Smart Alert Pro

The product provides advanced tools for creating, managing and sending out alerts

and notifications based on SharePoint content and changes.

Advantages compared to the built-in alert capabilities:

1. Notifications – alerts sent according to a date/time column of the item. You

can be notified before or after the date value and the notification can be

repeated at pre-set intervals for a pre-set number of times.

2. Conditions – alerts can optionally be sent only when one or more conditions

apply. You can also use conditions of tab permissions set by Smart List Pro.

3. Recipients – you can send alerts to SharePoint users, users in a User/Group

column of the item or emails in a text column, users in a Contacts list or to

manually specified e-mail addresses.

4. Mail Templates – users can create and re-use their own alert email templates.

The administrator can create templates that can be shared by all users.

5. URL Zones – URLs in the alerts can be transformed into a zone of your

choosing.

Components

Smart Alert Pro consists of the following components:

Alert Settings management page – allows adding and managing alerts.

Alert Administration management page –allows setting system-wide

administrative options.

List event receiver – background module that responds to changes to list items

and generates alerts when needed.

Scanner timer job – generates and sends out timer-based notifications and

alerts.

Job synchronizer – monitors scanner job execution.

Smart Alert Pro is comprised of 4 SharePoint features:

Infowise Smart Alert Pro [farm feature] – enables alert engine running in the

background. This feature must always be activated for the product to work. It

is activated as a default by the installer.

Infowise Smart Alert Pro UI Integration [web application feature] – enables user

interface integration of the product across the whole farm. It is activated as a

default by the installer.

Infowise Smart Alert Pro UI Integration [site collection feature] – enables user

interface integration of the product for a specific site collection. The feature

must be activated manually as needed. Remember to de-activate the farm-

scope feature to prevent UI elements appear on all site collections.

Infowise Smart Alert Pro Template Support [site collection feature] - allows

saving alerts as part of site templates. The feature must be activated on both

source and target site collections and the alerts must be marked as Persistant

in site templates.

NOTE: You must activate one of the UI Integration features for the product to work.

Unless web application or site collection scoped feature is activated for a particular site

collection, the alert functionality will not operate. Make sure you do not activate both

feature at the same time, as it will cause ribbon and menu buttons to appear twice.

SharePoint UI Integration

Usage

Smart Alert Pro integrates into the SharePoint menus in the following places:

List item context menu – enables adding alerts to that item.

Folder context menu – enabled adding alerts for the folder and its contents.

Item Display Form (in the menu of SharePoint 2007 or in the ribbon of SharePoint

2010) – enabled adding alerts to that item.

List Actions menu (SharePoint 2007) – enables adding alerts to the list/document

library

List Ribbon (SharePoint 2010-2013) – enabled adding alerts to items, folder or the

whole list. The button under Items tab handles specific items/folders and the button

under List tab handles the whole list

Site Actions – enables managing existing alerts and adding alerts to any list.

Site Settings – enabled managing existing alerts and adding alerts to any list.

NOTE: All menu buttons open the same Alert Settings page, but with different

parameters. To add an alert to a specific item/folder, you must use the context menu

or the display form of the particular item.

The Alerts Settings management page contains all the settings you can use to create

precisely the alerts you need. The page is divided into sections, some are open and some

are closed by default, so that the new user will not be intimidated by a complex user

interface, but the more experienced users can easily access the advanced functionality.

Use the Help icon to open section-specific help information.

Existing Alerts

NOTE: Smart Alert Pro always operates in the confines of the current site collection.

This is why you will only see the existing alerts coming from the current site

collection. To see additional alerts you might have created in other site collections,

open the Alert Settings management page from a site in that site collection.

The Existing Alerts section shows the alerts previously created by you in the current site

collection. You can edit any alert or delete one, some or all alerts.

NOTE: Administrators are able to view/edit alerts for all users. Log in as an

administrator to switch between the current displayed user above the list of the

existing alerts.

