Understanding Notification List Operation

The StarTeam Notification Agent is responsible for processing the Step Notification List and sending notification messages appropriately. Names on the notification list are processed as follows:

• Leaving the notification list blank creates a silent step and no notification is sent. This is useful when:
  • The workflow contains a number of consecutive steps for which the same user is responsible.
  • There is only one user who performs this step and that user prefers not to get email whenever an item enters this step. For example, the user may perform the tasks associated with this step only once a month and prefers to use a query in the application to locate the items that need to be processed.
• Entering a single name on the notification list results in the notification of:
  • The one user who always completes this step.
  • A single user who manually assigns responsibility for the step to one of several appropriate users in order to balance their workloads. Note that all these appropriate users must be entered on the Authorized List for that step.
• Entering two or more individual names or a group name on the Step Notification list instructs the StarTeam Notification Agent to send messages as specified in the Notification Type field. If Blast is selected, the system notifies everyone on the participants list at once. If either Random or Ordered are specified, the system sends notification messages to one individual at a time. If a notified user accepts the task, no other messages are sent. If a notified user declines a task or does not respond before the notification interval expires, a notification message is sent to the next name on the list.

  Users may manually assume responsibility for a task after the notification interval has expired as long as no other user has already accepted the task. Users may not, however, use the automated accept/decline links within a notification message after the interval has expired; the system informs the user that the message was tardy and discards these messages without processing them.

• If there is a mixture of users and groups in the list, the StarTeam Notification Agent resolves duplicate names so that users are notified only once, the first time they appear on the list.

  For example:

  • Ellen, John, Mary, and Scott are in Engineering.
  • Ellen, Joan, and Tom are in Management.
  • Elizabeth and Scott are in Marketing.

  The table below illustrates notification resolution for a mixed list that is set to Ordered and uses the above names and groups.

  Step Notification List	Resolution
  Mary	A single message is sent to Mary. If she accepts, the notification process is over and no additional messages are sent. If she declines or fails to respond before the notification interval expires, the agent moves on to the next entry in the list.
  Engineering	Ellen, John, Mary, and Scott are in Engineering. Mary has already received a message, so messages are sent sequentially to the remaining members of the group, namely Ellen, John, and Scott. Each team member is given the length of the notification interval (set on the Step Notification tab of the Edit Step dialog box) to respond before the next message is sent. Only the active team member, that is, the one with the most recent notification message, may respond using the automatic links within the notification message. If no one in Engineering accepts before their notification interval expires, the StarTeam Notification Agent moves on to the next entry in the list.
  Tom	A single message is sent to Tom. If Tom declines or does not reply before the notification interval expires, the StarTeam Notification Agent moves on to the next entry in the list.
  Marketing	Elizabeth and Scott are in Marketing. Scott has already received notification as a member of Engineering, so a single message is sent to Elizabeth. If Elizabeth declines or does not reply before the notification interval expires, the StarTeam Notification Agent moves on to the next entry in the list.
  Management	Ellen, Joan, and Tom are in Management. Ellen has already received notification as a member of Engineering and Tom has already received notification individually, so a single message is sent to Joan. If Joan declines or does not reply before the notification interval expires, the StarTeam Notification Agent generates an exception, following the instructions on the Exceptions tab.

When a user accepts responsibility for an item at a particular step, the StarTeam Notification Agent sets the workflow responsibility property to that user’s name.