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Email Templates and Notifications

Email notifications are dynamically constructed and sent at runtime using the specified Email Template in the Activity Properties toolbar. An activity can have more than one email related property. For example, an activity can have multiple email notifications related to the different stages of the activity. This allows different types of email notifications to be sent out during the different stages of an activity. The different types of email notifications include: Incoming Email, Outgoing Email, Reassigning Email, TimeOut Email (e.g. the Manual with Timeout Activity only), and Reminding Email.

To create a new Incoming Email Notification:

  1. Access the Email Templates Wizard. The Email Templates Wizard can be accessed using the View > Email Templates Wizard menu command. It can also be accessed by selecting the ---Add Mail Template --- option (shown below) in the Activity Properties toolbar.





  2. Click the New button. The New Name window appears.



  3. Type a name for the new email template and click OK. The Email Templates Wizard reappears with the name of the new email template.

  4. Complete the “From”, “To”, “CC”, and “Subject” fields. For more information, see Email Template Fields below.

  5. Select the priority to be assigned to the email. “Normal” is set as the default.
  6. Select the format for which the email content will be displayed. Both HTML and plain text formats are supported.

  7. Type the content of the message. The “Left to Right” and “Right to Left” option buttons allow you to customize the alignment of the content.

  8. (Optional) To attach a file to the email, type the full path of the file in the “Attachments” text box (e.g., C:\My Documents\sample.doc).
  9. Click OK. The Email Notification is now part of the process. The same steps can be repeated to create Outgoing, Reassigning, and TimeOut Email Notifications.

 

To create a Reminding Email Notification:

  1. In the Activities Toolbar, place your cursor in the Reminding Email text box and click the button to open the Reminding Mail window.




  2. Select a specific Email Template that should be used to generate the reminder email notification(s).
  3. Configure the start time (relative to the activity’s expiration) and the frequency of recurrence for which the email notification(s) will be sent.

  4. Click OK. The Reminder Email Template is now part of the process.

 

Email Template Fields:

This section provides information and instructions about how to use the fields in the Email Template. The fields in the Email Template are used to specify what the participant(s) will see when the Email Notification is opened. In addition to manually typing in the value of a field, most of the fields in the Email Template allow you to also select from a list of process attributes to dynamically populate that field at runtime. To bring up the list of available process attributes, type ${ in the text box and select the process attribute for which you would like to use in that field. For example, you may want to select ${TaskParticipantUserName} in the “To” field of your Email Template. The “To” field will be populated with the user name of the task’s participant. For a list of available process attributes and their definitions, see Process Attributes.

 

Incoming and Reminding emails are sent separately for each participant, while Outgoing emails are sent per activity (regardless of number of participants). Therefore, if your email address is in the “To” or “CC” field of the email template associated with the Incoming email, you will get X number of copies of the email. If the entire list of (potential) participants is in the “To” or “CC” field, then all of the (potential) participants will receive X number of copies of the email. If you use the "${TaskParticipantUserName}" process attribute in the “To” field instead of specifying the entire list of participants in the “To” field, then for each participant, a separate email will be sent, and none of the participants will receive duplicate copies of the email. If you want to send a single email to all of the (potential) participants (instead of separate messages), you could use the Email AgileShape to send a single email, instead of associating your template with the Incoming Email property of a multi-participant manual activity.

 

Name

The Name field is used to display the name of an Email Template. The name specified should be meaningful to the process modeler.

 

From

The From field is used to specify what gets displayed in the From field of the Email Notification. This field supports the use of pre-defined process attributes. When a pre-defined process attribute is used, the “domain\username” will be converted automatically.

 

To

The To field is used to specify what gets displayed in the To field of the Email Notification. This field supports the use of pre-defined process attributes. When a pre-defined process attribute is used, the “domain\username” will be converted automatically. You can add multiple entries by separating them with a semicolon.

 

CC

The CC field is used to specify what gets displayed in the CC field of the Email Notification. This field supports the use of pre-defined process attributes. When a pre-defined process attribute is used, the “domain\username” will be converted automatically. You can add multiple entries by separating them with a semicolon.

 

Subject

The Subject field is used to specify what gets displayed in the Subject field of the Email Notification. This field supports the use of pre-defined process attributes.

 

Priority

The Priority field is used to specify the priority setting of the Email Notification. Valid values for this field include: Normal, High, and Low.

 

Format

The Format field is used to specify the format for which the content of the email will be displayed. Both HTML and plain text are supported formats for email. HTML is set as the default as part of the SMTP settings during the Server Configuration process. To send email in plain text format, select Text from the drop-down list.

NOTE: If you have chosen HTML as the format of the email, <br> tags are required for line breaks.

 

Left to Right/Right to Left

The Left to Right and Right to Left option buttons allow you to change the alignment for which text is inserted into the content section of the Email Template.

 

Content

The Content field is used to type the custom message to be displayed in the body of the Email Notification. This field supports the use of pre-defined process attributes.

NOTE: In order to show a URL link as a clickable HTML link in the email notification, the URL link must be entered into the email template with the HTML tags. The following is an example of how to include an URL link with HTML tags:

<a href="http://machinename:portnum/applicationname/ApproveRequest.aspx?${TaskID}">

 

Please click this link to invoke the Request Form.

 

</a> <br></br>

 

NOTE: If you have chosen HTML as the format of the email, <br> tags are required for line breaks when formatting the body of your email.

 

Attachments

The Attachments field is used to specify any files that you would like to include in the Email Notification. To attach a file to the notification, type in the full path of the file

 

e.g., C:\My Documents\sample.doc.

 

You can also use a custom attribute to attach a file to the notification

 

e.g., ${AttachDoc} or ${HomeDirectory}\...

 

NOTE: The file that you would like to attach must reside on the local machine.