AX2218

Setting up file processing: Alerts

You can process alerts using file processing. The primary reason to use file processing for alerts is so that you can set up one set of alert conditions, and then leverage multipass processing to evaluate those conditions for all members of a particular grouping level—such as for each department, each region, or each VP.

For example, imagine that you want to alert the department manager if their department exceeds a variance threshold for a particular area. While you could set up a report that brings in each department and calculates the variance, and then define an alert for each individual department value. However, it would be much more streamlined to set up a report that brings in the consolidated value and then define one dynamic alert against that value, and then process the report using multipass processing by department. For each pass, it will automatically apply the department-specific filter for the data and then process the alert against that data. The alert settings would need to dynamically change for each pass—for example you could set up the alert ID, message title, etc., using GetCurrentValue() so that the current department number is reflected for each pass of alerts.

To set up file processing to process alerts:

1. Open the file where you want to set up file processing, and enable it as follows: On the Axiom tab, in the File Output group, click File Processing > Add File Processing control sheet to active workbook.

   NOTE: In systems with installed products, this feature may be located on the Main tab (either directly on the tab, or on the Publish menu).

   The File Processing pane opens, and a sheet named Control_FileProcessing is added to the file.

2. In the File Processing pane, for Processing Type, select Alerts.

   This is the only setting to complete in the File Processing Settings section of the task pane. No other settings apply. You do not need to specify a sheet to process because it is always Control_Alert.

3. In the MultiPass Settings section, click the column icon to select the source column for multipass processing.

   For example, if you select DEPT.VP as the source column, then the file will be processed once for each VP, and the data in the file will be automatically filtered to show only the data for that VP.

   To confirm that the file will be processed using your desired list of items, click Preview Multipass List. A dialog opens, displaying the total number of items to process, as well as the list of individual items.

   For more information on multipass processing, and for details on advanced settings, see Configuring multipass settings for file processing.

   NOTE: The only reason to use File Processing to process alerts is to apply multipass settings. If you do not need to use multipass processing, then you can process alerts by using the Process Document List task in Scheduler; you do not need to set up File Processing.

4. When you are finished configuring the file processing settings, click File Options > Save to save the settings in the file.

Results

You can now use File Output > File Processing > Process File Multipass to process the alerts, or you can schedule processing using the File Processing Scheduler task. The following actions will occur:

• The file will be refreshed using a multipass filter to limit the data to the current multipass item (for example, for the current VP if processing by DEPT.VP). This process will occur for each unique multipass item being processed, with a different multipass filter being applied for each pass.

• For each pass, alert conditions will be evaluated. If an alert evaluates to True and does not match an existing alert (based on alert ID), then an alert notification will be created for that alert. All the specified recipients will see the alert notification in their Notifications task pane.

• If the alert points to the source document as the supporting file, then when the user clicks on the link to open the file from the Notifications task pane, the multipass filter will automatically be applied to the file. This way the user can see the file using the same context that generated the alert.