The body of a ProblemTracker email notification is divided into seven sections which you can configure. Listed from the top (first line of email body) to the bottom, they are as follows.

1. Greeting - the first line of the email, e.g. "Hello Sue Smith,".
2. Introduction - a few lines to introduce the email, e.g. a sentence or two to let the user know this is an automated response from ProblemTracker.
3. Operation Description - a few lines to describe why this email notification is being sent, e.g. this issue has been assigned to you (the recipient of the email).
4. Link - link (URL) to the record in ProblemTracker (record is displayed after you enter your login information).
5. History Comment - the History Comment that was entered by the user who triggered the email, e.g. comment they entered when using the Edit operation to update a record.
6. Fields - the fields of the record this email notification references. Which fields are included can be limited by User Group.
7. Signature - the last section of the email, typically used for the signature at the bottom of the email (contact information).

Email notification preferences are customizable for each product. However, it is very likely that some aspects of the preferences are common across all products. ProblemTracker allows you to specify a default set of email notification preferences that are applied when a new product is added to the workgroup. Some or all of these default preferences can be pushed down to (overwrite the current preferences for) all existing products as well.

Default Email Preferences

To set the Default Email Preferences, follow the steps below to add, edit, or delete the default email Notification Rules and to set the default Common Email Content. The Default Email Preferences will be used as the email preferences for newly added products. You can also use the Push Default Email Preferences to All Products operation to update the email preferences for all existing products to match the (perhaps recently updated) Default Email Preferences.

To add an email Notification Rule:

1. Login to the workgroup as Admin (or another user who is a member of the Admins user group).
2. Click on the Admin icon.
3. Click on the Email Configuration button.
4. Select the option Set Default Email Preferences, then click on the Continue button.
5. Select a Condition (details of each option that can be selected are described in the Options section below). Check the Notification Rule List to see if the condition you selected is already on the list. If so, you may wish to edit an existing preference rather than create a new one.
6. In the Notification List, select the user(s) and / or user group(s) that should receive an email message when the condition occurs. Descriptions of the special user roles such as Assignee, Reporter, etc. can be found in the Options section below.
7. Enter information into the Subject field. This text will appear as the Subject line of the email message generated when the condition occurs. Up to 80 characters can be entered as the Subject.
8. Enter information into the Operation Description field. This text will appear in the body of the email message after the Greeting and Introduction. Up to 255 characters can be entered as the Operation Description (end of line characters do count towards that limit).
9. For the Subject and Operation Description, you can specify variables so that information from the issue that triggered the email notification is included. For an explanation and example of the variables that can be used, review the Variables section below.
10. Click on the Add Notification button. The preference will now be displayed in the Notification Rule List. Except when the Notification Rule is selected, it will be displayed with a green background until you click the OK button. This is to let you know that this rule has been added, but has not yet been saved. You can continue to create more rules, or you can click the OK button to save your changes.

To edit an email Notification Rule:

1. Login to the workgroup as Admin (or another user who is a member of the Admins user group).
2. Click on the Admin icon.
3. Click on the Email Configuration button.
4. Select the option Set Default Email Preferences.
5. Click on the Continue button.
6. In the Notification Rule List, click on the Notification Rule you wish to modify, then click on the Edit Notification button (you can also simply double click on the Notification Rule).
7. The fields in the Notification Rule section will be updated with the information associated with the Notification Rule you selected.
8. Make changes to the fields in the Notification Rule section.
9. Click on the Update Notification button. The Notification Rule will be displayed with an orange background color until you click the OK button. This is to let you know that this rule has been edited, but the changes have not yet been saved. You can continue to edit more rules, or you can click the OK button to save your changes.

1. Login to the workgroup as Admin (or another user who is a member of the Admins user group).
2. Click on the Admin icon.
3. Click on the Email Configuration button.
4. Select the option Set Default Email Preferences.
5. Click on the Continue button.
6. In the Notification Rule List, click on the preference you wish to delete, then click on the Delete Notification button
7. Click on the OK button to save this change.

1. Login to the workgroup as Admin (or another user who is a member of the Admins user group).
2. Click on the Admin icon.
3. Click on the Email Configuration button.
4. Select the option Set Default Email Preferences.
5. Click on the Continue button.
6. Enter or edit information in the Greeting field. This information will be displayed as the first text in the body of all email messages generated by the email Notification Rules listed above. Up to 80 characters can be entered as the email greeting.
7. Enter or edit information in the Introduction field. This information will appear immediately after the Greeting in the body of all email messages generated by the email Notification Rules listed above. Up to 255 characters can be entered as the email introduction (end of line characters do count towards that limit).
8. Enter or edit information in the Signature field. This text will appear as the final portion of the body of all email messages generated by the email Notification Rules listed above. Up to 255 characters can be entered as the email signature (end of line characters do count towards that limit).
9. For the Common Email Content fields, you can specify variables so that information from the issue that triggered the email notification is included. For an explanation and example of the variables that can be used, review the Variables section below.
10. Click OK to save your changes.

Setting Email Preferences for a Product

To set the email preferences for a product, follow these steps in the Default Email Preferences section above, but instead of selecting Default Email Preferences, select Set Email Preferences for Product and select a Product in the pulldown to the right of the Set Email Preferences for Product selection.