When you click on Edit, the alert will be highlighted and the properties of the alerts

will be loaded into the sections below. Once done editing, you can click on Update

to save the alerts or on Add Alert to create a new alert.

This section is closed by default, unless browsing to the page from the Site Actions

menu or the Site Settings page.

General Settings

This section allows you to enter a title for the alert and specify what site, list and,

optionally, folder/item the alert should be attached to.

NOTE: By default, the title of the alert is the same as the title of the list the alert is created

for. If the alert is attached to a folder or an item, the title of the alert will be [title of

folder/item]: [title of the list].

Note that the alert title is a required field. It’s recommended to give meaningful and

unique titles to the alerts you create.

When browsing to the management page from a document or list item context menu

or display form menu Add Alert button, the Site, List and Item selectors are pre-set and

disabled.

When browsing to the page from a list Add Alert button, the Site and List selectors are

pre-set and the Item selector is hidden.

When you change the current site or list, the alert title is changed accordingly to the new

selected list title.

Mail Templates

You can specify exactly how the email message the alert sends looks like and what it

includes. These mail templates can be created by end users and/or site collection

administrators. Administrators can choose to share templates with end users.

At the top of the section you can see the existing mail templates created by you or

those created by the administrator and shared with all users. The administrator

templates have a lock icon on the left.

By default, only the Default alert template exists, which is created by the system.

Once you have created additional templates, you can choose which template to use for

which event type of the alert by using the radio buttons. You can assign a different

template to each event type, such as item is Added or Date column base notification.

You can also delete a template you created, edit an existing template or add a new one.

Delete a Template

When deleting a template, you will be notified how many alerts use the template, if

any, so you may reconsider deleting the template.

Click on the Delete link to the right of the template name. You will be presented with a

confirmation pop-up, click OK to delete the template. If a template is deleted, but there

are still alerts using it, those alerts will use the default template instead, until you define

a new template for them.

Add a Template

When you add a template, it can be reused by all alerts you create. If you are a site

collection administrator and you checked the Share template with all users checkbox,

all users will be able to re-use the template within the current site collection.

On the right site of the template adding section you can see a box containing current

list fields and parameters. You can use them as placeholders in the Subject and Body

fields of the template.

NOTE: The placeholders are replaced with actual values when an alert is sent. If the

item does not include fields specified by the placeholder, it will be replaced with a

blank.

NOTE: List properties are separated from the column values by a dashed line. List

properties include such general values as Site URL, List Title. Change Type

placeholder designates the event type that created the alert, such as “has been

modified”.

NOTE: The placeholders are in the format [internal name|display name]. Never

change or edit the placeholders themselves or they will not be replaced by the actual

values.

Provide a meaningful name for the template (such as Task notification)

Enter alert subject by using text and placeholders. To add a placeholder, select it from

the box and click on Add to subject. The placeholder will be inserted at the current

caret position.

Enter a message body, using text, styling and placeholders. To insert a placeholder,

select it from the box, click on Copy to clipboard and paste it into the relevant location

within the message body. You can add as many placeholders as you need.

Check the Include updated columns checkbox to include a list of updated values at

the bottom of the alert message.

Check the Highlight updated columns checkbox to highlight the updated values

everywhere in the message.

Check the Insert attachments or document checkbox to send the item’s attachments

(or document itself if the list is a document library) with the message.

If you are a site collection administrator, you can check the Share template with all

users checkbox to make the template available to all users in the site collection.

Click on Add to save the template, now you can use it in your alert.

Edit a Template

You can edit any template at any point. When editing your own templates, you can

change all fields, but when editing a template created by the site collection

administrator, you can only change the checkboxes dealing with updated columns

and attachments.

Click on the Edit link to the right to the template name.

The template values will be loaded into the editing fields.

Change the values according to your needs and click Update.

Alternatively, if you want to create a new template based on the current one, click on

Add.

Recipients

The section contains one or more recipients set to receive the alert. By default, the only

recipient included is the alert creator.

