Configure Event Notifications

Event notification messages are initiated by the Meridian application server and sent by a specified email server. These notifications are those that your organization should consider as mandatory for users to receive. The users cannot configure which messages they receive and they may not decline to receive them. As such, these messages should be the minimum that are necessary for your business processes. Additional messages can be sent by user-configured subscriptions or reminders as described elsewhere or by programming custom notifications. You configure event notifications by specifying which groups of users (Subscribers, To-Do assignees, or workflow Managers) that should receive notifications when specific events occur in the vault. The users will receive notifications when these events occur for vault items that are related to the current document or project folder.

By default, Meridian provides notification definitions for the common events that require notifications:

Email notification events

Option	Description	Recipients related to...
As-Built updated	When a new revision of a master document is created as the result of a project copy being released.	Sibling project copies
Document redlined	When a document is annotated in the Meridian viewer.	Current document
Document workflow released	When a document is released at the end of its workflow as a new revision.	Current document
Document workflow revoked	When the workflow of a document is aborted and the document reverts to its last released revision.	Current document
Document workflow started	When a document is placed under change to create a new revision.	Current document
Document workflow transition executed	When a document is routed to a different intermediate (not released) state in its workflow.	Current document
Project copy created	When a document is assigned (copied) to a project folder.	Master document or parent project folder
Project copy discarded	When a project copy is discarded (not deleted) from a project folder.	Master document or parent project folder
Project copy released	When a project copy is released from a project folder as a new revision of its master (source) document.	Master document or parent project folder
Project workflow transition executed	When a project folder is routed to a different intermediate (not released) state in its workflow.	Parent project folder

For more information about these events, see the Accruent Meridian Enterprise User’s Guide.

These definitions cannot be deleted. Additional definitions can be created for custom requirements and the definitions used in VBScript programming. Each notification definition can send messages to the users of any of the groups described in Email Notifications.

Subscription notifications use the same definitions as event notifications except that the recipients must register their subscriptions to documents manually (opt-in) in order to receive the notification messages. In addition, each definition must be enabled for the Subscribers group as described in the following tasks.

To configure event notifications:

1. In Configurator, expand Environment in the configuration tree and select Notification Settings. The Notification Settings page appears in the right pane. The page lists the existing notification definitions for the current vault.

2. Click Edit. The page becomes editable.

3. To simply enable or disable notifications for combinations of events and recipient groups:

   • Select checkboxes in the columns of the definitions list that correspond to the users that you want to receive notifications when the event occurs.

   OR

   To view or edit the details about specific event notifications:

   1. Double-click the row of the event or select the row and click Edit. The definition’s Properties dialog box appears.
   2. For each tab in the dialog that represents a group of recipients, click options or type values using the descriptions in the following table.
   3. Click OK to save your changes to the definition.
4. Click OK to save your changes to the notification settings.

Notification definition options

Option	Description
Notify this group	Sends notifications to this group of users.
Message subject	Type the subject of the message that you want to send to these users.
Message text	Type the text of the message that you want to send to these users. The text can include any of the following variables: <%currentuser%> <%currentproject%> <%currentvault%>
Message format	Select the format of the message that you want to send to these users.
Include links	Select the links that you want to include in the message together with the message text. If the Plain text format is selected, the links will be plain text paths and not hyperlinks. Important! Be careful when enabling the Rendition option. Notifications are initiated before renditions are updated by workflow transitions. If the definition being configured is for a workflow transition and the Subscribers group is enabled for the definition, the notification recipients could receive an outdated rendition of the document depending on the transition that is executed. To avoid this situation, clear the Rendition option for events that generate renditions and enable it for a subsequent event definition instead. To use VBScript to calculate custom text (for example, property values) for notifications: Click the Meridian Enterprise Script Editor button to build a VBScript expression. For information on using VBScript for configuration expressions including their limitations, see the Accruent Meridian Enterprise VBScript API Reference.

To create a notification definition:

1. In Configurator, expand Environment in the configuration tree and select Notification Settings. The Notification Settings page appears in the right pane.
2. Click Edit. The page becomes editable.
3. Click New. A new row is added to the definition list and its name is editable.
4. Type a descriptive name for the definition and press Enter.

5. To simply enable or disable notifications for combinations of events and recipient groups:

   • Select checkboxes in the columns of the definitions list that correspond to the users that you want to receive notifications when the event occurs.

   OR

   To view or edit the details about specific event notifications:

   1. Double-click the row of the event or select the row and click Edit. The definition’s Properties dialog box appears.
   2. For each tab in the dialog that represents a group of recipients, click options or type values using the descriptions in the following table.
   3. Click OK to save your changes to the definition.
6. Click OK to save your changes to the notification settings.
7. Specify the definition name in a VBScript procedure that executes when the event occurs. For more information about sending custom notifications using a notification definition, see the Vault.SendNotification, Document.Subscribe, and Document.Unsubscribe methods in the Accruent Meridian Enterprise VBScript API Reference.

To edit a notification definition:

1. In Configurator, expand Environment in the configuration tree and select Notification Settings. The Notification Settings page appears in the right pane.
2. Click Edit. The page becomes editable.

3. To simply enable or disable notifications for combinations of events and recipient groups:

   • Select checkboxes in the columns of the definitions list that correspond to the users that you want to receive notifications when the event occurs.

   OR

   To view or edit the details about specific event notifications:

   1. Double-click the row of the event or select the row and click Edit. The definition’s Properties dialog box appears.
   2. For each tab in the dialog that represents a group of recipients, click options or type values using the descriptions in the following table.
   3. Click OK to save your changes to the definition.
4. Click OK to save your changes to the notification settings.

To delete a notification definition:

1. In Configurator, expand Environment in the configuration tree and select Notification Settings. The Notification Settings page appears in the right pane. The page lists the existing notification definitions for the current vault.
2. Select the definition row that you want to delete and click Remove. The row is deleted from the definition list.
3. Click OK to save your changes.