Workflow Activity email notification rules
When you modify an Activity, Content Manager will check whether its state has changed and if it has and it needs to generate an email notification to someone, it will do so as long as there is a valid email address.
Content Manager calls a change of state an event.
Content Manager will generate an event for Workflows, not templates.
Content Manager will generate an event for an Activity that has no sub-Activities.
A compound Activity is typically represented by the last sub-Activity, and it is this Activity which will generate the events.
Note that the only time you can get two events is Activity Ready To Start or Activity Undone together with Activity Assigned or Activity Reassigned.
- Activity Assigned - Content Manager sends email if the Activity is not completed and it is assigned to someone but was previously unassigned
- Activity Reassigned - Content Manager sends email if the Activity is not completed and the Assignee was changed from someone to someone else or unassigned
- Activity Undone - Content Manager sends email if the Activity is not completed, but was previously completed
- Activity Made Current - Content Manager sends email when the Activity is ready to start, but was not previously ready, or it is a new Activity, and it is not completed and was not previously completed
- Activity Overdue - Content Manager sends email when an Activity becomes overdue
- Activity Completed - Content Manager sends email if an Activity is complete, but was not previously. If an Activity requires authorisation, the Completed event is not generated until it has been authorised.
- Activity Skipped - Content Manager sends email if an Activity has just been completed by being skipped
- Activity Escalated - Content Manager sends email when an Activity has been escalated
- Activity Ready To Be Authorised - Content Manager sends email when an Activity is complete for the first time, but has not been authorised
- Activity Requires Assignee - Content Manager sends email when an Activity requires an Assignee
The mail processor will send out a mail regarding the above events if the Activity affected is configured to generate mail.
The recipient of the mail is typically the Assignee of the Activity.
If the Activity has a Supervisor, the Supervisor is copied on the same email.
Exceptions:
- When an Activity has no Assignee, email is just sent to the Activity Supervisor. If the Activity Supervisor is not specified, the event is sent to the Supervisor of the entire Workflow.
- In the case of the Activity Requires Authorisation event, email is sent to all Locations nominated as authorising officers for the Activity, provided they have not already authorised the Activity.
If one of these officers is the Activity Supervisor, the Activity Supervisor is removed from the CC list.
Content Manager does not send out email if, for the events Activity Assigned, Activity Reassigned, Activity Completed, the person generating the event is the same as the email recipient or the Supervisor that was supposed to be copied on the email.
It is important to remember that Content Manager always generates the events; it just does not always send mail messages.
It is useful to log the events in the audit log.
As user of user type Administrator, you can change and set up the templates that Content Manager uses for email notifications, for example to include particular metadata of a record.
See Email Templates.