Insights - Getting email alerts

How to set up alerts that trigger when your forms meet set criteria.

We've now released new Alerts in Samm on the web, so you can get emailed automatically when your forms meet rules you've set. 

This can help with things like:

• Informing the safety officer when Injuries of a certain severity are reported.
• Telling payroll every time someone completes a time sheet.
• Notifying the quality officer when a vehicle fails an inspection.

Alerts are available under the Insights menu at the top right corner of your screen. (Note: you must be a Super user to use Alerts).

Hit Create to get started.

 Alert Details

You'll end up on the New Alert screen, where you can start to select options:

• Source is where you select the trigger type - should the Alert trigger on an Event (e.g. a new form meeting certain criteria) or a Scheduled time (check for trigger items at a certain time each day or week)?
• Choose a Template - is this Alert for Corrective Actions? Timesheets?
• Name the Alert - this appears in your Alert Register, and only you will see it. 

Say you want to send an email each time a new Defect is saved to project (but not just as a draft) and is associated with a particular Company for actioning. 

You would choose your template from the list, then name your Alert.

Triggers 

On the next step you'll choose the trigger criteria: what needs to be in the form to trigger the Alert? 

For a Scheduled Alert (see Source above), you'll need to choose the days of the week and time that you would like the trigger to run.

Similarly for an Event Alert, you'll choose an event - do you want the trigger to run each time a form/memo/action is saved to draft, saved to project, updated or closed?

There are several different Trigger conditions that can be used. 

• You'll also need to choose one or more Projects - do you want the Alert to trigger for events on a specific Project, or all the Projects you have access to?
• "[field] is [equal to] [0]" allows you to check number fields using a variety of different comparison rules (equal to, not equal to, greater than, less than, greater than or equal to, less than or equal to) - do you want to be alerted when, say, the Priority field is equal to 1? Greater than 5? 
• "[field] is [equal to] [field]" allows you to compare one field to another.
• "[field] is [equal to] [text]" lets you check for a particular field that contains, starts with, or equals (or does not!) a string of text.
• "status is [Open}" allows you to check for any forms, memos or actions with one or more statuses.
• "[date field] is [overdue by] [7 days]" is useful for checking date fields - does the form/memo/action contain a date that is X days in the future ("due in") or X days in the past ("overdue by")?

Example: Triggers

In this case, I want a Defect that is:
 - Saved to Project (that is, not drafted or closed)
 - The Action Company field contain the text, "ABC Co."
(Note: you can always hit the "back" button to get back to the previous set of options in the Alert builder)

Actions

Now, what do you want to happen when the trigger criteria are met? Currently, you can send an email to either
 - A specific email address
 - The project owner (defined on each specific project)
 - The form owner (this is typically the user who created the form, but can be changed)

This time, I want to send the email to my contact at ABC Co. (I could send it to multiple people using the + action button).

If you hit the "email" button, you can define the text you want to see in the body and subject of the emailed Alert using some predefined parameters. The full list of parameters can be found here. For example, you could include a link to the form or PDF in the Alert email for the convenience of the Alert recipient.

Then, if I Activate and Save the Alert, I'll start getting an email each time a form meets my defined criteria.

Alert Options

You can always Edit your existing Alerts, Delete them if you don't need them anymore, or Duplicate an Alert (useful if you want to create a similar Alert to one you already have). Just go into the Alerts screen, and find your Alert in the list. 

On the Edit screen, you can also Deactivate your Alert temporarily in Step 4 (Activation) - that way you won't get the alert emails, but you can turn them on again later if you want to 😀