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Scheduled notifications can be configured to reoccur until the corresponding timesheet leave request is submitted or approved/rejected.
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email – an email message is sent to the email address of the relevant recipient
SMS – an SMS is sent to the relevant recipient's mobile telephone
When working with leave notifications, you need to be aware of the following concepts:
message types
notification triggers
delivery methods
grouping
message frequency
initiator settings.
These concepts are described below.
Notification Types
The notification type determines if a notification is one of the following:
immediate notification – a notification that is triggered by a specific event.
scheduled notification – a notification that is triggered after a certain amount of time elapses.
For example, an immediate notification can be triggered as soon as a timesheet initiator submits a timesheet for approval. A scheduled notification can be triggered if the approver has not approved or rejected the submitted timesheet within X hours of the timesheet being submitted.
Notification Triggers
A notification trigger determines the type of event that triggers a notification. For scheduled notifications, the following triggers are available:
Reminder – for the Timesheet Initiator, the notification is triggered when a certain number of hours or days have elapsed relative to the week ending date of a timesheet, for the Approver the trigger is relative to the date/time the timesheet was submitted. The notification is sent to a timesheet initiator as a reminder to submit a timesheet or the notification can be sent to an approver as a reminder to approve a timesheet.
Escalation – the notification is triggered when a certain number of hours or days have elapsed since a timesheet has been submitted. The notification is sent to the escalation contact, as defined in the timesheet workflow.
For immediate notifications, the following notification triggers are available:
Rejected – the notification is triggered when a approver rejects a timesheet that has been submitted for approval. The notification is sent to the timesheet initiator.
Submitted – the notification is triggered when a timesheet initiator submits a timesheet for approval. The notification is sent to the timesheet approver(s). Where the timesheet workflow has multiple approval stages, the notification is also triggered when an approver at the previous approval stage approves a timesheet. In this case, the notification is sent to the approver(s) at the next approval stage.
Recalled – the notification is triggered when a timesheet initiator recalls a timesheet. The notification is sent to the approver(s) of the timesheet. Where the timesheet workflow has multiple approval stages, the notification can also be triggered when an approver at an earlier approval stage recalls a timesheet, in which case the notification is sent to the approver(s) at the current approval stage.
Approved – the notification is triggered when an approver approves a timesheet. The notification is sent to the timesheet initiator. Where the timesheet workflow has multiple approval stages, the notification is triggered only when the timesheet is approved at the last approval stage.
Notification Triggers and Delivery Methods
The following table describes each of the Notification triggers in more detail.
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Message Frequency
When creating a scheduled notification, you must specify delivery frequency parameters, consisting of a mandatory delay frequency and an optional reoccurrence frequency. The delay frequency determines when the notification is sent and the reoccurrence frequency determines if and how often the notification is resent.
Delay and reoccurrence frequencies can be define in terms of hours or days. The delay frequency can be a negative value.
For reminder notifications where the recipient is a Leave Request Approver, the delay frequency is relative to the date the request was submitted. For example, if the submitted date falls on 18 July 2010 and the delay frequency is set to -2 days, a reminder message will be sent to the timesheet approver on 20 July 2010.
For escalation notifications the delay frequency is defined relative to the time and date of a leave request being submitted. For example, if a request is submitted at 10:00 am on 18 July 2010 and the delay frequency is set to 1 day, an escalation notification will be sent to the leave administrator if the request has not been approved or rejected by 10:00 am on 19 July 2010.
The reoccurrence frequency for reminder and escalation notifications is defined relative to the last instance of the notification being sent. For example, if the reoccurrence frequency for an escalation message is set to 2 hours and the first escalation message is sent at 10:00am on a given day, another escalation message will be sent at 12:00pm on the same day and will continue to be resent every two hours until the corresponding leave request is approved or rejected.
Delivery Methods
A notification can be sent to the relevant workflow participant via the following delivery methods:
Email – sends the notification as an email message to the email address of the participant
SMS – sends the notification as an SMS message to the mobile telephone number of the participant
One or more of the abovementioned delivery methods, and corresponding notification template, must be selected when creating a new notification.
Grouping
Grouping intervals can be used to prevent continual sending of large number of notifications to recipients.
For example, the leave approver may approve the leave of a large number of payees. If a separate notification is sent each time a payee submits a request for approval, the approver may be inundated with notifications that prompt the approval of each leave request.
By using grouping intervals, all notifications that have been triggered within a given period of time are grouped into a single notification which is delivered only at the end of the corresponding interval. The group intervals can be set at 3, 6, 12 or 24 hours.
For example, if the interval is set to 6 hours, notifications will be sent at six-hourly intervals throughout each 24 hour period. Therefore, a recipient would receive a maximum of 4 notifications on any given day and these notifications would be delivered at the following times of day:
00:00
06:00
12:00
18:00
In this example, all notifications that are triggered between 00:00 and 06:00 are grouped into a single notification and sent to the recipient at 06:00. All notifications that are triggered between 06:00 and 12:00 are grouped and sent to the recipient at 12:00 and so on.
For scheduled notifications, it is still necessary to define the delivery frequency even if grouping intervals will be used to group the delivery of notifications. This is because the delivery frequency triggers the generation of the relevant notification.
Notifications can only be grouped when sent via email or SMS. Where grouping is to be used for email or SMS notifications, a separate Group Notification template must be configured under Maintenance > Group Notifications for the email and SMS delivery methods respectively.