Sending Manual Notifications

This chapter provides an overview of manual notifications and discusses how to send manual notifications from CRM transactions.

Click to jump to parent topicUnderstanding Manual Notifications

This section discusses:

Click to jump to top of pageClick to jump to parent topicNotification Modes

The term manual notification refers to notifications that you compose and send from the Outbound Notification page. It does not include correspondence that you send from the Correspondence Request page, nor does it include automated notifications.

Throughout this PeopleBook, the term Outbound Notification page refers to any of the pages accessed using the Notification toolbar button (in some cases it's called Notify). This icon appears in the toolbar of most CRM transactions components.

Click the Notification button that appears in the toolbars of various components to access the Outbound Notification page and send email and worklist notifications.

Manual Notification Modes

Manual notifications have two modes:

See Managing Email.

Components that Support Outbound Notifications

To send a manual notification, the sender accesses the Outbound Notification page from a component that supports notifications, then composes, addresses, and sends the notification. You can send notifications from these CRM components:

Note. PeopleSoft CRM manual notifications are different from PeopleTools manual notifications. To prevent the simultaneous use of two different notification mechanisms, the delivered CRM roles do not give users access to PeopleTools notification functionality. Also, PeopleTools notifications are explicitly disabled in the components that support PeopleSoft CRM manual notifications. This ensures that the PeopleTools Notify button will not appear in these components, even if you choose to give users access to PeopleTools notifications.

Click to jump to top of pageClick to jump to parent topicNotification Addressing and Delivery

This section discusses how manual notifications are addressed and delivered.

Delivery Channels

Manual notifications can be sent to email addresses or worklists. Email is sent through your organization's email system. You may not necessarily receive failed email error messages if your SMTP server is down or if there is a delivery failure on the recipient's side.

Available delivery channels vary according to the recipient type. Email notifications are available to both external and internal recipients; whereas worklist notifications are applicable only to internal recipients. An external recipient is an individual who is not part of an organization running a CRM application but has business with the organization. Examples of external recipients are business contacts, consumer, and POIs (person of interest). An internal recipient is an individual who works for an organization (an active worker) and has the personal information stored in the CRM system. A worker is an example of internal recipient. This table shows the delivery channels and the different recipient types to which these channels apply

Recipient Type

Email Notification

Worklist Notification

Customer contact or consumer

Available only if the person has a primary email address.

Not available.

Worker

Available only if the person has a primary email address.

Available if the worker has a user ID.

For a person's worklist notifications to be delivered correctly, the person ID must be associated with only one user ID, and the user must have security access to the Worklist page.

Provider Group (a group of workers that is used in the field service or any of the call center applications)

Available only if the provider group definition specifies a group email address.

Available only if the provider group definition specifies a group worklist.

Sale Teams (a group of workers that is used in the sales application)

Available only if the Sales Team member definition specifies an individual email address. The concept of group email address doesn't apply.

Not available (because sales teams are not associated with group worklists).

Contact Group (a group of contacts that is defined for a PeopleSoft application user and used for CDM objects)

Available only if the contact group definition specifies an individual email address. The concept of group email address doesn't apply.

Not available (because contact groups are not associated with group worklists).

A fully qualified email address (for example, person@company.com)

Always available.

Not available.

Workers and provider groups, who can receive notifications by email or worklist, can set a preferred notification method: email, worklist, or both. The preference controls the default delivery channel for notifications addressed to that worker or provider group. The delivery channel can be adjusted for recipients on the Outbound Notification page.

See Maintaining Worker Information, Defining Provider Groups.

The ability to address a notification to a group is context-dependent:

Note. Notifications that are addressed to groups are delivered to each of the group members, except for provider groups that have disabled the Use Members to Broadcast option. For provider groups with this option disabled, the system sends the notification to the group email address or group worklist.

