Creating Notifications

Once notification templates have been created, you can create notifications that will use the templates. Once the notifications are created, users will be able to select the notifications when defining a timesheet workflow.

When working with notifications, you need to be aware of the following concepts:

• notification types

• notification triggers

• delivery methods

• active flag

• do not send notification flag

• grouping

• delivery frequency

• secondary recipient delivery methods

• 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.

Active Flag

Each notification has an Active flag that determines if the notification is currently active. Only those notifications that are flagged as active can be selected in a timesheet workflow. Notifications are flagged as active by default when they are created. You can flag a notification as inactive if you do not want the notification to be used until a later time or if it has become obsolete.

Do Not Send Notification Flag

If your system is configured to enforce mandatory selection of notifications for timesheet workflows, a job order cannot be submitted to timesheet if notifications are not selected for each stage of the timesheet workflow defined for that job order. However, it may not be necessary or practical for each workflow participant to receive notifications, in which case the user who defines the timesheet workflow can select a notification that has the Do Not Send Notification option enabled. Such notifications will not be sent to a workflow participant despite being selected within the timesheet workflow.

If the Do Not Send Notification option is enabled for a notification, delivery frequencies, delivery methods, grouping intervals, secondary recipient delivery methods and initiator settings do not apply to the notification (for more information, see below).

Delivery 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 Timesheet Initiator, the delay frequency is relative to the week ending date of a timesheet. For example, if the week ending date of a timesheet falls on 18 July 2010 and the delay frequency is set to -2 days, a reminder message will be sent to the timesheet submitter on 16 July 2010.

For reminder notifications where the recipient is a Timesheet Approver, the delay frequency is relative to the date and time the Timesheet has been submitted. For example, if the date and time the timesheet was submitted is the 18 July 2010 and the delay frequency is set to 1 days, a reminder message will be sent to the timesheet submitter on 19 July 2010.

For escalation notifications the delay frequency is defined relative to the time and date of a timesheet being submitted. For example, if a timesheet 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 an alternative approver if the timesheet 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 timesheet is approved or rejected. Note that delivery frequency settings do not apply if the Do Not Send Notification option (for more information, see above) is enabled on the notification.

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 relevant workflow participant

• SMS – sends the notification as an SMS message to the mobile telephone number of the workflow participant

• Message – sends the notification as a message that appears in the workflow participant's Notifications pane within the Time and Attendance application.

A different notification template can be selected for each delivery method you choose, thereby allowing the message to be formatted according to the medium via which it is delivered.

One or more of the abovementioned delivery methods, and corresponding notification template, must be selected when creating a new notification. The exception is if the Do Not Send Notification option (for more information, see above) is enabled on the notification, in which case delivery methods do not apply.

Grouping

Grouping intervals can be used to prevent continual sending of large number of notifications to recipients.

For example, a timesheet approver may approve the timesheet of a large number of payees. If a separate notification is sent each time a payee submits a timesheet for approval at the end of a timesheet period, the approver may be inundated with notifications that prompt the approval of each timesheet.

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.

Secondary Recipient Delivery Methods

Where a scheduled reminder notification is sent to an approver because the approver has not approved the timesheet within a specific number of hours or days since the timesheet was submitted, a secondary notification can optionally be sent to the timesheet initiator. This informs the timesheet initiator that the timesheet they have submitted is yet to be approved and therefore prompts the timesheet initiator to follow up the approval of the timesheet with the relevant approver.

It is possible to trigger a secondary notification depending on the type of approver who receives the reminder notification. The approver type may be one of the following:

• Client – the secondary notification will be sent to the timesheet initiator only if the reminder notification is sent to a client timesheet approver

• Agency – the secondary notification will be sent to the timesheet initiator only if the reminder notification is sent to an agency timesheet approver

• Client & Agency – secondary notification will be sent to the timesheet initiator regardless of whether the reminder notification is sent to a client or agency timesheet approver.

Where an approver type is selected, and therefore a secondary notification is to be sent to the timesheet initiator, one or more delivery methods must be selected to determine how the secondary notification will be sent to the timesheet originator. A different notification template can also be applied depending on the delivery methods to be used.

Secondary notifications apply to scheduled reminder notifications only.

Initiator Settings

Where an immediate notification is configured to be generated on approval of a timesheet by an approver, it is mandatory to select one or more initiator types to which the notification will apply. The initiator types are as follows:

• payee

• agency

• client.

For example, if the only initiator type that is selected is payee, the notification will only be sent if the timesheet that has been approved was submitted by a payee as opposed to an agency staff member or a client contact.

This allows different approval notifications to be configured and sent to timesheet initiators depending on whether the timesheet initiators are payees, agency staff members who submit timesheets on behalf of payees or client contacts who submit timesheets on behalf of payees.

Initiator settings apply to immediate approved notifications only.