Configuring e-mail notification in the BPF Web Application

The IBM® FileNet® BPF Web Application allows users to be notified of new Cases available in their inbox via Process Engine (PE) e-mail notification. In order to leverage this functionality, e-mail notification must be configured for PE. Instructions on configuring e-mail notification in PE are available in the FileNet P8 Platform documentation.

This help topic provides information about configuring e-mail notification within BPF as well as configuring PE e-mail templates to work with BPF Cases in notification messages. E-mail notification in BPF utilizes the BPF integration servlet for Case access. Detailed information about capabilities and usage of the integration servlet can be found in the integration_servlet.htm section of the BPF online help.

Enabling Case notification in BPF

E-mail notification of new work can be enabled in the BPF Web Application user interface using the user preferences tool (located in the upper-right of the user interface). By checking the box Receive New Work Assignments Via Email and entering a valid e-mail address in the Workflow Notification Email text box, e-mail notification is enabled. This will cause a single e-mail notification to be sent to the designated e-mail address each time a new Case is received in the current users inbox. E-mail notification in BPF can only be configured for personal Inbaskets and not for public work queues.

Tip: You can also configure an e-mail notification preference in Workplace. The following example demonstrates how the Workplace and BPF preferences work together when you set the preferences for a user that has one e-mail address that is used for Workplace and another e-mail address that is used for BPF.

Workplace preference BPF preference Result
address_1@exch2k.local Not set The Workplace account receives the e-mail notification.
Not set address_2@exch2k.local The BPF account receives the e-mail notification.
address_1@exch2k.local address_2@exch2k.local Both the Workplace and BPF e-mail accounts receive the email notification.

Configuring the message format

The format of the e-mail message is determined by a PE e-mail template. These templates are located on the PE server in the \fnsw_loc\sd\msg\1 folder and have a .msg extension. For more information about locating these files, e-mail templates, and available system variables, see the Configuring E-Mail Notification and Modifying E-Mail Notification Templates subjects in FileNet P8 Platform documentation. The BPF Web Application will always use the stp_new.msg e-mail template. The appearance of these templates can be modified using standard HTML and PE variables to provide dynamic messages containing links to the new Cases that have been received. Currently there is no built-in macro to supply the BPF Web Application URL to the .msg file dynamically so the URL to the BPF deployment must be manually entered in the template.

By default the stp_new.msg template contains a link to the PE work item. For use with BPF, this template must be modified to contain a link to the BPF Case via the BPF integration servlet. The stp_new.msg file is an HTML document and can be modified using any text editor. This document will only address updating the specific link to the PE work object to a link to the BPF Case object. Other modifications to this file are possible but not addressed here. Follow the steps below to update the stp_new.msg file.

To update the stp_new.msg file

  1. Locate the PE work item URL in the stp_new.msg file.
  2. Open the stp_new.msg file in a text editor such as MS notepad. locate the line with the link to the PE work item object. It should appear as below:

    <a href="<$F_WEBSERVER>/eprocess/stepprocs/<$F_STEPPROC>?queueName=<$F_WORKQUEUE>&wobNum=<$F_WobNum>">
    Step Assignment...
    </a>

  1. Update this line with the URL to the BPF deployment integration servlet.

    The sample below uses the integration and passes the Work Object Number (WobNum) value to identify the Case. The BPF integration servlet will locate the BPF Case ID using the WobNum and open the Case object. In the URL below the value for SERVERNAME is the name of the application server machine where BPF is deployed. The value for PORT is the port for the application server (defaults are 7001 for BEA WebLogic and 9080 for IBM WebSphere®) where BPF is deployed. The BPFDEPLOYMENT value is the deployed web application name (default of /bpf for BPF).

    <a href="http://SERVERNAME:PORT/BPFDEPLOYMENT/Bp8IntegrationServlet?_commandId=9010&hideInbaskets=1&_mode=1&wobNum=<$F_WobNum>">
    Process Case...
    </a>

An example of a modified URL to the BPF integration servlet is:

<a href="http://p8design:7001/bpf/Bp8IntegrationServlet?_commandId=9010&_mode=1&wobNum=<$F_WobNum>">

Modifying the URL above formatting adjustments can be performed to provide a more visually appealing message format. See BPF code samples for a sample of a modified .msg file.