Setting Up Alerts

Windows SharePoint Services includes a handy feature that sends an e-mail notification whenever changes are made to content in a site, including changes made to list items in a list. The setup for an e-mail notification is called an alert. No alerts are set up automatically, so you must sign up for the alerts that you want.

Alerts are quite easy to set up. Every list in a Windows SharePoint Services site displays an Alert Me option on the Actions menu. Clicking this option allows you to subscribe to a list-level alert. You also find a similar Alert Me option on the smart menu for each list item in every list and on the toolbar when viewing any list item. As you might suspect, this option allows you to subscribe to a list item–level alert.

Alerts specify to whom the alert will be sent and the kind of changes and frequency for which the alert will be sent. By default, the alert is sent to the e-mail address of the user setting up the alert. If no e-mail address has been established for the authenticated user, an e-mail prompt is generated in the Send Alerts To area. Once provided, the address will be remembered for subsequent subscriptions.

When setting up alerts, you have a choice as to the type of change about which you want an alert to be initiated. List-level alerts allow subscriptions for All Changes To Any List Item Changes or, alternatively, for New Items Are Added Only, Existing Items Are Modified Only, or Items Are Deleted Only. If you wish to see added and changed items but not deleted items, you need to set up two alerts. List item–level alerts, on the other hand, are only fired when that item changes because you can only set up this alert once the list item already exists, and a deletion is considered a change to the list item.

Tip 

Document libraries support the additional ability to set up alerts when Web discussion updates occur. Document libraries are discussed in Chapters 5 and 6.

You must specify a filter concerning when to send alerts; the default is when anything in a list changes. Different lists have different filters. The Task list that you are working with has the following filters.

• Anything Changes,

• A Task Is Assigned To Me,

• A Task Becomes Complete,

• A High Priority Task Changes,

• Someone Else Changes A Task Assigned To Me,

• Someone Else Changes A Task,

• Someone Else Changes A Task Created By Me,

• Someone Else Changes A Task Last Modified By Me,

• Someone Changes An Item That Appears In The Following View (choose a list view).

You must also specify the alert frequency. Three choices exist for any type of alert.

1. Send e-mail immediately

2. Send a daily summary

3. Send a weekly summary

Choosing to receive an alert immediately actually queues the notice to be sent as soon as the next job runs once the alert is triggered. By default, the alert job runs every five minutes but could be configured by your administrator to wait as long as 59 minutes. The daily and weekly summaries store all changes made to the list or list item and send a summary at the end of the period chosen. By default, daily summary alerts are generated at midnight each night, and weekly summary alerts are generated at midnight every Sunday night.

Tip 

Administrators of the Windows SharePoint Services environment can establish quotas for the total number of alerts to which any user can subscribe. By default, this quota is set to 50. This number can be changed or even set to unlimited. Alerts can also be turned off entirely.

You can view and manage all of the alerts that you previously set up by using the View My Existing Alerts On This Site link at the top of the New Link page. From here, you can use the toolbar to Add Alert to any list in the site or Delete Selected Alerts.

Important  

Alerts must be manually deleted when users are removed from a site or their alerts will be orphaned. Also, when users set up alerts for themselves, they will continue to receive them even when they are removed from access to the list. It is important to delete these alerts to prevent unauthorized users from accessing site and user information.