Network Management

Custom Properties with values of NULL are not evaluated in Alerts in the SolarWinds Platform

This article provides information about configuring alerts that target custom properties and why they do not evaluate Blank/Null custom property values.

First published date

10/16/2018 8:03 PM

Last published date

1/21/2026 5:43 PM

Overview

This article provides information about configuring alerts that target custom properties and why they do not evaluate NULL custom property values.  When objects are discovered through the node discovery process, the custom property fields are NULL, until a value is set for them.

Product section

Orion Platform

Cause

The nodes has a Custom Property value of NULL in the database.

Resolution

Verify that every node has a value assigned to the Custom Property in question. If a value is left NULL, the alert does not evaluate it as part of the condition.

 

For example, if you set an alert to have the following custom property condition:

Node - ServerGroup - is not equal to - "production"

  • This would trigger on a custom property value for ServerGroup of "dev"

  • This would not trigger on a custom property value that is left as a NULL value

 

The workaround is to add another Condition for "Node {custom property} is empty".

 

More information on this workaround is found in the following article: Alerts not triggering when custom property value is NULL