Tracking Notifications
The system occasionally sends notifications to users, including for example when they have courses that they need to complete for compliance purposes. A “Notifications” source is available in the custom report builder, thereby allowing an administrator to build a custom report to confirm if and when a notification was sent, and whether it was read by the recipient.
Step-by-step Guide
To track notifications:
Go to Site Administration > Reports > Report Builder > Custom reports
Click on the "New Report" button
Select “Notifications” for "Report source"
Click on the Save button
Important Notes
The screenshot above illustrates the default setup / columns. When creating the report, you can add and omit that columns that you want, as well as add conditions and filters.
The notifications are kept in the database for a maximum of 7 years. After 7 years, they will be deleted and no longer show up in this report.
The “Time read” column indicates when the notification was read. Note that this column has multiple limitations.
The system is capable of sending web notifications and email notifications. The “Time read” column only tracks if the user read the web notifications. The system is unable to track whether the user has read their emails. With that being said, if only the email notification is sent (because the web notification in question was disabled), then the notification will never be marked as read.
If web or email notifications are disabled (e.g. a user has the ability to disable all their notifications via their preferences) and a notification is triggered, the end user does not get any notifications but the report states the user got the notification and marks it read at the exact same time. In a sense, if you see that the “Time created” and “Time read” are identical or within an unusually short time frame, it’s possible that the user has their notifications disabled.
If web or email notifications are enabled and all the program events are enabled but the specific program notification is disabled, the end user does not get any notifications but the report states the user got the notification and marks it read at the exact same time. If you see that the “Time created” and “Time read” are identical or within an unusually short time frame, it’s possible that the program notifications are disabled in the program itself.