SiteScope (2020.05) Alerts Date and Time Format Customization

[alpha7b5]

Dear SiteScope Community,

I have a few questions regarding the following more or less cosmetic issue (at least) with the SiteScope alerts and related e-mail templates respectively:

1. Only today I noticed the following passage in the SiteScope's 'Use Manual', under Alerts -> 'Customize Alert Templates' -> 'How to Customize Email Alert with the MM/DD/YYYY format':

https://docs.microfocus.com/itom/SiteScope:2020.05/CustomizeAlertTemplates

Do I understand it correctly: an existing date tag (i.e. <time-date>?) within (any) selected e-mail template should be replaced with the <eur-date> tag? And what happens then??

I didn't get any different date format in my test alert with that new tag, I'm afraid! I still get plain US format, e.g. for a present day, October 5 2020, with the mentioned tag replacement:

...

Date: 10/05/2020
Time: 11:15 AM

...

We would prefer the following date format: 05/10/2020   (and possibly 24-hour time format as well!)

2. There is some older support article (or tip) related to the similar question(s) here:

https://community.microfocus.com/t5/Operations-Bridge-User/Support-Tip-Date-time-format-in-HP-BSM-and-SiteScope/m-p/284434#M293110

I'm afraid those instructions are of no impact and use either:

- We use a non-US locale (i.e. Slovenian precisely) on our SiteScope server all along, but all dates ever generated within SiteScope components only used a default US date (&time) format! These lines are the excerpt from our running master.config configuration:

...

_localeCountry=SI
_localeEnabled=CHECKED
_localeLanguage=si
_localMachineNetTimeFormat=d.M.yyyy hh:mm aa

...

So, any suggestions on what am I missing here, perhaps?

Cheers,

  alpha7B5

[csanabria21]

Hello alpha7b5, 

I hope you are fine. 

Regarding your questions, the only thing that I see different is the following: _localMachineNetTimeFormat = d.M.yyyy hh: mm yy when the other forum comments that the format is the following: _localMachineNetTimeFormat = d / M / yyyy hh: mm yy. You could try that way, save changes, restart the SiteScope service and validate the change.

Best Regards, 

[Martin_G]

If I remember correctly you could try this parameter in master config

Set:

_prettyDateCustomPattern=yyyy/MM/dd HH:mm:ss

Result:

<currentTime>   ->    2020/07/01 08:54:13

Or this one:

_prettyDateCustomPattern=yyyy/MM/dd HH:mm:ss:SSS

<currentTime> = 2020/07/01 09:08:54:324

Hope this helps....

[alpha7b5]

Hi csanabria21,

I am sorry for my late reply!

Thanks for your suggestion, but it didn't work either, I'm afraid.

Best,

  alpha7B5

[alpha7b5]

Hi Martin_G,

Yes, your suggestion looks better, although it is still not complete. 🙂

So, after adding the new parameter in master.config  file (of SiS  11.93.101) I can achieve the wanted result, but only for that particular property variable marker, namely <currentTime>.

What about the rest of similar markers, such as <time-date> and <time-time>? Is there perhaps any 'Easter Egg' available for those two as well?

Also, what about the global date and time formatting within the SiS' GUI itself?

Best,

  alpha7B5

[Martin_G]

Hi,

I only worked with <currentTime> so far because I also saw that

<time-date> and <time-time> are not affected by the mentioned master.config setting.

And I am not aware of any "easter egg".

>>Also, what about the global date and time formatting within the SiS' GUI itself?

As far as I know this has no effect on alert parameters.

Please let me know, if you find out something different.

Otherwise, I think you should submit an idea.

br,

Martin

[alpha7b5]

Hi Martin,

Ok, no problem. In the next couple of weeks I'm going to have a meeting with our external partner company and I also plan to discuss these time and date formatting issues with them, among others.

It would be great if there were similar customization settings available in master.config for <time-date> and <time-time> markers as well! Or at least that we would know about them or their availability. In this case it would be all I require for a consistent formatting of my typical alert's content in whole (I mean all the usually included time and date related data).

What I had in mind and was referring to with my second remark about SiteScope's GUI was actually the format how the application itself displays the time and date information, e.g. in a Dashboard view (on the right side of the GUI) let's say for a particular monitor. Currently all that information is being displayed with US (date & time) formatting, and if I am correct it cannot be customized in any way either.

Have a nice weekend!

  Jurij

[Martin_G]

Hi,

did you already try this in order to modify date and time formats in UI:

Enable locale-specific display of date and timeYou select this option to have SiteScope display dates and times in the default locale format. If this option is not set, then the US locale is used.

If you want to over-ride the default locale used by SiteScope:

1. Edit the master.config file in the <SiteScope install path>/SiteScope/groups directory.
2. Find the entry "_localeCountry=", and assign it an uppercase 2-character ISO-3166 country code. You can find a full list of these codes at a number of sites, such as http://www.chemie.fu-berlin.de/diverse/doc/ISO_3166.html. For example: _localeCountry=US
3. Find the entry "_localeLanguage=", and assign it a lowercase 2-character ISO-639 language code. You can find a full list of these codes at a number of sites, such as http://www.ics.uci.edu/pub/ietf/http/related/iso639.txt. For example: _localeLanguage=en
4. Save the master.config file, and then restart the SiteScope service.

[alpha7b5]

Hi,

Yeah, of course I did, here are the related settings we use from "the beginning":

_localeCountry=SI
_localeEnabled=CHECKED
_localeLanguage=si
_localMachineNetTimeFormat=d/M/yyyy hh:mm aa

But it is still possible I missed something there, or somewhere ...

[OpenView_Mike]

On the SiteScope server itself, under:

Preferences => General Preferences

Are the Local-specific date and time and International Version tick-boxes, checked?

Lastly, have you checked the time/date settings on the SiteScope server itself, regarding what it is set for?

The date and time commands (on Windows) will verify this or uname -a on Linux/UNIX.

[alpha7b5]

Hi Michael,

Thanks for your suggestions!

Regarding the SiteScope's General Preferences: I did check the 'International Version' tick-box, and as for the 'Local-specific Date' it was checked before already. However there was no change in date and time format inside SiteScope's application interface (e.g. in the 'Updated' column on Dashboard) even after I restarted the service.

Also the operating system (Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard) regional settings and formats are appropriate and set to the local, i.e. Slovenian ones.

Best regards,

  Jurij

[OpenView_Mike]

Yes, I know this is mentioned above, but a subtle nuance, after checking the release notes for SiS 2020.05 and 2020.10 and not seeing anything there about this issue other than a REST Alert call problem:

Did you stop the SiteScope Service, launch PersistencyViewer, change this value:

There is a field in master.config: _localMachineNetTimeFormat=d/M/yyyy hh:mm aa

And, restart the SiteScope service afterward?

Summary

Modify _localMachineNetTimeFormat

The Sitescope reports have a date format of MM/DD/YYYY.
Is it possible to change it to DD/MM/YYYY?

Solution

Edit the <Sitescope_root_directory>\groups\master.config file and modify the
_localMachineNetTimeFormat variable to the desired format

In this case, change

_localMachineNetTimeFormat=M/d/yyyy hh:mm aa
to
_localMachineNetTimeFormat=d/M/yyyy hh:mm aa

Then, restart SiteScope for the changes to be effective.

Have you opened a case with technical support and asked if a hotfix is available for this problem?

This is a conundrum. lol 😉