About change notifications on data entry windows

Notifications can help your employees and selected external contacts track key developments that occur within the organisation.

Some examples include the following:

• A sales manager may want the system to notify a customer contact when a sales order has been shipped to the customer.
• Your company might want to tell customers about changes in their blanket purchase orders.
• A manager may want to know when a specific purchase order has received all the required approvals.
• A credit manager may want to know when a sales order is created for a particular customer that is approaching its credit limit.
• A customer service manager may want to be informed when a new employee is assigned a case of a specific type, to give the employee assistance with this type of case.

You can configure private notifications to be received by only particular recipients and public notifications for which users can sign up.

For private notifications, you can specify very precise conditions for sending the notification email, and choose only appropriate individuals to receive it.

You can configure public notifications about typical changes in documents of a specific type that employees and external contacts may want to know about.

These public notifications are visible to all users who have access to the respective data entry windows.

When a user is viewing a document of the specific type on the window, the user can sign up for the notification to receive emails about changes made to the particular document.

To create a new notification, a user should have access to the Automation notifications (SM205040) window at the Insert level of access or higher.

If you want multiple users to be able to create new notifications, configure a Notification administrator role with an Insert or Delete level of access to the Automation notifications (SM205040) window. Users with this role can then create private and public notifications for other users of the organisation.

A user doesn't need access to the Automation notifications (SM205040) window, however, to sign up for an existing public notification.
If a user has access to a data entry window for which public notifications have been configured, the user can sign up for notifications associated with the window, to monitor changes in specific records or documents.

To begin creating a new public notification about changes in documents of a specific type or certain records, do one of the following:

• Open the window where specific documents are created, click Notifications (upper right of the window), and then click Create new.
  This opens the Automation notifications (SM205040) window as a pop-up window so that you can create a new notification.
• Open the Automation notifications (SM205040) window directly, and select the data entry window of interest in the Screen ID field.

Now that you are on the Automation notifications (SM205040) window with the appropriate screen selected, perform the following steps:

1. Provide a description for the notification. After you save the notification, the description will serve as the notification ID.
2. Make sure the Active check box is selected.
3. Provide a subject for emails to be sent for this notification.
4. Optional: In the Data source field, select one of the following options:
   • Report: To send an electronic version of the document with the notification email, either as an attachment or as the email body.
     If you select this option, specify the Report ID and the Report format.
     To send the document in the email body, select the Embedded check box; in this case, you cannot specify other text for the email message.
   • Action: To execute a specific action once a notification email is generated.
     For example: If you configure notification emails as emails based on an email template, by using this option, you can specify whether to print the document, release it, or void it.
   • None: To not perform any additional actions.
5. Select the Public check box.
6. Click the Message tab.
   If you have selected the Embedded check box, the document generated based on the specified report will be used as email body; otherwise, type the text of the notification email, or paste the notification template that you previously created in the Notifications.
   To make emails personalised, use placeholders in double parentheses, such as ((EmployeeFirstName)).
7. Do the following to specify the conditions that the system will check when the document is saved and send notification emails if the conditions are met:
   • On the Conditions tab, specify the conditions for the document field values.
   • On the Fields tab, select the fields whose changes should be monitored.
8. On the Addresses tab, specify the list of recipients. For each recipient, specify the following information:
   • In the Source field, select one of the following options as the source of the recipient's address: Document (to select recipients among the contacts associated with the document, such as customer or supplier contacts) or User (to select recipients among all users defined in the system).
   • In the Email field, select the email address of the recipient.
   • Make sure the Active check box is selected.
   • In the Type field, select the type of this recipient: To, CC, or BCC.
9. Click .

Public notifications created for a particular data entry window are visible to all users who have access to the window.

To sign up for a public notification, a user should do the following:

1. Open the data entry window, and select the appropriate document.
2. Click Notifications (upper right of the title bar).
   From the drop-down list of options, click the particular notification, which opens the Automation notifications (SM205040) window (a version of the window intended only for signing up) as a pop-up window.
3. On the Addresses tab, add the user's own email address to the list of recipients.
   On the Conditions tab of the pop-up window, a new line with the document reference number will be added automatically.
4. Click .

After the user has completed these steps, if the values in the monitored elements are changed, the user will receive a notification email.