AX1649
When defining a Due Date Reminder or Overdue Reminder notification for a process definition, you must set the schedule for these reminders.
Within the Edit Process Notification dialog, the schedule is defined on the Reminder Configuration tab. This tab is only present for reminder notifications—all other notifications are triggered by step events such as step activation or completion.
Example Reminder Configuration tab
Due Date Reminder schedules
To decide on the appropriate Due Date Reminder schedule, you should consider the following:
- How many days before the due date do you want the reminders to start? This will impact the start of the schedule.
- How many reminders do you want to send / how frequently should the user be reminded? This will impact the reminder frequency and the end of the schedule.
- Do you want to send a reminder on the due date itself?
If you want to send reminders prior to the due date and on the due date itself, keep in mind that you may want to use different text for these notifications. For example, when sending reminders before the due date, you probably want to include text such as: "This is a reminder that your task for Step 'Import Data' is due in 3 days." If you use the same text on the due date, it will resolve as "due in 0 days"—which is technically true, but not as clear as saying "this task is due today." You might also want to use stronger wording in the notification on the due date itself. To do this, you can create two Due Date Reminder notifications, one to be sent before the due date, and one to be sent only on the due date. Each notification would have different text, and use a different reminder schedule.
To set the reminder schedule for a Due Date Reminder notification, complete the following settings on the Reminder Configuration tab:
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In the Reminder Schedule section, set the start date for the reminder by editing the setting Start __ day(s) before process step is due. Enter any number of days before the due date. By default, this is set to 1 day before the due date.
For example, if the step is due on 1/10/2016 and you set the start date to 3 days before the due date, then reminders will start on 1/7/2016.
You can specify 0 days as the start date if you only want to send a reminder on the due date itself.
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In the Reminder Schedule section, set the stop date for the reminder by selecting one of the following options:
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Until due date (default): Reminders will be sent from the start date until the due date (including the due date itself).
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Until __ day(s) before process step is due: Reminders will be sent from the start date until the number of days specified before the due date. By default this is set to 1 day before the due date.
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Single notification only: The reminder will be sent once, on the start date.
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- In the Reminder Frequency section, select the frequency of the notifications:
Every __ day(s) (default): The reminder notification will be sent according to the specified day interval, from the start date to the end date. By default this is set to send a notification every 1 day, meaning a notification will be sent each day. All days of the week are included when choosing this option, including Saturday and Sunday.
Every weekday: A reminder notification will be sent each weekday (Monday-Friday), from the start date to the end date. No notifications will be sent Saturday or Sunday.
NOTE: If Every weekday is selected and the configured schedule causes a notification to fall on the weekend, that notification is simply not sent—it is not moved to the nearest weekday. This means that some schedule configurations may not send any notifications if the entire schedule happens to fall on the weekend. Specifically, you should not select this option if you are only sending a single notification, in case that single notification falls on the weekend.
- In the Reminder Time section, select the time of day at which this reminder will be evaluated and delivered. You can select any hour from 12:00 AM to 11:00 PM. By default, this is set to 5:00 PM. See How reminder schedules work for more information.
The following table contains some example schedules and the resulting notifications. The frequency is assumed as every 1 day in these examples.
| Example | Start Date | Stop Date | Resulting Notifications |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reminders before and on the due date | 3 days before | Until due date | 4 - one each on the three days before the due date, and one on the due date |
| Reminders only before the due date | 3 days before | Until 1 days before step is due | 3 - one each on the three days before the due date, none on the due date |
| Reminder only on the due date | 0 days before | Single notification | 1 - one on the due date |
The frequency impacts how many of these notifications are ultimately sent. If the frequency is set to every 2 days in the first example, then only 2 of the 4 eligible notifications will be sent. Similarly if the frequency is set to weekdays only, then the number of notifications sent depends on how many of those days (if any) fall on a weekend.
Overdue Reminder schedules
To decide on the appropriate Overdue Reminder schedule, you should consider the following:
- How many days after the due date do you want the reminders to start?
- How many reminders do you want to send / how frequently should the user be reminded?
Of course, at a certain point, if a task is persistently overdue then some other action should be taken. Your organization may run reports that are intended to inform the process owner about tasks that are overdue, so that they can take action accordingly. Another option in this case would be to create an Overdue Reminder notification that goes to the process owner or to other designated users. For example, your organization may have a rule that if a task is 3 days late, the situation should be escalated to the task owner's manager. You could have two Overdue Reminder notifications—one that goes to the task owners when the task becomes overdue, and another that goes to the process owner when the task is 3 days late.
To set the reminder schedule for an Overdue Reminder notification, complete the following settings on the Reminder Configuration tab:
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In the Reminder Schedule section, set the start date for the reminder by editing the setting Start __ day(s) after process step is due. Enter any number of days after the due date. By default, this is set to 1 day after the due date.
For example, if the step is due on 1/10/2016 and you set the start date to 1 day after the due date, then reminders will start on 1/11/2016.
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In the Reminder Schedule section, set the stop date for the reminder by selecting one of the following options:
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No end date (default): Reminders will be sent from the start date until the step is completed.
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Until __ day(s) after process step is due: Reminders will be sent from the start date until the number of days specified after the due date. By default this is set to 1 day after the due date.
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Single notification only: The reminder will be sent once, on the start date.
-
- In the Reminder Frequency section, select the frequency of the notifications:
Every __ day(s) (default): The reminder notification will be sent according to the specified day interval, from the start date to the end date. By default this is set to send a notification every 1 day, meaning a notification will be sent each day. All days of the week are included when choosing this option, including Saturday and Sunday.
Every weekday: A reminder notification will be sent each weekday (Monday-Friday), from the start date to the end date. No notifications will be sent Saturday or Sunday.
NOTE: If Every weekday is selected and the configured schedule causes a notification to fall on the weekend, that notification is simply not sent—it is not moved to the nearest weekday. This means that some schedules may not send any notifications if the entire schedule falls on the weekend. Specifically, you should not select this option if you are only sending a single notification, in case that single notification falls on the weekend.
- In the Reminder Time section, select the time of day at which this reminder will be evaluated and delivered. You can select any hour from 12:00 AM to 11:00 PM. By default, this is set to 5:00 PM. See How reminder schedules work for more information.
Reminder notifications are evaluated once per hour using the system Scheduler job System.ProcessNotifications.
This job checks all active steps in all active processes to see if these steps have any configured reminder notifications.
- If a step has reminder notifications, the job checks the due date of that step and the schedule of those notifications to see if any are eligible to be sent.
- If the notification is eligible to be sent, and the configured reminder time of the notification falls within the current hour in which the job is running, the notification will be sent.
Under normal circumstances, this setup results in only one reminder being sent per day, for each eligible step / notification combination. However, a reminder notification could be sent multiple times in a day if either of the following occurs:
- The reminder time is edited for an active process.
- The schedule for the system job is changed so that the job runs multiple times in an hour (or the job is manually run again within an hour).
All times for this process are evaluated on the Axiom Application Server. When you select a time, you select it based on your local time zone (shown next to the selected time for your reference). This selected time is converted to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) when it is saved to the server, so that the reminders will be evaluated relative to your selected local time.
Reminder schedules are evaluated for each individual plan file that is active in the step.
