Manage Notifications

OnApp introduces new notifications functionality that fully replaces the previous email notifications set up at the Configuration page in CP. You can manage the following elements of the notificatiosn system:

• Gateways define what type of notifications will be send: SMTP/SENDMAIL emails or internal notifications in CP.
• Notification templates determine the text of the messages your users will receive. 
• External recipients are the contacts not registered in OnApp whom notification can be sent.
• Recipients lists include users whom certain notifications will be addressed.
• Subscriptions tie all your configurations together. After you set up subscriptions your users will start receiving notifications.

You can also disable notifications for your cloud and delete for a period of time.

On this page:

• Manage Gateways
• Manage Notification Templates
• Manage External Recipients
• Manage Recipients Lists
• Manage Subscriptions
• Delete Notification Data
• Disable Notifications

See also:

• OnApp Configuration
  
• Logs
  
• Sysadmin
  
• Alerts
  
• Notifications Setup

Manage Gateways

Gateways are used when setting up a subscription and determine in what way users will be contacted: via email or internal notifications in CP. To view your gateways go to your Control Panel > Admin > Gateways menu. The page that loads shows your gateways with their names and the types of the gateways: SMTP, SENDMAIL or INTERNAL.

Edit Gateway

To edit a gateway:

1. Go to your Control Panel > Admin > Gateways.
2. Click the Actions icon next to the required gateway and select Edit.
3. Depending on the gateway's delivery method edit the following details:
   

   For the SENDMAIL delivery method:

   • Label - the name for your new gateway. The name of the gateway should not contain any special characters.
   • From - the email address from which emails will be sent
   • Host - the server IP or URL

   For the INTERNAL delivery method:

   • Label - the name for your new gateway. The name of the gateway should not contain any special characters.

   For the SMTP delivery method:

   • Label - the name for your new gateway. The name of the gateway should not contain any special characters.
   • From - the email address from which emails will be sent
   • Host - the server IP or URL
   • Smtp address - address of the SMTP server
   • Smtp port - port of the SMTP server
   • Smtp domain - associated domain
   • Smtp user name - user name to login into SMTP server
   • Smtp password - password to login into SMTP server
   • Smtp authentication - select an authentication mechanism from a drop-down menu: plain, login or cram_md5
   • Smtp enable starttls auto - enable the STARTTLS extension
   • Verify certificate (if tls enalbled) - enable if you want to verify your certificates or leave disabled if you want to skip verification during notifications delivery
4. Click Save to apply changes

Delete Gateway

To delete a gateway:

1. Go to your Control Panel > Admin > Gateways menu.
2. Click the Actions icon new to the gateway you want to edit and select Delete.

Manage Notification Templates

Notification templates include message texts that will be sent to your users via email or internal notifications in CP. There are two types of notification templates: system templates that come pre-installed with OnApp and cannot be deleted but only edited, and custom templates which you add to your cloud. To view your notification templates go to your Control Panel > Admin > Notification Templates menu. The page that loads shows your notification templates with their names, indicators whether this is a system or a custom template and the template's text. If a template contains a long message, only the beginning of the text will be displayed.

Edit Notification Template

To edit a notification template:

1. Go to your Control Panel > Admin > Notification Templates menu.
2. Click the Actions icon next to the required template and select Edit.
3. On the page that loads, you can edit the name and the text of the template. The name of the template should not contain any special characters. After editing the text you can save the changes or restore it to the default.
   When editing a system template, you can configure if HTTP or HTTPS should used in the links sent in the notifications.
4. Click Save for the changes to take effect.

To edit system notification templates you need to have the the Update notification template permission enabled. You can also restore the message of a system template to default at your Control Panel > Admin > Notification Templates > Actions icon > Restore to default.

If you add a '%{message}' text to the template, the notification will contain the full text of the event that is written into logs. If you add a '%{name}' text to the template, the notification will contain the name of the user who will receive the notification. You can set the %{message} and %{name} placeholders for almost any type of event, however, the following events will have the different placeholders avalable:

• federation new announcement - {label} and {period_for_federation_announcement} placeholders.
• federation templates changed - {label} placeholder.