Recipient Selection

You can always enter recipient information manually by clicking the Add Recipients toolbar button to search for notification recipients. For people, enter a full or partial first name, last name, or email address or a complete person ID to perform the recipient search. In addition, based on the transaction from which the notification originates, you can send notifications to groups that are available in the CRM system. This includes sales teams for leads and opportunities, provider groups for cases and service orders, and contact groups for call reports and contact lists.

Note. If you enter an email address in a recipient search and the address is linked to a person in the system, that person is returned as a result of the search along with the email address. If the email address is not associated with any person or group, it still shows up in the search result and can be selected as a notification recipient.

You can enter data in multiple search fields when you look up recipients. In this scenario, the system takes in all the information and returns recipients that fit all the search criteria. For instance, if you enter search criteria for a provider group and a person's last name, the system returns, if available, all people in the database with last names that match the search criteria and belong to provider groups matching the search criteria as well.

The search validates that the person exists and has a valid email address to which the notification is delivered (otherwise it becomes a worklist notification).

When you search for a person or group (provider group, sales team, or contact group) by entering a name in the corresponding field, the search will perform these steps:

When you send an email notification, the system populates the From address with the sender's email address that is specified in the Correspondence Management Installation Setup page, if a reply-to address is not already specified for the logon user on the Agent Setup page.

Click to jump to top of pageClick to jump to parent topicTemplates and Terms

Manual notifications, like correspondence requests, support the use of correspondence templates to generate the text of your communication. However, there are differences in how manual notifications and correspondence requests handle template-based correspondence. This section describes how templates and terms work in the context of a manual notification.

Template Selection

Templates are not required in manual notifications; you can enter free-form text instead of (or in addition to) template-based content.

The system populates the Template field with applicable packages based on these criteria:

The Outbound Notification page is accessed from various CRM transactions. From this page, you can select packages that are usable for the transaction from which you accessed the page. In addition to the packages that are available from the Template field, you can search for additional templates using the Advanced Search link.

See Search for Templates.

Template Application

After you select a template package, you must click a button to apply it. This enables you to avoid applying a template that you accidentally select.

If the Subject field is empty when you apply a template, the template's subject text is applied. There is always default subject text for email replies, so template subjects are not used for email replies unless the agent manually deletes the existing subject before applying the template.

You apply template packages one at a time; each time you apply a package, the text is added to the existing body text. The position of the newly added text can vary:

Note. PDF settings for templates do not apply when using templates in manual notifications. The system always adds template text directly to the email body.

Term Resolution

When you click to apply the selected template package to manual notification, the system resolves AAF terms in the template and displays the final message in the text area on the Outbound Notification page. Immediate resolution enables you to see the final text of the notification before you send it.

When the selected template contains recipient-specific terms and the notification is addressed to more than one TO recipient, the system needs to know which recipient to use to resolve these terms. In this case, a page appears and lists all the TO recipients currently selected for this notification. You can choose a recipient from the list and all the recipient-specific terms are resolved for this recipient as the message is displayed and delivered. You can also ask the system to personalize the notification for all the TO recipients. If this option is specified and the template applied, the system resolves recipient-specific terms only at the time of delivery. In the Message field, the original text of the selected template is displayed, showing unresolved terms. CC and BCC recipients (if any) get notification with unresolved terms.

For example, if a template that is applied to a lead-related notification begins with Dear {{Salutation Code}} {{Last Name}}, and if Brian Cooper is the selected TO recipient, then all copies of the message will begin with Dear Mr. Cooper. If Tina Miller and Stuart Fletcher are also TO recipients of this notification and you select the option to personalize the message for all recipients, then the copy of the message will begin with Dear Mr. Cooper. for Brian Cooper, Dear Ms. Miller for Tina Miller, and Dear Mr. Fletcher for Stuart Fletcher. These recipient-specific terms appear as unresolved for all CC and BCC recipients.

Note that because terms are resolved individually at the time of delivery, when there are multiple TO recipients and you select to personalize the notification for each recipient when applying the template, any manual changes that you make (such as adding new text) to the template text will be lost. However, if you select one TO recipient to resolve terms, any manual changes to the template after applying the template will be retained.

