User-Initiated alerts are executed whenever there is a change in the data. You need to configure the data and the type of change (Insert, Update, and Delete) where the alert will be executed.
User-initiated alerts act on the workflow and not on the assignment. For each workflow type there are at least two sets of user-initiated alerts created when a step is added to the workflow:
Step Setup (for example, Step 1: CAM Reviews: Step Setup): This step executes before the step is advanced. It adds the step number, step start date, and so on to the workflow. In addition, this step creates an assignment record for each person assigned to the workflow and puts the due date for the step on the assignment record.Actions in this alert move the workflow to the next step, create assignments, and so on. ValidateError actions are part of this alert. If an error is encountered, actions such as advancing the workflow are not executed. You should never add an email action on the Step Setup alert.
Step X (for example: Step 1: CAM Reviews) executes after the step is advanced; however it can be executed at the beginning of the workflow step, when you save the workflow form, and at the end of the step. This is because some notifications, such as rejection, are sent at the end of the workflow while others are sent at the beginning of the step. You can also add a validation to the form that would trigger on Save. Thus, each notification in the action grid should have conditions or it will be sent multiple times.
For example, for a standard Budget Change Request, the Email Alert action (Notify When Review is Required) at the beginning of the step has the following condition: Workflow.Workflow Status = InReview. That condition indicates the beginning of the step. After you approve / reject / complete and so on a workflow, the workflow status changes to Rejected, Approved, Completed, and so on. The condition doesn't include a step number because the workflow status condition enforces that the email is only sent once during the step.
This step performs the following notifications:
Notify when the step starts
Notify when the step ends
Notify on rejection
Notify on approval
Notify on suspension
Originator notification
Since these notification are performed on the workflow, the tables that are available for the addition of fields are:
Project
Control account
Workflow
There are two grids on the Alerts form:
The Alerts grid is when to initiate the alert. For example, when do I need a schedule or a database update.
The Actions grid is what actions need to be performed when the alert is executed.
Further conditions can be applied on both alert and action level.
When a record meets all of the conditions in the Alert grid, all of the actions are processed for that alert. The conditions in the Alerts grid should filter as much as possible to help performance. For example, the Alert grid should contain conditions to prevent the actions from being processed when the record is closed or suspended.
Assign a user to resolve workflow failures
View the user-initiated alerts created from Workflow Type Configuration
Complete the process when a record fails
Create a new user-initiated alert
Create an action for a workflow
Create a workflow step action alert