You must include at least one recipient in your alert.

The recipients can be of the following types:

SharePoint users and groups – any SharePoint user (person or domain group)

or cross-site group in the current site. This type of recipient is represented by

Current User and Users radio button. If you enter more than one name in the

Users field, a separate recipient will be created for each one of them. Note

that the emails will be sent to each individual user email, even though a group

appears as a recipient. The breakdown of the group is done at the moment of

alert sending, so the actual make-up of the recipients may vary according to

the changes made to the group membership.

Users in column – select a User/Group column (such as Created By or

Assigned To) of the current list. The actual value of the column at the

moment of alert sending will be used as recipients.

NOTE: starting with version 1.2.0, any text column can also be used and is

assumed to contain email address[es]. If multiple addresses are used, they

must be separated by semi-colon (;). Note that no validation is performed

for the email addresses.

People in Contacts list – select a Contacts list (list created from the Contacts

template) in the current site. You can also filter the list by any view. The alert

is sent to each contact with a filled out Email column.

E-mail addresses – manually enter one or more email addresses, separated

by semicolon.

NOTE: Alerts will only be sent to users who have at least Read permissions for the

underlying item. When sending alerts to external users, the alert creator must have

at least Read permissions for the item at the moment of alert sending.

NOTE: The system is capable of sending alerts to internal and external users. The system

uses the SMTP server configured for use by SharePoint. Make sure your SMTP server is

set to allow relaying emails to external accounts before you attempt to send out alerts

to external users.

You can add recipients to To, CC or BCC fields, similar to any regular email. The recipients

in the BCC field are hidden from the rest of the recipients in the Inbox.

You can specify the From address by either selecting from a drop-down box, or, if the

administrator enabled it, manually entering the email address. The options available for

selection are your own email address and the From address defined in the current web

application settings.

You can include any SharePoint user or group in the Never send to field to prevent

sending alerts to those users under all conditions.

What To Send

The section contains terms and conditions for sending the alert. You can specify which

events trigger the alert and/or an alert should be sent as a notification based on a value

of a date/time column. You can also specify a set of conditions that the item has to pass

for the alert to be sent.

The following alert types are supported:

Item is added – an alert is sent when a new item is added. This setting is only

enabled when the alert is added to a list or a folder, but not to a specific item.

Item is modified – alert is sent when item is edited by user.

Item is checked in – alert is sent when item is checked in by user.

Item is checked out – alert is sent when item is checked out by user

Item is deleted – alert is sent when item is deleted by user.

According to date in column – alert is sent when a date/time columns value falls

into the range specified by the alert.

Notifications

The alerts sent according to date (also known as notifications) are sent by a timer-

based mechanism that scans the items every 30 minutes and send alerts matching

that 30 minute period.

You can specify what items to send based on the current day (Today), next day

(Tomorrow) or current week (This Week).

Alternatively, you specify which date/time column to use and specify the following

settings for that column:

Number of units – number of time units before/after the date in the column when

the alert should be sent. By default 30 (minutes).

Time unit – unit of time measurement to use for the alert. The possible values

include minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and years. The default value is

minutes.

Before date/After date – when to send the alert relative to the date column. For

example, 30 minutes before date or 1 year after date.

You can also define re-occurrence of the notification:

Repeat (checkbox) – whether or not to enable re-occurrence.

Number of units – number or time unit to wait before repeating the alert.

Time unit – unit of time measurement of waiting for repeating the alert.

Number or times – number of times to repeat the alert.

NOTE: The minimal time period is 30 minutes. Although it will not cause an error,

you should not set the repeat interval to anything less than 30 minutes; otherwise

multiple notifications for the same item may arrive into your Inbox at the same time.

Conditions

You can specify conditions that must be passed for the alert to be sent. The

conditions are optional, you do not have to specify any conditions if you want the

alert to be sent in all cases. The conditions compare the underlying item’s column

values to the values expected by the conditions.