In order for the system to be able to identify recipient-specific terms in correspondence templates, specify these terms on the Recipient Specific Terms page.

See Specifying Recipient Specific Terms.

Click to jump to top of pageClick to jump to parent topicApproval Processing

If you designate an approver for a specific user, the system does not give that user the option to send manual notifications. Instead, the user submits the notification for approval, which starts the following sequence of events:

Important! The approval processing doesn't apply to notifications that are sent as reminders (by clicking the Set Reminder toolbar button in the Case component).

  1. The system sends a notification to the approver's Action Request worklist, notifying the approver that the original notification needs to be reviewed.

  2. The approver drills into the worklist entry to navigate to the notification needing review.

  3. The approver optionally modifies the notification.

    The approver can modify the email subject and message text, but not the addressee list or delivery options. The approver is the only one with the ability to edit the email; other users who navigate to the pending notification using the menu see a non-editable version of the notification.

  4. The approver either approves or rejects the notification.

    The Approve and Send and Disapprove buttons appear only when an approver reviews a notification that has been submitted for approval.

  5. If the approver approves the notification, the system sends the notification according to the specified delivery options.

  6. If the approver rejects the notification, it is canceled and the original creator receives a notification to this effect.

    Users can still access the notification using the Search Outbound Emails page, but neither the original author nor the approver can modify or send rejected notification.

See Also

Defining User Settings

Click to jump to top of pageClick to jump to parent topicInteractions and Subinteractions

Sending an outbound notification (email or worklist) to recipients is considered an interaction. The notification text becomes the detail data for the interaction that the system creates, and the transaction from which the notification was originated becomes a subinteraction. When you find and view the notification detail on the Notification page (RB_EM_OB_VIEW) (for example, from the Search Outbound Emails component), the Related Transactions section lists the subinteractions associated with the email. The same interaction is also viewable on the History page of the corresponding transaction.

For each outbound notification that is sent, the system creates an interaction of type Outbound Email for each of the TO recipients that can be accessed, for example, from the 360-Degree View. If the TO recipient is:

Note. The Notification page and the Outbound Email page are the same page with different page names.

See Also

Working with Interactions

Notification Addressing and Delivery

Click to jump to top of pageClick to jump to parent topicEmail Tracking

The system uses the Notification page to display the full text of a notification after it is sent (in read-only mode). In addition to accessing manual notifications that are sent to you from the worklist, you can view them from the Search Outbound Emails component from the menu. If the system created an interaction, you can also drill into the notification detail from the interaction lists that appear in various places.

Also, when you send notifications from a transaction, the system creates an entry in the transaction history. Agents viewing the transaction history can drill down to the Notification page to view the notification content. The case history row is set to be visible to internal users only. Case notifications are the only type of notifications that are saved to a component-specific history table.

See Also

Working with Interactions

Click to jump to parent topicSending Manual Notifications From CRM Transactions

To define notifications, use the Notification component. Use the RB_EM_OB_NOTIFY component interface to load data into the tables for this component.

This section discusses how to:

Click to jump to top of pageClick to jump to parent topicPages Used to Send Manual Notifications From CRM Transactions

Page Name

Definition Name

Navigation

Usage

Outbound Notification

RB_EM_OB_NOTIFY

Click the Notification button in the component from which you are sending an outbound notification.

The name and image on the button for sending notifications may vary by component.

To send notifications based on a transaction note, select the note from the transaction's note grid and click the Email button associated with the grid.

Send outbound notifications.

Note. This page can be used to respond to inbound emails (if configured at the system level).

Search for Recipients

RB_OB_RECP_LKUP_SC

Click the Add Recipients toolbar button on the Outbound Notification page.

Search for additional recipients for the notification. Recipients can be persons and groups in the CRM system.

Send Notification - Select Recipient to Personalize the Notification

RB_OB_SEL_RECP_SC

Click the Apply Template button or the Send button (or the Send for Approval button) on the Outbound Notification page. This page appears if the selected template for the notification contains recipient-specific terms and the notification contains multiple TO recipients.

