Developing eMail Notifications

Many organizations use email notifications to notify or remind workflow participants about work assignments. Typical uses of email notifications in Process applications include notifications that the participant has been assigned a new step, or that work associated with one or more steps in a workflow is due, or that work for a step is overdue, or an email notification to a Tracker that work is overdue, and so on. To help facilitate use of email notifications, FileNet provides a set of default email notification files. These email notification (.MSG) files are text files (containing HTML-formatted content) that are available for you to customize.

Since the notification files contain HTML-formatted content, it is common for developers to modify the look of the resulting output to match their corporate identity or to meet specific workflow or end-user requirements. However, it is recommended that you not add email notification files and you should not rename the existing files.

Topics for modifying email notification files include:

Modifying eMail Notification Files Procedure

The following step-by-step procedure may be used to modify/customize the default email notification files. Differences because of web application (FileNet Workplace, FileNet Web Services, or FileNet Open Client) are indicated in the procedure. It is recommended that you complete the Before You Start steps before making any modifications. It may also be helpful to review the eMail Notification Types below to determine which email notifications you will need and which default files need to be modified.

Before You Start

FileNet P8 Platform Process email notification requires that you first enable logging for the Exception and Begin Operation categories. Configure the logging options using the Configuration Console. (For additional information, see the Configure event log options topic in the Managing Isolated Regions section of the Help for Configuration Console.)

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 values for these variables are supplied by the Process Engine 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 Process Engine notification process caches the notification files when the process starts. When invoked, the Process Engine 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 (specified with the Process Engine Task Manager). For additional information on setting up your SMTP service, see the Help for Process Engine Task Manager. For additional information on optional email notification variables, see Optional eMail Notification Variables.

Modifying/Customizing eMail Notification Files Procedure

To modify/customize the Process default email notification files, use the following procedure:

  1. Locate the email notification files according to your FileNet web application as follows:
  1. Select all of the files in the directory, and change the file attributes from Read-only to Read/Write.
  2. 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).
  3. Open the notification file (with the .MSG extension) in a text editor.
  4. Modify the HTML content according to the changes you wish to make (see the appropriate email notification type below or in the Table of Contents frame at left to select the appropriate email notification file. The file's Help description provides information on what system information you can modify/add to the messages.)
  5. Save the changes and close the text file.
  6. Using the Process Task Manager, restart the Process Engine server. (You perform this step to enable the vwnotify process to cache the changed files when the process restarts.)

Tip Refer to the Configuring Email Notification section in the Process Engine Administrator's Help 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 purpose of the notification, broken out as follows:

 

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/she has been designated as a tracker for this workflow.

Overdue Tracker Step Notification

trk_stp_deadline.msg

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

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, Process notification does not use the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol. Therefore, the email notification files reference the web server (as specified using the Process Configuration Console), 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/...

For information on specifying web service properties for SSL, see the Help for Process Configuration Console > Management > Managing VW Services > Set VWService web application properties topic.