User Guide > Objects > Alphabetical Listing > Creating Notifications

Creating Notifications

Notification objects send messages to email addresses, individual users, or even user groups in an AE system's client. Before creating your notification, you should know what template to use and which tabs you will want to respond to.

Selecting a Template

AE ships following notification templates: CALL.ALARM, CALL.STANDARD and CALL.MAIL.HTML.

The CALL.ALARM template has:

Alert set as its type on the Notification tab
&UC_CAUSE_NR entered in the Attach reports from Task (RunID) field on the Notification tab.
A predefined sample code on the Process tab.

CALL.ALARM is a helpful template for using AE's scripting language for your notification messages and when you want to start with example code that you can configure to fit your needs. For more information, see Notification - Object Type ALARM.

The CALL.MAIL.HTML template shows the following peculiarities:

Email is set as its type on the Attributes tab.
Notification tab: It includes a predefined notification text in HTML format.
&UC_CAUSE_NR is entered in the Attach reports from Task (RunID) field.
A sample script that reads the values of the causing object and writes them to the notification text on the Process tab.

The CALL.STANDARD template has:

Request set as its type on the Notification tab
Nothing defined on the Notification or Process tabs.

CALL.STANDARD is helpful template for using the Notification tab in order to define your notification messages. The Notification tab allows you to define messages without the complexity or powerful benefits of AE's scripting language.

Which Tabs to Use

When you define a notification, you have to consider how you want to send messages, what you want to send, and who you want to send them to. The tabs you will use to create a notification will depend on the answers to those questions.

To Consider:	Use:
How you want to send messages	The Type and other settings on the Attributes tab, and optionally the settings on the Header, Variables & Prompts, Documentation, Sync and Runtime tabs.
What you want to send	The Notification and/or Process tabs. From the Notification tab you can specify a subject and message body. These fields allow for text and Variable objects, but if you want to create anything more complex (like returning the calling object's name or putting in a line break), you will want to use the Process tab instead. The Process tab is a type-specific tab where processing instructions are stored in the AE's scripting language. If you use the Process tab, text entered for the subject and message on the Notification tab will be ignored. Another thing you can define on the Notification tab is how you attach files. The file attachment settings from the Notification tab can still be used even if you are using the Process tab to specify a subject and message body.
Who you want to send them to	The Recipients tab to specify users, user groups, and email addresses. If a calendar keyword is additionally specified, the receivers will only be notified if the relevant date lies within the calendar's specified period of time. All the specified users are informed if otherwise - due to the specified calendar conditions - none of the users would be informed.

To Consider:

Use:

How you want to send messages

The Type and other settings on the Attributes tab, and optionally the settings on the Header, Variables & Prompts, Documentation, Sync and Runtime tabs.

What you want to send

The Notification and/or Process tabs.

From the Notification tab you can specify a subject and message body. These fields allow for text and Variable objects, but if you want to create anything more complex (like returning the calling object's name or putting in a line break), you will want to use the Process tab instead.

The Process tab is a type-specific tab where processing instructions are stored in the AE's scripting language. If you use the Process tab, text entered for the subject and message on the Notification tab will be ignored.

Another thing you can define on the Notification tab is how you attach files. The file attachment settings from the Notification tab can still be used even if you are using the Process tab to specify a subject and message body.

Who you want to send them to

The Recipients tab to specify users, user groups, and email addresses. If a calendar keyword is additionally specified, the receivers will only be notified if the relevant date lies within the calendar's specified period of time. All the specified users are informed if otherwise - due to the specified calendar conditions - none of the users would be informed.

Procedure

1. Click the button in the toolbar. A window listing all the available object types opens. Select a notification template. To create a notification with predefined code on the Process tab, select CALL.ALARM.

2. Assign an adequate name and open the Notification object. Then click on the Notification tab

3. Select a notification type and respond to any of the other fields on the Process tab. More detailed information about all the possible impacts is provided in the Notification Monitor description. Define your subject, message, and attachments using the Notification and/or Process tabs.

4. Specify recipients on the Recipients tab.

5. Optionally specify settings on the Header, Variables & Prompts, Documentation, Sync and Runtime tabs.