Select which recipient information to use to resolve recipient-specific terms when apply a template to the notification.

Template Search

RB_OB_TMPLT_SRCH

Click the Advanced Search link on the Outbound Notification page.

Search for additional correspondence templates to use in the notification.

Click to jump to top of pageClick to jump to parent topicSending an Email or Worklist Notification

Access the Outbound Notification page (click the Notification button in the component from which you are sending an outbound notification).

This screenshot shows the Outbound Notification page that is initiated from a support case. The look and feel of this page is consistent across all transactions and varies slightly depending on the component from which you access the page. For example, the Send and Solve toolbar button applies only to notifications that are case-related. Similarly, the Transaction Summary section displays transaction-specific information and is visible to users as long as the originating component passes the information to the notification successfully. The system returns a message in the section if transaction information cannot be displayed.

Outbound Notification Toolbar Functions

The outbound notification toolbar is configurable at the system level. As delivered, the toolbar includes these action buttons.

Send or Send for Approval

Click to send the notification instantly.

The Send button becomes the Send for Approval button if you (creator of the notification) are associated with an approving person, who needs to approve all outbound communications that is sent by you, including email and worklist notifications. Clicking the Send for Approval button sends a worklist item to the approving person, who either approves the notification to be delivered or returns the request back to you for rework.

See Defining User Settings.

Send Later

Click to access the Delivery Time page (RB_EM_OB_LATER_SBP) to schedule the delivery date and time for the notification. The date and time are represented based on your time zone.

Send and Solve

Click to send the notification, attach a canned solution to the associated case (if the notification does not include any solutions), and set the case to the resolved case status (specified in the corresponding call center business unit definition).

This button appears if these conditions are met:

  • The notification is initiated from a case transaction.

  • The Solve Case from Outbound Notification option is enabled on the Options page of the corresponding call center business unit definition.

Note. This button is not applicable to outbound notifications that are initiated by clicking the Set Reminder button from a Case toolbar.

See Setting Up Case Defaults.

Add Recipients

Click to access the Search for Recipients page to look up additional recipients to add to the list.

Add Attachments

Click to add an attachment to this notification. You will be prompted to select a file from a local or network location. The system then uploads the attachment to the CRM attachment server.

See Configuring Toolbars.

Recipients

To, CC (carbon copy), and BCC (blind carbon copy)

Specify the delivery option for each recipient on the list. A recipient can be a person or a group (provider group, contact group, or sales team). This grid is prepopulated with recipients that are passed from the associated transaction. For example, if you send a notification from a case, the system populates the recipient grid with the case contact, the assigned to person and the provider group if the values are all present from the case.

To add new recipients to the grid, click the Add Recipients toolbar button. You can search for recipients by first name, last name, email address, person ID, and group name.

CC and BCC fields are hidden if the notification is initiated from the My Contacts page.

Name

Displays the name of the recipient, which can be a person or a group.

This field is blank if the recipient is added by email address but the email address is not stored in the CRM system. When you open the actual notification in the system, Anonymous User is displayed as the recipient name.

Email Address

Displays the recipient's email address; this field is blank if the recipient does not have one.

If a recipient does not have an email address, the notification will not be delivered to the recipient as an email.

It is possible for different recipients to be associated to the same email address.

ID

Displays the recipient's ID, which can be a person ID or a group ID. This field is blank if the recipient is added by email address but the email address is not stored in the CRM system.

Email

Select to send the notification to the recipient as an email. This check box is only available for edit if the recipient has an email address. For external recipients who do not have access to the worklist functionality, the system selects this check box by default if they have email addresses. As for internal recipients (for example, workers and provider groups), this check box is selected for them by default if their preferred notification method includes email and they have email addresses specified in the system.

See Maintaining Worker Information, Defining Provider Groups.

Worklist

Select to send the notification to the recipient as a worklist item. This check box is only available to internal recipients who have user IDs to sign into the CRM system. This check box is selected for qualified internal recipients by default if their preferred notification method includes worklist and they have userIDs in the system.

