Email Trigger Maintenance
Email Triggers are a scheduling device that allow events or jobs to create future email messages. These messages use Email Templates, and feature user- or employee-specific text. The recipients of the email can be pre-defined, or can be determined at processing time using some sort of employee grouping.
The Email Trigger Maintenance page allows users to view all Email Triggers in the system, modify the Triggers, and remove incorrect Triggers from the table. This page does not allow the creation of new Triggers. Email Triggers can have a static recipient roster, or they can be “smart”. That is, they can allow the Email Agent to determine the recipients at processing time. This can be useful if at processing time the list of intended recipients might change from the present time. A smart, or dynamic, trigger specifies a collection of employees by an organization code, policy association, supervisor, position, or location.
Note: The Employees and Users links in the General Information section can be used to transition to a separate page where employees/users can be reviewed, added, or dropped. To add an employee/user, select the employee/user from the grid and click on the Up Arrow. The employee/user is added to the upper grid (Current Employees/Current Users). To remove an employee/user, click on the employee/user in the upper grid and click on the Down Arrow. The Employee/User is removed from the Current Employees/Current Users grid and returned to the grid (Available Employees/Available Users).
The Email Trigger cannot be created directly by a user, but is created as a consequence of a user or system action. Email Triggers have the following aspects:
Recipient roster - Email Trigger can have a static recipient roster, or they can be “smart”, that is, they can allow the Email Agent to determine the recipients at processing time. This can be useful if at processing time the list of intended recipients might change from the present time. A smart Trigger specifies a collection of employees by an organization code, policy association, supervisor, position, or location.
Static recipient rosters can contain three types of recipients: users, employees, and external email addresses. These groups can all be reviewed on the Email Trigger Maintenance page. Users and Employees can be added or removed from the roster through the Users for Triggers link. Static recipient lists for Users or Employees can be reviewed by selecting the Users for Triggers and Employees for Triggers links. When there are no static recipients for an email trigger, these sections are blank on the Trigger.
Dynamic recipient rosters contain one or more of the following attributes: Home Department, Home Unit, Supervisor ID, Position Number, Pay Policy, Leave Policy, Deduction Policy, Pay Location, and Work Location. When the Email Agent reads a trigger with a dynamic recipient roster, it determines the recipients at processing time.
Maturity Date - Every Trigger has a Maturity Date. When the Email Agent reads the trigger table, it determines which triggers to send by comparing the Maturity Date to the System Date.
Message template - Each Trigger can specify a template. Templates are pre-defined on the Email Template page, and have plug-in points where variables can be used to customize a message based on the recipient. For example, a template might contain a message reminding an employee to submit their benefits information, and the plug-in points might allow for the inclusion of the employee’s name and the due date of the submission.
Plug-in data - At the time of creation of the trigger, if any data is required for the trigger that is not employee-specific (for example, deadline dates), it is saved in the Trigger. This prevents the need for the Email Agent to “know” what kind of event created the trigger. Name, First Name, and Address are still retrieved at processing time.
Some plug-ins are populated before processing time. Others, such as First Name, Name, and Address, are populated at run-time, so they are customized for each individual employee. Plug-ins are reviewable on the Email Trigger Maintenance page. Non employee-specific plug-ins are populated by whatever process is responsible for the creation of the Trigger. Available plug-Ins are:
%a – Employee Address
%c1 – Custom 1
%c2 – Custom 2
%c3 – Custom 3
%d1 – Date 1
%d2 – Date 2
%d3 – Date 3
%f – Employee First Name
%n – Employee Full Name
Although some employee-specific Plug-ins can be populated by the Email Agent at processing time, any process that creates a trigger can save values to any plug-in.
Free message text - The Message field provides a space for an email trigger to contain a message other than that from a template.
Creation identifiers - Each Email Trigger has a Created On Date and an Originated From field to identify the date on which the Trigger was created and the process responsible for the creation. These fields are searchable, and provide administrators with a means to quickly locate Triggers or to determine the origin of a Trigger.