NOTE: The values used for comparison are the values as they are AFTER the update

that triggered the alert, except for the notifications (that take the current values) and

deletions (that take the values before the deletion took place).

You can specify conditions directly or you can link to Tab Permissions rule’s conditions

of Infowise Smart List Pro/Lite, if you have the product installed and activated in the site

collection.

NOTE: Smart List Pro helps you create sophisticated electronic forms by adding new

capabilities to regular SharePoint forms, such as tabs and tab permissions, advanced

column permission, validations, default values and more.

The Smart List Pro conditions checkbox is only enabled when the product is installed and

activated. Once you’ve checked it, you can select the relevant tab and then select the

rule you want to use from the list. The rule is linked and not copied, so your alert will

always use the most recent version of the rule.

NOTE: Once you chose to use Smart List Pro conditions, the regular conditions are

blocked. Uncheck the Smart List Pro checkbox to re-enable the regular conditions.

You can also enter the conditions manually specifically for the current alert.

1. Uncheck the Smart List Pro checkbox if already checked.

2. Check the Conditions checkbox.

3. The condition builder section will open.

4. If it is not the first condition, specify the conjunction statement of the current

condition. You can select And or Or, the statement will be applied between the

current condition and the logic result of the previous condition, e.g. if out of three

conditions the first results in true, AND the second results in false OR the third results

in true, the final result is true.

5. Select a column name you want to include in the condition (e.g. Status).

6. If you want to only send an alert when the column value is changed to the required

value prior to sending the alert, choose After Change. If you just want to validate the

condition, choose Always.

7. Select the Operator. The available operators vary depending on the data type of the

selected column, for example, a numeric column will have “Greater than” and “Less

than” operators, that the text columns do not have.

8. Select the value to test against. The condition must be passed for the alert to be sent.

For example if you set “Status equals ‘In Progress’”, alerts will be sent only for items

where Status column is set to “In Progress”.

9. Click on Add to add the condition.

NOTE: When column of condition allows you to run alert only when a column value

changes to a specific value, meaning that prior to the change the column value

must not satisfy the condition. For the obvious reasons, this setting is only relevant

for Item is Modified event. In all other cases, the setting is ignored and the

condition is validated in the usual fashion, as if the When column is set to Always.

You can enter multiple conditions; all the conditions must be passed for the alert to be

sent.

When To Send

You can choose to receive alert immediately once the trigger event happens or you

can postpone the alert to a specific time of day or a specific day of week.

Immediately– the alert is sent immediately. You can choose to always send the

message straight away, or only do it during business hours. In this case, the

alerts outside business hours are send in the beginning of the next business

period (e.g. Monday morning)

o Always – alerts are sent as they are generated

o Business days – select the business days and business hours to send

the alerts immediately

Daily – alerts are sent at once a day, at the time of your choosing. You can set

business days during which the alerts are sent; otherwise the system waits for

the next business day.

Weekly – alerts are sent once a week, on the day and time of your choosing.

When using Daily or Weekly alerts, you must specify time [and weekday] for the alert.

When immediate alerts are generated outside of business hours, it is send only in

the beginning of the next business day, the time and weekday settings do not apply

to immediate alerts and they are not enabled when these alert types are selected.

When an alert is sent according to date column or when it is not sent immediately, you

can choose the mode of how the alert is sent.

Send as separate email – each alert message is sent separately

Send as single message – all alert messages going out to the same people

at the same time are combined into a single message. The body of each

individual message is preserved as specified in its mail template, the

messages are basically appended into a single message.

Summary mode – all alert messages going out to the same people at the

same time are combined into a single message. Each message is shown as

a single line of text, e.g. [Title] has been added by John Smith: 1/1/2012

09:30 AM. Mail templates are not used in this mode. Note that the date

format will be according to your site’s regional settings.

Mail Templates

You can specify exactly how the email message the alert sends looks like and what it

includes. These mail templates can be created by end users and/or site collection

administrators. Administrators can choose to share templates with end users.

