Working With Alerts And Emails

When the people in your company use Longview Workflow, they can notify various users when their input or approval is required. This can be done in two different ways: by providing alert messages on their web page and by sending automated email messages.

Preparing Longview Workflow alerts

If the user needs to be notified of a Longview Workflow event, the alert appears on the user’s web page, in a location specified in Longview Dashboard Designer, with a Web token. For more information, see the Longview Dashboard Designer Guide.

If an alert is applicable to a user, he or she sees one of the following messages for the approval process:

The text of the alert is standard, as set by Longview, and is not configurable.

Workflow alert text appears in black. When an alert first appears, it is bolded.

If no alerts are applicable to the user, he or she sees only a list of the approval processes currently available.

Preparing automated emails

When the status of a Data Area changes, users can learn about the status of the approval process, as it relates to their own participation, through alerts that appear on their web page. They can also learn this information through server based automated emails.

You can configure the text of the email template to meet your company’s requirements. You can prepare emails to send to Owners, Approvers, or both.

If users want, they can configure their email software to handle notification emails. For example, they can set up their email software to automatically move Longview Workflow emails to a particular folder.

Setting up automated email in Longview Application Administrator

To set up automated emails to the people involved in a Longview Workflow event, you need to set up several attributes in Longview Application Administrator.

Setting up the Email Generator

To set up the Email Generator to send automated emails to the people involved in a Longview Workflow event, you need to set up two system attributes in Longview Application Administrator. For more information, see the Longview Application Administrator Guide.

Set the following SYSTEM attributes:

All automated emails generated by the system are sent from this email address (SWFAdminEMail), with the Sender description provided in SWFAdminDesc.

You also need to make sure that your server configuration file is configured to recognize your email server. To do so, your DBA must set the SMTP_SERVER parameter to your email server.

Finding email addresses for recipients

To set up the Email Generator to find the email addresses of all users, you need to set up the user’s email address when creating a user in Longview Application Administrator. The system delivers the automated emails to users according to the following rules:

Some users may be the recipients of many automated emails. If the volume of emails becomes hard to manage, users can use email rules functionality provided with most standard email programs in order to automatically deal with the flow of emails. For example, they can move Longview Workflow emails to a specific email folder on receipt.

Planning automated emails

There are five statuses in Longview Workflow. Depending on the actions of users, there can be a combination of up to 20 status changes.

• For each possible change of status (for example, from In Progress to Submitted for Approval), you can specify whether you want to trigger an automated email.
• For some changes of status (for example, from Not Started to In Progress), you may decide that an automated email is not required.

For each status change that requires an automated email, you need to set up an email template. For each email template, you need to decide on its content.

Creating an email template

After you set up automated email templates, users receive server-based automated emails when the status of a Data Area changes.

Note: Since each system contains only one set of email templates, each email template in multilingual systems must provide text in both languages. All users receive the same email template and can read the portion of the message that corresponds to their own language.

To create an email template, follow these steps.

1. Plan the status changes that should trigger an automated email, as described in Planning automated emails.
2. Choose File > Open Process. The Open Existing Approval Process dialog appears.
3. Choose Tools > Automated Email Notification. The Automated Email Notification dialog appears.

   

4. Choose File > New Mail Message. The New Mail Message dialog appears.

   

5. For From Status and To Status, select the two statuses that represent the change that triggers this automated email — for example, from In Progress to Submitted for Approval.
6. Click To. The Select Names dialog appears.

   

7. From the list of Owners and Approvers, move names to the To or Cc list as necessary. For example, for a status change from In Progress to Submitted for Approval, the To field should contain Approvers; the Cc field should contain Owners.
8. Click OK. The New Mail Message dialog appears with the selected recipients.
9. For Subject, type a short description of the email message. You can use tokens if you want. The Subject line can contain a maximum of 256 characters. For more information on tokens, see Using tokens in an automated email template. For a sample Subject line with tokens, see Sample email templates.
10. For the body of the email, type the email message. (If your company uses the application in two languages, remember to provide a message in both languages.) You can use tokens if you want. The defined email applies to all processes with that status change — it is not process-specific. For more information on tokens, see Using tokens in an automated email template. For a sample email body with tokens, see Sample email templates. When you are finished, the dialog may look something like this. Each item appearing in blue on your screen and enclosed in double brackets represents a token.

    

11. Click Send. The New Mail Message dialog appears with a list of all automated email templates.

    

12. Repeat for all other status changes for which you want to trigger automated emails.

Using tokens in an automated email template

To insert specific information for individual users, you can use standard tokens in the text of the automated email. For example, you can insert tokens in the text of the email template to specify the Data Area, initiator, comments, and status.

You can use the following tokens:

Sample email templates

You can decide on your own content for email templates, based on the needs of your company. If you want, you can base the content on these samples.

Sample Subject line

This is a sample Subject line, using tokens to identify the Data Area, the changed status, and the name of the user who performed the change.

[[Area]]: Status Changed to [[ToStatus]] by [[Initiator]]

Sample email body

This is a sample email body, using tokens to identify the Data Area, the starting and ending status, the name of the user who performed the change, and the text of any comment added by the user.

The status of [[Area]] has been changed from [[FromStatus]] to [[ToStatus]] by [[Initiator]].

The following comment was added by [[Initiator]] (if any):

Comment: [[Comment]]

Please proceed to your Longview Workflow web page to review and approve this submission.

Editing an email template

If any of the details of an email template are incorrect, you can correct them.

To edit an email template, follow these steps.

1. Choose File > Open Process. The Open Existing Approval Process dialog appears.
2. Choose Tools > Automated Email Notification. The Automated Email Notification dialog appears.

   

3. Double-click the email template you want to edit. The email template appears.
4. Edit as required.

Deleting an email template

If you no longer need an email template, you can delete it.

Caution: If you follow this procedure, you cannot reverse your decision. Use with caution.

To delete an email template, follow these steps.

1. Choose File > Open Process. The Open Existing Approval Process dialog appears.
2. Choose Tools > Automated Email Notification. The Automated Email Notification dialog appears.

   

3. Click the email template you want to delete.
4. Choose Edit > Delete. A confirmation message appears.
5. Click OK. The email template is deleted.