Transaction Summary

This section displays summary information that pertains to the associated transaction. Available information varies from one transaction type to the next. To view the related transaction in greater detail, you can always use the History field to return to the transaction from which the notification originates.

If no information is passed to this section from the originating transaction, a message is returned indicating that content is not available for display.

Message Details

From

Enter the email address to be used as the From address for any notifications sent by email. By default, the system prepopulates this value with the Reply-to email address that is specified for the agent on the Agent Setup page. If no email is specified for the agent initiating the notification, the system uses the sender's email address that is defined on the Correspondence Management Installation Setup page as the default From email address.

See Defining User Settings, Defining the Settings.

Template

Select a correspondence template package to be applied to the notification. If the notification is initiated from a transaction, the system populates this drop down list box with templates that pertain to the usage that is associated with the originating transaction.

In order for a correspondence template package to be eligible for selection in this field, it has to contain an internal text template that is targeted for the email channel.

See Templates and Terms.

Advanced Search

Click to access the Template Search page to search for other templates by category, type, product group, product, and keyword.

If the manual notification is initiated from a transaction, performing an advanced search means finding templates that match the advanced search criteria from a list of templates pertaining to the usage of the originating transaction. For example, if you create a notification from a sales lead and select to look up templates by a category, the system returns templates that match the category and are associated with the Sales usage.

Note. For notifications that are initiated from cases, the advanced search supports template lookup by keywords only.

Preview Template

Click to preview the selected template. If recipient-specific terms are present in the template and there are multiple TO recipients, the system uses information of the first TO recipient to resolve them in the preview mode.

Apply Template

Click to add the selected correspondence template to the message. Any additional template you apply to the notification is by default appended to the end of the current message.

While applying the template, if the selected template contains any recipient-specific terms (for example, recipient name) and there are multiple recipients for the TO delivery option, a page appears with a list of TO recipients. From this page, you select a recipient from the TO list whose information is then used to resolve the recipient-specific terms in the template. Alternatively, you can select the Personalize for each recipient option if you want the system to resolve the recipient-specific terms from the template for each TO recipient when the notification is sent.

See Templates and Terms, Searching for Recipients.

Subject

Enter the subject of the notification. If the subject is empty when you apply a template package, the subject from the internal text template in the package is entered here.

Message

Enter the message text manually, apply template text to the notification, or both. As you apply template packages, the system concatenates existing text with newly applied template-based text.

If you have a custom signature (defined on the Worker - Signature page), the signature text appears in the message. You can modify or delete the signature text as you compose the message.

The message area is HTML-compatible, which lets the text appear in different colors, font types and sizes, indentations and so on.

Add Closing Template

Click to append a closing template to the end of the notification message.

Include URL (uniform resource locator)

Select to include a URL of the associated transaction in the notification. This check box is selected by default. Clear this check box to not include a link of the transaction.

This setting has no impact on worklist notifications because they always include links to the originating transactions.

The URL will go to a different component if the URL Setup page is so configured.

Note Attachments

When sending notifications for transaction notes, any associated attachments from the note will automatically be prepopulated in this grid. You may choose which of these files to include as attachments when the notification is sent.

Note. The system does not deliver attachments to worklists, only to email addresses.

Include

Select this check box to include the corresponding file as an attachment to the notification.

File Name

Displays the attachment's file name. The name is a link; click it to view the attachment.

Visibility

Displays the visibility associated with the corresponding file. Use this to help determine which files to include in the notification. For example, for notifications that are being sent to external recipients you may not want to include files whose visibility is designated Internal. By default, the Include check box will not be selected for any attachments whose visibility is Internal.

Note. This field only displays if the originating transaction has a visibility designation for its attachments (for example, case notes).

Attachments

This section displays any files that you have uploaded for the notification. When the notification is sent as an email, these files are delivered as email attachments.

File Name

Displays the attachment's file name. The name is a link; click it to view the attachment.