At the top of the section you can see the existing mail templates created by you or

those created by the administrator and shared with all users. The administrator

templates have a lock icon on the left.

By default, only the Default alert template exists, which is created by the system.

Once you have created additional templates, you can choose which template to use for

which event type of the alert by using the radio buttons. You can assign a different

template to each event type, such as item is Added or Date column base notification.

You can also delete a template you created, edit an existing template or add a new one.

Delete a Template

When deleting a template, you will be notified how many alerts use the template, if

any, so you may reconsider deleting the template.

Click on the Delete link to the right of the template name. You will be presented with a

confirmation pop-up, click OK to delete the template. If a template is deleted, but there

are still alerts using it, those alerts will use the default template instead, until you define

a new template for them.

Add a Template

When you add a template, it can be reused by all alerts you create. If you are a site

collection administrator and you checked the Share template with all users checkbox,

all users will be able to re-use the template within the current site collection.

On the right site of the template adding section you can see a box containing current

list fields and parameters. You can use them as placeholders in the Subject and Body

fields of the template.

NOTE: The placeholders are replaced with actual values when an alert is sent. If the

item does not include fields specified by the placeholder, it will be replaced with a

blank.

NOTE: List properties are separated from the column values by a dashed line. List

properties include such general values as Site URL, List Title. Change Type

placeholder designates the event type that created the alert, such as “has been

modified”.

NOTE: The placeholders are in the format [internal name|display name]. Never

change or edit the placeholders themselves or they will not be replaced by the actual

values.

Provide a meaningful name for the template (such as Task notification)

Enter alert subject by using text and placeholders. To add a placeholder, select it from

the box and click on Add to subject. The placeholder will be inserted at the current

caret position.

Enter a message body, using text, styling and placeholders. To insert a placeholder,

select it from the box, click on Copy to clipboard and paste it into the relevant location

within the message body. You can add as many placeholders as you need.

Check the Include updated columns checkbox to include a list of updated values at

the bottom of the alert message.

Check the Highlight updated columns checkbox to highlight the updated values

everywhere in the message.

Check the Insert attachments or document checkbox to send the item’s attachments

(or document itself if the list is a document library) with the message.

If you are a site collection administrator, you can check the Share template with all

users checkbox to make the template available to all users in the site collection.

Click on Add to save the template, now you can use it in your alert.

Edit a Template

You can edit any template at any point. When editing your own templates, you can

change all fields, but when editing a template created by the site collection

administrator, you can only change the checkboxes dealing with updated columns

and attachments.

Click on the Edit link to the right to the template name.

The template values will be loaded into the editing fields.

Change the values according to your needs and click Update.

Alternatively, if you want to create a new template based on the current one, click on

Add.

Advanced Settings The section contains advanced settings for special cases.

Operational

Allows you to temporarily disable an alert.

URL Conversion

Smart Alert Pro support URL re-mapping between zones. If your web application is

extended to several zones, you can specify what zone URL you want to use for the

alerts, so that all the links in that alert have that zone’s URL host header and port.

The option is only available when the current web application has more than one

zone. This is useful when you want to send alerts to external users and must make

sure the URL will lead to the external site.

Check the checkbox and select the relevant zone from the drop down box.

Send as SMS

On SharePoint 2010-2013 you can choose to have the alert delivered as an SMS

message. You are required to set up the required web services in Central

Administration before you can use this feature.

The SMS messages include only the Subject of the alert. Only recipients with valid mobile

phone numbers are used to send the SMS messages. For SharePoint users, this means

that the user details must include the mobile phone number. For Contact lists it means

that the mobile phone column must be filled. Manually entered email addresses cannot

be used by this feature.

Persist alert in site templates

Allows you to save alerts as part of site templates to be re-created when a new site

is created from the templates. Only site administrators are allowed to use this

settings. Additionally, Infowise Smart Alert Pro Support for site templates site

collection feature must be activated on both the source and the target site

collections.