Notifications and Alerts

This section explains the notification and alert system which automatically updates users by SMS and email based on their communication preferences.

The system uses email and SMS to help keep users up to date with workflows while they aren't signed in based on communication preferences and email subscriptions.

Overview

There are three types of notification:

• Workflow notifications inform users when items have an important change in their workflow — for example, when an item is assigned or becomes due.

• Item Updates inform users when changes are made to content in their assigned items

• System messages are sent occasionally when users ask the system to perform a long running action, or resulting from a user action such as resetting a password.

Assignment notifications

When an item is first assigned to a user (or one of the user's on-duty positions), then an assignment email will be sent to that user.

The assignment email contains a high-level summary of the assignment and its key fields, and is intended to introduce the item to that user.

Update notifications

Whenever an item is updated, the system will schedule a notification for the assigned users. The speed in which the update is sent is largely determined by the item's priority — high priority items are sent as soon as possible, whereas lower priority items are grouped together to prevent email overload and sent once per hour (see Notification Schedule below).

Unassigned items do not generate notifications because no user is responsible for the item.

Due date notifications

Some registers support a "Due" or "Next Action Date" field (e.g. Requests). For these items, the system sends a notification to the assigned user(s) at the time the item becomes due.

Depending on the register, sometimes these fields support both a date and time to be specified, while others only support a date.

• If the due date supports a time component, it will check if the time has been set to midnight (which is the default). If the time has been set to midnight then the notification is sent at 9am on that date. If the time is set to something other than midnight, the due notification will be sent at that time. If the due date field only allows the entry of a date, then the notification is sent at 9 a.m. on that date.

• If the record is resolved before the due date, the scheduled notification will be cancelled.

• Only one notification will go out to the assignee when the due date occurs, it will not constantly send out notifications after the due date.

• If a new due date is entered for the record before the due date is reached, the previously scheduled notification is cancelled and a new notification is scheduled for the new due date.

• If an item has an existing due date and the item is saved without changing the due date, no overdue notification will be received.

Notification Schedule

In order to help users keep on top of important notices and reduce the overall volume of email, the system has logic to batch lower-priority updates to send less frequently, and to send higher importance updates more frequently. Also, the system has intelligence to not send notifications where you made the change yourself.

Emails will be generated only if content has changed, and they are

Priority	Send schedule
High or Urgent	As soon as possible, often as a single targeted email
Normal, Low or None	Approximately hourly, often containing a batch of updates

Notifications for bulk actions are sent according to the priority of the highest-priority item in the batch.

Email notifications for register items are generally sent hourly. Where urgent notifications are required for register item assignments and overdue notifications, make sure users have opted in to SMS notifications instead.

User Profile Settings

The following user profile settings control how email and SMS are sent to users.

• Received communications by Email

• Receive communications by SMS

An administrator can also set these on behalf of a user.

Refer to: Setting a user's communication preferences and Email subscriptions.

Troubleshooting

If a recipient is not receiving notifications, then check the following:

• The recipient is on duty for the relevant position(s)

• The user's profile has email and/or SMS enabled

• The user's profile has the correct email address and/or mobile number specified

• Ensure that the changes made were from a different user than themselves.

If the timing of the notifications is too slow, then check the following

• For due date notifications, that the due date field supports a time component — if not, it will be sent at 9 a.m.

• For updates, the lower the priority, the slower the update may be.