Preview (and Ammend) a Notification before sending

jclark58

My system sends a Notification by email to a client when the Staff click on a button at the top of a form. The Notification is executed by a process that calls SEND Notification TO Person.

As there is no overt feedback from clicking in this link (apart from a Process Completed in the status bar) users have clicked on it repeatedly and so sent repeated emails to clients.

Is there a way I can display the Notification on the screen and allow the user to annotate it prior to Sending or Cancelling the Notification?

John

pbrad

Hi,

Just add another action in your process that sends the email such as DISPLAY MESSAGE'Thankyou, your message has been sent'

Pete

jclark58

Thanks Pete

that Is a bit like closing the door after the horse has bolted though.

Part of this behaviour has been caused by users exploring the system and clickinh on links. They are used to seeing a word document pop up with a letter generated so when this link didnt seem to work they just tried harder..

The only way I can see to replicate the behaviour they want at the moment is to use a mailto: link and populate the subject address and body from the link command line. This will allow the preview and decision an to send in the users control but still leaves the recording of the fact that an email was actualy sent a bit hit and miss , quite apart from being a bit kludgy there are still some browsers and email clients that dont support this syntax in full.

pbrad

Hi John,
Sorry if I misunderstood your question. It seems to me that a popup message that comes up within seconds of them clicking on the 'send email' button should prevent them from repeatedly clicking on the button. If you want to show them the notification before they actually send it, that should be pretty straight forward by populating a non-persisted BO that shows the contents of the notification and then when they hit the submit button on that form the Send process is enacted.

You have all the power at your fingertips that you could possible need for this process and resorting to a mailto link shouldn't be necessary. Just decide how you want the system to react when they click on the notification button and then write your rules to provide that behaviour. If you need a hand with it, then just post your desired sequence of events once they click on the button.

Pete

tford

John,

Have you thought about using DISPLAY QUESTION in your process? It sounds like putting DISPLAY QUESTION before sending the notification might work.

Tom

jclark58

Thanks Tom and Pete,

One of the essential requirements of this project is that the human touch is retauined and that the user remain in control at all times, so the idea of the system shooting off emails in the bckground doesnot appeal. They like to see when and what is being sent and have the opportunity to add a comment or cancel the transaction.

I like the idea of using the non persisted BO which I must look up.

My problem is How do I access the contents of the Notification to either modify it or display it before it is sent?

tford

John,

I created a sample BSV that shows using a non-persisted BO to fill out the notification info, then uses those BO attributes when sending the notification.

If you PM me with your email address, I'll send it to you.

Tom

pbrad

John,

Another option is to do something like the approach that the AwareIM team did in the CRM example where they pretty much duplicate the functionality of a simple email client. Log in to the online demo as a staff member and view a customer. Then click on 'New Email' and you will see a form where they can fill in the message (which could easily be populated with a default message), add attachments, add cc and bcc recipients etc...

From your description, this sounds like it might fit your bill.

Cheers,
Pete