Delete Notification Template

To delete a notification template:

1. Go to your Control Panel > Admin > Notification Templates menu.
2. Click the Actions icon next to the required template and select Delete.

Manage External Recipients

If you want to send notifications to emails that are not registered in your OnApp cloud you can add them to your External Recipients. Later these contacts can be added to recipients lists of users who will receive notifications about certain events.

To view the list of external recipients go to your Control Panel > Admin > External Recipients menu. The page that loads shows the added external contacts with their name and email.

Edit External Recipients

To edit an external recipient: 

1. Go to your Control Panel > Admin > External Recipients menu.
2. Click the Actions icon next to the recipient you want to edit and select Edit.
3. On the page that loads, edit the recipient's name and email. The name of the recipient should not contain any special characters.
4. Click Submit to save changes.

Delete External Recipients

To delete an external recipient:

1. Go to your Control Panel > Admin > External Recipients menu.
2. Click the Actions icon next to the recipient you want to edit and select Delete. If you are attempting to delete an external recipient who is included into a recipients list, a confirmation window will appear.

Manage Recipients Lists

Recipients lists include the users whom you want to notify about certain events. To view your recipients lists go to your Control Panel > Admin > Recipients Lists menu. The page that loads shows all your recipients lists. 

Click the name of the recipient list to view its list of users with their emails.

Edit Recipients List

To edit a recipients list:

1. Go to your Control Panel > Admin > Recipients Lists menu.
2. Click the Actions icon new to the list you want to edit and select Edit. Or just click the name of the required list.
3. On the page that loads, you can change the name of the list and add new recipients. The name of the list should not contain any special characters. External recipients will also appear in the drop-down list. The page also shows the recipients that are already in the list at the top of the screen. You can delete recipients from the list by clicking the  icon next to the required recipient.
4. Click Update to save changes.

Delete Recipients List

To delete a recipients list:

1. Go to your Control Panel > Admin > Recipients Lists menu.
2. Click the Actions icon new to the list you want to edit and select Delete.

Manage Subscriptions

Using the Subscriptions section you determine who of your users are notified about which events. A subscription is the final step of a notifications configuration which ties together a recipients list, a gateway and a notification template. To view the list of subscriptions go to your Control Panel > Admin > Subscriptions menu. 

Click the name of the subscription to view the gateways, recipients lists, events and templates associated with it.

Edit Subscriptions

To edit a subscription:

1. Go to your Control Panel > Admin > Subscriptions menu.
2. Click the name of the subscription you want to edit.
   
3. Click the Edit Subscription button.
4. On the page that loads, you can change the name of the subscription and add new recipients lists, events and gateways. You can add events by clinking  the  button and delete events from the list by clicking the  icon next to the required event.
5. Click Update to save changes.

Delete Subscriptions

Subscriptions determine who of your users are notified about which events and the type of the notification: email or internal notification in CP.

To delete a subscription:

1. Go to your Control Panel > Admin > Subscriptions menu.
2. Click the Actions icon next to the required subscription and select Delete.

Delete Notification Data

You can delete notification data, including events, deliveries and notifications for a particular period of time. To delete all notification data, you need to run the following command from the onapp user: 

cd /onapp/interface
RAILS_ENV=production rake messaging:clean_notification_elements[2016-09-20,2016-09-23]

Change the dates in the example above to the ones you require and separate them by comma. The notification data is deleted for the period from the first date up to and including the second date you specify.

cd /onapp/interface
RAILS_ENV=production rake messaging:fix_events_data

Disable Notifications

If required, you can switch off notifications for your cloud. In this case all your configurations will be preserved but notifications will not be sent to users. You can switch notifications back on at any time.

To enable/disable notifications for your cloud:

1. Go to your Control Panel > Admin > Configuration menu.
2. Move the Enable notifications slider to enable/disable notifications. By default, this option is disabled.
3. Click the Save Configuration button.