SCOM R2 Notifications: Operator can not subscribe to any Alert since the option ‘Notification Subscriptions’ is grayed out

Bumped into this issue today.

At a customers site SCOM R2 was in place. Notification had only be configured at a Channel level. No subscribers, nor subscriptions. In SCOM R2 any person with Operator permissions within SCOM R2 can subscribe to any Alert shown in ‘their’ Console. So why bother as a SCOM R2 Administrator and configure it to all the way down while the SCOM Operators can do it for themselves?

But when an Operator right clicked any Alert this was shown:

? A grayed out Notification Subscription option?

At first I was puzzled and was looking for an answer at the wrong places. But then I realized what was happening is by design!

When any person working in the SCOM R2 Console – without SCOM Admin permissions -  wants to subscribe to any Alert, they need to have configured their Subscriber Information first! This action must performed only once. And when that is NOT done, no way that person can subscribe to any Alert!

How to configure the Subscriber Information? Easy! The person with the SCOM R2 Operator permissions need to do this themselves:

1. In the SCOM R2 Console go to Monitoring > in the toolbar go to Tools > My Subscriber Information
   
   
   
2. Now a Wizard start. Follow this Wizard all the way through. At the end something similar like this will be shown:
    
   
   
3. Click Finish. Now all is set and ready for the SCOM R2 Operator to maintain his/her own subscriptions.

And now the SCOM R2 Operator can set a Notification Subscription on any Alert shown in the Console:

For more information about setting up the Notification Model in SCOM R2 go here.