Note. The system does not deliver attachments to worklists, only to email addresses.

Worklist Details

Settings in this section are informational only for users who receive the notification in their worklists and are not applicable to email notifications.

Priority

(optional) Select a priority for the notification for recipients who will be receiving it as a worklist item. Values are High, Medium, and Low.

Action

(optional) Select an action that the recipient of the worklist notification needs to perform.

Define action requests using the Action Requests component under Set Up CRM, Common Definitions, Workflow, Action requests.

See Creating Action Request Codes.

See Also

Defining User Settings

Redirecting Links

Attachments

Click to jump to top of pageClick to jump to parent topicSearching for Recipients

Access the Search for Recipients page (click the Add Recipients toolbar button on the Outbound Notification page).

Enter Search Criteria

Use this section to look for persons and groups (provider groups, contact groups and sales teams) as recipients of the notification. Both partial or full search values are acceptable.

The group name search field (Provider Group Name as shown in the screenshot) changes label dynamically based on the initiating transaction or component. For provider group search, the system only returns matching provider groups that are linked to the same setID as the business unit of the initiating transaction.

You can enter a combination of (full or partial) first name, last name and group's name to search for people in the system. To look for groups, enter a full or partial group name.

Entering an email address performs people and group search by the specified email address. If the email address (full) does not match with any group or person in the CRM system, it can still be added to the recipient list with a blank name, and the only notification delivery method is by email.

To perform a search by person ID, you need to enter a complete person ID for the system to return the matching person.

Search Results

This section displays results of the recipient search. To add a new recipient to the current recipient list, select the entry and click the Add to Recipient List button. The system updates the Email and Worklist Recipient section with the new entry.

The system returns only the first 300 rows if the search result contains more than 300 rows. Refine search criteria as needed.

Email and Worklist Recipient

This section displays a list of individuals and groups who will receive the notification. Before sending the notifications, be sure to indicate the delivery option (TO, CC, or BCC) and delivery method (email, worklist, or both) for each recipient.

Click to jump to top of pageClick to jump to parent topicSelecting Recipients for Term Resolution

Access the Outbound Notification - Select Recipient to Personalize the Notification page (click the Apply Template button or the Send button (or the Send for Approval button) on the Outbound Notification page. This page appears if the selected template for the notification contains recipient-specific terms and the notification contains multiple TO recipients).

This section lists the TO recipients currently selected for the notification, plus an option to personalize the notification for all recipients.

If you choose a TO recipient from the list and click the Apply button, the system uses information of that recipient to resolve any recipient-specific terms in the template and displays the draft message in the Subject and Message fields.

If you choose to personalize the notification for all TO recipients, the system does not resolve recipient-specific terms in the draft message that is displayed. Instead, it resolves recipient-specific terms and prepares the message for all TO recipients at the time of delivery. For CC and BCC recipients, recipient-specific terms are unresolved in the notifications they receive.

Note. If you select multiple TO recipients and also select Personalize for each Recipient while resolving terms, you should not manually add any content into the middle of text that has added to the message from a template. Any such text that is manually added to the middle of template text will not be used at send time. This condition only applies to manual additions within a block of template text. You may add multiple sequential blocks of different template text, or manually add text before or after template text.

In order for the system to be aware of recipient-specific terms and resolve them when applying templates, you must first identify these terms on the Recipient Specific Terms page, under Set Up CRM, Common Definitions, Correspondence, Recipient Specific Terms.

See Specifying Recipient Specific Terms.

Click to jump to top of pageClick to jump to parent topicSearch for Templates

Access the Template Search page (click the Advanced Search link on the Outbound Notification page).

You can search for additional correspondence templates by category, type, product group, product and keywords. If you initiate the notification from a transaction, the system performs the advanced search among templates that belong to the usage of the originating transaction.

For cases, the supported search filter is by keyword.

Search Results

This section lists the templates that are returned from the search. Click the template name to select it for the notification. Click the Preview link to review the content of the corresponding template.