When specifying email preferences for a product, you will also have one additional option: Load Default Values. If you click the Load Default Values button, the current Default Email Preferences will be used to overwrite the settings for the product. After loading the default email preferences, you can customize the rules for the product. Make sure to click OK to save your changes when you are done (you must click OK even if all you do is click Load Default Values to update the product email preferences to match the default email preferences).

Push Default Email Preferences to All Products

You may wish to push a certain set of email preferences to all Products to minimize the amount of manual configuration done across all products.

To push a default set of email preferences to all products within your workgroup:

1. Login to the workgroup as Admin (or another user who is a member of the Admin user group)
2. Click on the Admin icon
3. Click on the Email Configuration button
4. Select the option Push Default Email Preferences to All Products, then click on the Continue button
5. The Rule List, Greeting, Introduction, and Signature as configured in the Default Preferences section will be displayed. Check the boxes to the left of the preferences to wish to push to all products. The preferences with boxes checked will overwrite any current settings in each of the Per-Product Email Preference sections.
6. Click OK to proceed with pushing the selected preferences to all products

Limiting Email Content by User Group

You can limit the information contained in an email notification message by user group. To limit the sections included in the email messages (e.g. Greeting, Introduction, Signature, etc.), enable or disable the Email Privileges for each user group. To limit the fields (e.g. Reported By, Assigned To, Description, etc.), set the field visibility for each field or set the field visibility for each user group.

Details of the fields that can be set in the Default and Per-Product Email Preference section are described below.

Conditions

The Conditions below are the actions that can trigger an email notification message to be sent.

• Add
  Setting a preference with this condition will send an email notification message when a record is added to the workgroup: using the Add page, using the Inet page, using the Clone operation on the View page, by submitting via email, or by executing the ProblemTracker API AddRecord operation.

• Edit
  Setting a preference with this condition will send an email notification message when a record is edited using the Edit operation.

• Delete
  Selecting this condition will send an email notification message when a record is deleted using the Delete operation.

• Task
  Selecting this condition will send an email notification message when the Task operation is performed on a record.

• Change of
  There are 2 parts to the Change of condition:
  • Change of Status to <State or State Group>
    Creating a preference with this condition will send an email notification message when a record's status is changed to the State selected. If a State Group is selected, an email notification message will be sent when a record's status is changed to one of the states in the State Group selected. To select this condition, select Change of in the first pulldown, select Status in the second pulldown, then select the State or State Group that should used for this preference.

  • Change of Assignment
    Creating a preference with this condition will send an email notification message when a record's Assignment (Assigned To field) is changed. To select this condition, select Change of in the first pulldown, then select Assigned To in the second pulldown.

Variables that can be used in the Email Content

There are a list of variables that are supported so that you can reference the specific record number, status, assignees when entering the content for email notifications. For example, if you want the Subject line for a preference to say "PRN 31 previously assigned to Development Manager has been re-assigned to Developer One", but since each record has an individual record number and may have various possible users that can be assigned at any point in the process, it is necessary to enter the content using variables. To set the Subject line such that it will enter the relevant PRN and user names for each record, enter the following into the Subject field exactly as it appears below:

PRN <number> previously assigned to <old assignee> has been re-assigned to <new assignee>

The variables supported by ProblemTracker are listed below

To specify this information in the email content Enter this variable into the field record number - PRN <number> workgroup name <workgroup> previous user selected in the Assignee field <old assignee> new user selected in the Assignee field <new assignee> current user selected in the Assignee field <assignee> previous state selected in the Status field <old status> new value selected in the Status field <new status> current state selected in the Status field <status> the user selected in the Reporter field <reporter> the user receiving the email notification message <recipient> the user whose action triggered the email <action user>

In addition to the variables listed above, you can also include the value of any field in the record (except for BigText/TextArea and Date fields) by specifying the Field Name (in all lower case characters) and surrounding the name with < and >. For example, <text1>, <pulldown23>, or <product>. To find the Field Name for a particular field, click on the Admin icon, click on the Define Record button and note the name in parentheses (to the right of the Field Label). You can also select the field and click the Edit button between the two panes to view the field properties. The Field Name is the left-most property in the Field Attributes section. Note: The field name variable must be specified in all lower case characters (e.g. <text1> not <Text1>) to be properly recognized by the ProblemTracker email processor.

Notification List

The options below are available for selecting which users receive email notification messages for a particular preference.

Assignee
The user currently assigned to the record

Assignee (new)
The user assigned to the record after a change in the record's Assigned To field has been made

Assignee (previous)
The user who was assigned to the record prior to a change made in the record's Assigned To field

Reporter
The user who created the record using the Add or Inet form

State Manager
The user who is listed as the manager of the record's current state according to the per-product Workflow Properties

State Manager (new)
The user who is listed as the manager of the record's current state (according to the per-product Workflow Properties) after a change in the record's Status field has been made

State Manager (previous)
The user who is listed as the manager of the record's previous state (according to the per-product Workflow Properties) prior to a change in the record's Status field

User Groups
All user groups in this workgroup will be displayed to be selected for the Notification List