Group Notifications

Notifications can be configured within the Maintenance > Portal > Time and Attendance module to do the following:

remind timesheet initiators to submit timesheets
alert timesheet approvers that timesheet have been submitted and are awaiting approval
alert managers in the event that timesheets have not been actioned within an allotted time
alert timesheet initiators that their timesheets have been approved or rejected.

Notifications can also be configured within the Portal > Leave module to do the following:

alert managers that a payee has submitted a leave request that requires their approval
alert payees that their leave requests have been approved or rejected.

To prevent recipients of timesheet notifications from being inundated with large numbers of notifications at irregular times of the day, it is possible to configure notifications as grouped notifications whereby individual notifications are grouped and sent together within a single notification at specified intervals during the course of a day.

For example, if a timesheet approver approves the timesheets of a large number of payees, rather than receiving a notification each time a timesheet initiator submits a timesheet for approval, the approver can receive group notifications at regular intervals. Each grouped notification lists the timesheets that have been submitted for approval since the last group notification was sent.

Group notifications can be sent via email or SMS. One group notification can be configured for each delivery method for each country.

A group notification that is configured to be delivered via email must have a subject line, which is the text that recipient will see in the subject line when the notification is received.

A group notification must also have message text, which is the text that appears in the body of the notification. The message text can include merge tags, which insert variable information from the database into the body of the message. The table below lists and describes the merge tags that are available.

Merge Tag	Description
<<MessageContent>>	Inserts different predefined text based on the type of group notification and delivery method that applies. For more information, see below.
<<TimesheetTab>>	Adds a link to the message that takes the recipient to the applicable Timesheet Tab within the Time and Attendance module.
<<ToUserFirstName>>	Inserts the first name of the notification recipient.
<<ToUserPhone>>	Inserts the phone number of the notification recipient.
<<ToUserSurname>>	Inserts the surname of the notification recipient.

The table below lists what is inserted by the <<MessageContent>> merge tag depending on the type of group notification being sent and the delivery method used to send the notification. {0} represents a placeholder for the actual number of timesheets or leave requests.

Email as Delivery Method	SMS as Delivery Method
No of Approved timesheets : {0}	No of Approved t/s : {0}
No of Approved leave requests : {0	No of Approved l/r : {0}
No of Escalation leave requests : {0}	No of Escalation l/r : {0}
No of Escalation timesheets : {0}	No of Escalation t/s : {0}
No of Recalled timesheets : {0}	No of Recalled t/s : {0}
No of Recalled leave requests : {0}	No of Recalled leave requests : {0}
No of Rejected timesheets : {0}	No of Rejected t/s : {0}
No of Rejected leave requests : {0}	No of Rejected l/r : {0}
No of Reminder leave requests : {0}	No of Reminder l/r : {0}
No of Reminder timesheets : {0}	No of Reminder t/s : {0}
No of Submitted leave requests : {0}	No of Submitted l/r : {0}
No of Submitted timesheets : {0}	No of Submitted t/s : {0}

The individual notifications that are included in a group notification and the triggers for those individual notifications must be configured under Time and Attendance > Maintenance > Notifications and Leave > Maintenance > Notification. The Group option must be enabled on the notifications if they are to be sent as part of a group notification.