Using centralised notifications
- 20 Jun 2022
- 4 minutes to read
Using centralised notifications
- Updated on 20 Jun 2022
- 4 minutes to read
Site-wide notifications
If notifications are enabled on your site you can then go to Quick-access menu > Notifications to configure your notifications.
Here you can expand the relevant section to see a list of all notification triggers. Click a notification trigger to see the notifications related to that event. Note that each notifiable event can have multiple notifications assigned to it. For example, the Learner assigned in certification event has two notifications - one that goes to the user, and one that goes to the user's manager. You can disable notifications individually using the toggle buttons, or you can disable the whole trigger. However, note that if you disable the trigger on the system level, it won't ever be shown in lower contexts.
When configuring notifications at the site level you are deciding which notifications users can receive, and not necessarily the notifications they will receive (this can be achieved using forced delivery). It is recommended that you do not disable notification triggers at the site level. Instead, notifications and triggers should be disabled at lower contexts when they are not appropriate or relevant for that context.
One instance where you may want to disable a notification trigger is when it is irrelevant to a category or type of program/certification, so that when new notifications are added to that trigger at the system level they will not suddenly appear for these programs/certifications.
Notification page
By going to Quick-access menu > Notifications you can see the following information for each notifiable event and its related notifications.
While configuring notifications at the site level you can also configure the delivery preferences for each notification type. You can also create new notifications for each notifiable event listed below.
| Notifiable events | |
Notification triggers | The notifiable event that triggers the notification being sent. |
Delivery channels | Indicates how the notification will be sent. The available delivery channels are:
|
Notifications | |
| Notification | The name of the notification. |
| Type | There are three types of notification:
|
Recipient | The user(s) who will receive the notification. |
Schedule | When the notification will be sent relative to the trigger event. This can be either when the trigger occurs or a number of days after the event. In some cases, it is possible to send the notification before the trigger event (e.g. several days before a certification is due to be renewed). |
Status | Indicates whether the notification is enabled or disabled. |
Default notifications
Program notifications
Notifications can be configured to be sent when the following events/triggers relating to programs occur:
- Learner assigned in program
- Program completed
- Program course set completed
- Course set due date
- Program due date
- New exception reported
- Learner unassigned from program
Certification notifications
Notifications can be configured to be sent when the following events/triggers relating to certifications occur:
- Learner assigned in certification
- Certification completed
- Course set completed
- Course set due date
- Certification due date
- Certification expiry date
- Failure to recertify
- New exception reported
- Learner unassigned from certification
- Recertification window open date
Messages tab
Prior to Totara 14, program and certification messages were managed from the Messages tab rather than the Notifications tab. On a new Totara 15 site the Messages tab will not be available. If you are upgrading from a previous version of Totara (i.e. Totara 13 and earlier), any messages defined within existing programs/certifications will be converted to notifications (as long as they are defined by one of the built-in Notification triggers).
If required, you can configure this interface to show the Messages tab alongside the new Notifications tab. The Messages tab will appear if either of these conditions are met:
- The messages tab is defined within config.php: $CFG->show_program_message_tab
- A custom message type was created in a previous version of Totara. In this case the custom message will be displayed in the Messages tab. A Site Administrator should manually recreate this message in the Notifications tab, potentially requiring additional development work if the message cannot be reproduced using existing notification types.
Suspended users
Suspended users will not receive notifications. When a suspended user is reinstated they will not receive any notifications triggered during their suspension. This ensures that suspended users do not receive a high volume of messages when their suspension is lifted.
Use of text editors
The Weka editor is the default text editor when creating or editing a notification unless it is disabled on your site. If the Weka editor is disabled you can instead select either the Plain text format, HTML format or Markdown format from the dropdown menu above the text editor.
If you wish to format your message then you will only be able to use HTML formatting, as JSON (which is used by the Weka editor) is not recognised by many email clients such as Gmail and Outlook. In a future version of Totara we are planning to resolve this issue but currently it is only possible to format with HTML.
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