Alerts Configuration Overview
You use Ajera CRM alerts to move information along. For example, a sales team can use alerts to track the progress of a potential client, to note when it is time to add new contacts or schedule a calendar date to place a follow-up telephone call.
Use alerts to remind you when your opportunities advance from one stage to the next.
Alerts and Workflows
Alerts and Workflows are similar in the way move information along. However, you can configure workflows to a greater degree to meet your company's business rules. For example, you can configure workflows to notify you when an event occurs, and also to perform a specified action such as updating information in a field.
Alert Options
Alerts Configuration allows you to determine such options as:
- When alerts are sent
- How the alerts are sent (email message or dashboard message)
- Under what conditions the alerts are sent
- The contents of the email message (subject and message body) when alerts are sent via email messages
The options available vary and depend upon the alert type.
Polling Interval
To activate activity alerts, you must set the alert polling interval to a level other than zero. Deltek recommends a value of 60.
Alerts and Emails
Before you specify that you want to send alerts via email messages, ascertain that the Ajera CRM URL is set up correctly. All alert email messages contain information that you can use to track down alert problems. This information includes the database name, database server, and application server.
Types of Alerts
There are two types of alerts:
- Alerts triggered by a reaction to information defined on your process server. Most alerts are triggered by the process server. The process server:
- "Wakes up" based on a polling interval configuration setting.
- Evaluates specific job tables in the database.
- Reviews the alert configuration to determine whether action is needed.
- Creates the alert, if action is required.
- Alerts triggered by a change in information in your database. Database alerts:
- Do not depend on schedules defined on the process server.
- Are triggered dynamically, based on a change in data.
- Activate a special code when changed data is saved.
Ajera CRM compares changed data with the alert configuration criteria to determine whether or not it requires action, and creates an alert when it does.
Alerts and Process Servers
For each alert, Ajera CRM displays process server information, including status (such as Running, Waiting, Complete), the time the run started and ended, the time of the next run, and the frequency of the run. For most alerts, how often they run is connected to their functionality.
Ajera CRM retains alert history. After each run of an alert, the job is retained and the new job is re-inserted back into the queue. This allows you to view error messages or to confirm that the jobs run correctly. Ajera CRM clears the alerts' queue on an hourly basis and retains only the most recent 20 jobs (for successful runs) and 40 jobs (for errors).
Alerts and Multiple Languages
When using multiple languages, a Languages lookup displays on the Alerts Rules grid. This lookup displays the languages that the system administrator enabled in Module Activation. Use this lookup to select the language for this alert. Only employees with the same selected language receive the message. However, if the field is blank, all employees receive the message, no matter what language is used.
For example, if an email alert is set up for English US and English UK, then only employees that have English US or English UK specified in the Language field in Employees receive that message. The administrator must set up a separate alert rule for Spanish employees if they require messages in Spanish.
The Language field displays <languages selected> if any languages are selected.