Help with "STRING" value in Alert Description

Question

Basic how to question hoping someone can help me with. Trying to show number of running Process for a Process Monitor but when i use the ActiveInstance Count parameter it asks for a STRING value to be supplied.

I thought it was the actual "process name" but that doesnt work and the alert comes up blank for Instance Count.

Can someone tell me what is required here:

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Moved from: System Center Operations Manager

Answer 1

Hi,

You’re on the right track – the ActiveInstanceCount value is correct, it’s just the XPath that needs one more piece.

The ProcessInformationProvider returns a set of processes under:

ProcessInformations/ProcessInformation

Each ProcessInformation node has a ProcessName and an ActiveInstanceCount. Because there can be more than one process, SCOM adds this placeholder:

[ProcessName=<STRING>]

to tell you “filter this collection by a string value”.

You need to replace <STRING> with the actual process name in quotes (XPath string comparison), for example:

$Data/Context/ProcessInformations/ProcessInformation[./ProcessName='myprocess.exe']/ActiveInstanceCount$

Key points:

• Keep the [ ./ProcessName = '…' ] part – the ./ and single quotes are important.
• Just putting ProcessName=myprocess.exe without quotes will result in no match, so the alert text shows a blank value.
• Use the exact name that the monitor is configured for (including .exe if that’s how you defined it).

After you change your alert description to something like:

Process 'myprocess.exe' is running $Data/Context/ProcessInformations/ProcessInformation[./ProcessName='myprocess.exe']/ActiveInstanceCount$ times.

the alert should display the correct instance count.

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Best Regards

Stoyan Chalakov

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