Modify Email Notification Files

The eProcess Services email notification (.MSG) files are text files containing HTML-formatted content. Since the notification files contain HTML-formatted content, you can modify the look of the resulting output to match your corporate identity or to meet specific workflow requirements; however, you cannot add notification files, and you cannot rename the existing files. In addition to the U.S. English versions, localized versions of the messages files exist for French, German, Italian, and Spanish.

Topics for modifying email notification files include:

Modifying eMail Notification Files Procedure

Using eProcess Services email notification requires that you first enable logging for the Exception and Begin Operation categories. Configure the logging options in the Configuration Console. (Refer to the Configure event log options topic, in the Event and Statistics tab of the in the Configuration Console help, for more information.)

Before modifying the email notification files, you should expose the associated system fields, if they have not already been exposed or are not exposed by default. Exposed fields are system and data fields in a roster, queue, or event log that have been made available for searches and sorting.

The email notification files contain placeholder variables embedded in the HTML. The variables values are supplied by WorkFlo Services at runtime, where a given field variable obtains its values from the field that is named by the string following the "$" prefix in the field variable name. The WorkFlo Services Notification process caches the notification files when the process starts. When invoked, the WorkFlo Services Notification process retrieves the necessary data from the notification information database, populates the variables with the relevant field information, and dispatches the file via the SMTP service that is specified in the vwserver.ini file. For information on optional email notification variables, see Optional eMail Notification Variables.

Modify the email notification files by performing the following general procedure:

  1. On the WorkFlo Services server, navigate to the \fnsw_loc\sd\msg\2 directory (for ActiveX). (On UNIX servers, navigate to the /fnsw/loc/sd/msg/2 directory.) Note that for Open Client, go to the \fnsw_loc\sd\msg\3 directory; for custom, use the \fnsw_loc\sd\msg\100 directory; these match the WEBAPP constants defined in the VWSession API.
  2. Select all of the files in the directory, and change the file attributes from Read-only to Read/Write.
  3. Locate and make a copy of the appropriate .MSG file. You should change the extension of the copy to .ORG (to indicate it represents the original content of the file).
  4. Open the notification file (with the .MSG extension) in a text editor.
  5. Modify the HTML content. (Refer to the appropriate notification type topic to determine what system information you can add to the messages.)
  6. Save the changes and close the text file.
  7. Restart Image Services on the server running Panagon WorkFlo Services. (Perform this step so the vwnotify process can cache the changed files when the process restarts.)

Tip Refer to the Email Notification section in the Help for eProcess Administrators for additional information on configuring email notifications.

eMail Notification Types

The following table lists the email notification types, the file names, and briefly describes the reason why a participant or tracker receives the notification from WorkFlo Services.

Notification type

File name

Description

Step notifications

Overdue Step Notification

stp_deadline.msg

Sent to a workflow participant to indicate that a step is overdue for completion.

Step Assignment Notification

stp_new.msg

Sent as a notification that the participant was assigned a new step.

Step Reminder Notification

stp_reminder.msg

Sent as a reminder to a workflow participant that a step deadline is approaching.

Tracker notifications

Tracking Assignment Notification

trk_new.msg

Sent to a participant to indicate that he or she was designated as a workflow tracker.

Overdue Tracker Step Notification

trk_stp_deadline.msg

Sent to a tracker to indicate that a workflow step has not been completed.

Workflow notifications

Workflow Exception Notification

trk_exception.msg

Sent as a notification to a workflow tracker that a workflow exception occurred.

Workflow Overdue Notification

trk_wf_deadline.msg

Sent to an assigned tracker to indicate that a workflow is overdue for completion.

Workflow Reminder Notification

trk_wf_reminder.msg

Sent to an assigned tracker as a notification that a workflow deadline is approaching.

Milestone notifications

Workflow Milestone Notification

org_milestone.msg

Sent to the workflow originator, which typically is the person who launched the workflow, as a notification that a workflow milestone was reached.

Workflow Tracker Milestone Notification

trk_milestone.msg

Sent to an assigned tracker as a notification that workflow milestone was reached.

Using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)

By default, Panagon Web WorkFlo does not use the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol. Therefore, the email notification files, including the localized versions, use a reference to the web server specified in the vwserver.ini file, and include links similar to:

http://<$F_WEBSERVER>/idmws/. . .

If you enable SSL on your web server, you must modify the http:// protocol designation to https:// for all occurrences of the files you are referencing. For example, all references to a web server would appear similar to the following:

https://<$F_WEBSERVER>/idmws/. . .