Many organizations use email notifications to notify or remind workflow participants about work assignments. Typical uses of email notifications in Process applications include such notifications as:
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.
Warning: FileNet recommends that you do not add email notification files or rename the existing files.
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 using the Process Engine Task Manager). See the Configuring Email Notification. See also Optional eMail Notification Variables.
Use the following procedure to modify the default email notification files:
\fnsw_loc\sd\msg\0 on the primary Process Engine Windows host
/fnsw/loc/sd/msg/0 on the primary Process Engine UNIX host
\fnsw_loc\sd\msg\1 on the primary Process Engine Windows host
/fnsw/loc/sd/msg/1 on the primary Process Engine UNIX host
\fnsw_loc\sd\msg\2 on the primary Process Engine Windows host
/fnsw/loc/sd/msg/2 on the primary Process Engine UNIX host
\fnsw_loc\sd\msg\3 on the primary Process Engine Windows host
/fnsw/loc/sd/msg/3 on the primary Process Engine UNIX host
\fnsw_loc\sd\msg\4 on the primary Process Engine Windows host
/fnsw/loc/sd/msg/4 on the primary Process Engine UNIX host
\fnsw_loc\sd\msg\5 on the primary Process Engine Windows host
/fnsw/loc/sd/msg/5 on the primary Process Engine UNIX host
\fnsw_loc\sd\msg\6 on the primary Process Engine Windows host
/fnsw/loc/sd/msg/6 on the primary Process Engine UNIX host
\fnsw_loc\sd\msg\7 on the primary Process Engine Windows host
/fnsw/loc/sd/msg/7 on the primary Process Engine UNIX host
\fnsw_loc\sd\msg\8 on the primary Process Engine Windows host
/fnsw/loc/sd/msg/8 on the primary Process Engine UNIX host
\fnsw_loc\sd\msg\100 on the primary Process Engine Windows host.
The integer directories at the end of the path match the VWSession WEBAPP* fields.
The following table lists the email notification types, the file names, and briefly describes the purpose of the notification:
Notification type |
File name |
Description |
---|---|---|
Overdue Step Notification |
Sent to a workflow participant to indicate that a step is overdue for completion. |
|
Step Assignment Notification |
Sent as a notification that the participant was assigned a new step. |
|
Step Reminder Notification |
Sent as a reminder to a workflow participant that a step deadline is approaching. |
|
Tracking Assignment Notification |
Sent to a participant to indicate that he/she has been designated as a tracker for this workflow. |
|
Overdue Tracker Step Notification |
Sent to a tracker to indicate that a workflow step has not been completed and is overdue. |
|
Workflow Exception Notification |
Sent as a notification to a workflow tracker that a workflow exception occurred. |
|
Workflow Overdue Notification |
Sent to an assigned tracker to indicate that a workflow is overdue for completion. |
|
Workflow Reminder Notification |
Sent to an assigned tracker as a notification that a workflow deadline is approaching. |
|
Workflow Milestone Notification |
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 |
Sent to an assigned tracker as a notification that workflow milestone was reached. |
By default, Process notification does not use the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol. 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 application properties for SSL, see Setting Web Application Properties for VWService.