned to USERDATA3 because match 3 was specified in the =regex value for USERDATA3
  6. Click Next.
  7. On the Permissions page, if you want to restrict use of this metadata action to certain roles, highlighting the roles in Available Restricted Roles and click the Right Arrow button to move them to Selected Restricted Roles.
  8. Click Next.
  9. On the Summary page, verify the data and click Submit to add the action to the Metadata Actions listing.