Email notification
Issue Manager’s email notification feature allows you to receive email whenever certain pre-defined events (i.e., rules) occur:
• An issue is reassigned
• An issue state changes
• A change is made to an issue that generates a new history entry
Your Issue Manager administrator can define additional rules that trigger email notifications. Rules are defined on the Notification Rules page (Issue Manager/Configuration). Your administrator must have the Email Notification Rules and Systemwide Triggers privilege to define additional rules.
Once rules have been defined, users with the Email Notification Issue Triggers security privilege can setup triggers for individual issues on the Notifications tab of each Issue Details page. Triggers consist of a rule plus the recipients’ addresses, the sender’s name, and any optional message subject line, body, or trailer.
Before any triggers can be added, the database administrator must enable email notification.
Often, you need information about the status of a particular issue, such as whether it’s been fixed. One way to get this information is to periodically open the issue, but this can be time-consuming. You can get more timely information using email notification.
With email notification, you can instruct Issue Manager to notify you or others in your organization automatically whenever an event of interest occurs, such as a change in issue status.
Basic email notification
A basic notification setting that can be activated by any user, regardless of assigned permissions, allows you to receive a notification whenever another user makes a change to an issue in your inbox or assigns a new issue to you. This setting is available on the Preferences page (Configuration/Preferences).
Note The subject line and content of these notifications can be configured in the file SRFrontendBootConf.xml.
Procedure To configure basic email notification:
1 Go to the Preferences page (Configuration/Preferences).
2 Select the Notify me when users assign issues to me or make changes to issues in my inbox checkbox.
How email notification works
Issue Manager uses rules to determine when to notify you or others in your organization about important information. The rules are defined in terms of events that impact issues, as follows:
• Reassignment: When an issue is reassigned with no change in state.
• State Change: When an issue changes state in the workflow.
• Any Change: When any change to an issue—including comments—is saved.
• Special event: When an issue changes in a specific way that is of interest to you. Your administrator must define this rule type (e.g., you might ask your administrator to define a rule that will trigger an email to technical support when a particular issue is fixed).
Once rules have been defined, you can add email triggers to specific issues. Triggers cause Issue Manager to send email to designated users when events happen to those issues.
Before you add an email trigger, it’s a good idea to view all email notification rules that are currently in effect.
An email trigger is a mechanism that causes Issue Manager to send email to particular recipients when certain events occur that impact issues. A trigger consists of an email notification rule that specifies an event, the sender and recipients, and other optional information. By adding an email trigger to an issue you’re interested in, you alert Issue Manager to send email to the user whenever the specified issue event occurs.
Each time the issue is saved, Issue Manager checks the trigger against the event; if the event matches the rule, the trigger activates an email notification.
Note Add triggers with care because they can generate a considerable amount of mail. You may want to have certain triggers deleted after you receive the desired messages for which they were created.
Triggers can be added systemwide by any user who has the Email Notification Rules and Systemwide Triggers security privilege. Systemwide triggers are defined on the Systemwide Triggers page (Issue Manager/Configuration/Systemwide Triggers).
Triggers may be valid systemwide (i.e., applying to modification of all issues) or to specific issues.
When the Show systemwide triggers on each issue’s Notifications tab checkbox is selected, all systemwide triggers are listed on each issue’s Notification tab. Any triggers that are assigned to the active issue are also listed.
Procedure To have systemwide triggers displayed on each issue’s Notifications tab:
1 Go to the Preferences page (Configuration/Preferences).
2 Select the Show systemwide triggers on each issue’s Notifications tab checkbox.
Security privileges for email triggers
Your security privileges determine what actions you can take with respect to email triggers. The following table summarizes the tasks and privileges.
|
Task |
Required security privilege |
|
Add, edit, or delete a trigger for individual issues |
Email Notification Issue Triggers |
|
Add or delete a systemwide trigger |
Email Notification Rules and Systemwide Triggers |
|
Define rules for special events |
Email Notification Rules and Systemwide Triggers |
What you can specify in an email notification
When you attach a trigger to an issue, you are only required to specify the rule name.
If the rule name is all you supply, then the email message will:
• Go to you alone, from each user who modifies the issue.
• Contain all issue information and the name of the rule that triggered the message.
Options: You can specify any of the following options in email notification:
• Send the email to other users as well as (or instead of) yourself
• Send the email from a user other than the user who edits the issue
• Add the issue summary only or the issue summary with description
• Add a subject line, introduction, and trailer, which you can save in the database
See “Adding email notification to an issue” for instructions on adding email notification.
Deleting an email notification trigger
Procedure To delete an email notification trigger:
1 Navigate to an issue details page.
2 Click the Edit button to make the fields available.
3 Select the Notification tab.
4 Click the Delete button (in the Actions column) of the notification you wish to delete. Issue Manager then removes the email notification trigger from the Notification tab.
5 Click OK to save the deletion.
Editing an email notification trigger
Procedure To edit an email notification trigger:
1 Navigate to an issue detail page.
2 Click the Edit button.
3 Select the Notification tab.
4 Click the Delete button (in the Actions column) of the notification you wish to edit. The Edit Notification page is displayed with information about the selected trigger.
5 You can edit the rule name in the drop-down list field (to see descriptions of the rules, proceed as explained in “View all email notification rules”.)
6 You can change the return address in the From field to:
• The user who edits the issue (thereby setting off the trigger)
• Another user. Select a user in the Issue Manager database from the drop-down list box.
7 Type the email address(es) of the recipient(s) in the To field, separating multiple entries with commas. The default address is the email address of the current user. Alternately, you may select users from the Add Address drop-down list box.
8 Edit the other option text fields in the dialog as required.
9 Click OK in the Edit Notification page. Issue Manager then updates the entry on the Notification tab.
10 Take OK to save your edits.
View all email notification rules
Procedure To view a list and description of the defined email notification rules:
1 Select Configuration / Notification Rules.
2 All defined rules and descriptions are listed on the Notification Rules page.