Improving Effectiveness of
Workflow Notifications
Yogesh Fegade
(281) 989-6360
Siddhi-Om Technologies LLC
About Siddhi-Om Technologies
Founded in 2005
PLM Solution Architects & Consultants
Located in Houston, Texas
Working with Teamcenter/iMAN, NX/UG since 1991
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Siddhi-Om Technologies • Services Offerings
Domain of Consultancy
Teamcenter products (Engineering, Unified, etc)
CAD (NX)
Systems design & integration
Process automation – design & development
Database support
Windows programming
Services programming
Network programming
Problem solving & troubleshooting
General – C/C++/Java/.NET/XML/Scripting/SQL
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Summary
Workflow process can be quite complex
How do you keep up
With effective communication
This presentation intends to show you just that!!
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Workflow Notifications •Who Uses Them
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Notification Handler •CR-Notify
Does it satisfy the basic requirements of workflow notification
Yes, but that’s as far as it goes
Only 4 report formats are available
Review, Rejection, Progress, and Level
Fixed notification text for each report format
Contains basic information – targets, decisions, comments, etc
Rarely what the business requires to make it an effective communication tool
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CR-Notify •What About…
What about email notification when:
Target is added or removed
Job is promoted or demoted
Job is suspended or resumed
Task is reassigned or delegated
What about:
Defining your own format for email body
Changing email format without code changes
Adding critical information related to the job, task, or target to the notification
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Notification Handler • late-notification
Does it satisfy the basic requirements of overdue task notification
Yes, but that’s as far as it goes
Fixed notification text
Contains basic information about the job
Rarely what the business requires to make it an effective communication tool
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late-notification •What About…
What about:
Escalation of overdue tasks to appropriate superiors when reviewers do not take timely action on an initial reminder
What about:
Defining your own format for late notification email body
Changing the email format without code changes
Adding critical information related to the job, task, or target to the notification
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Enhanced Email Notification Engine
Custom email notification engine was developed
Comprised of replacement for:
“CR-Notify” handler
“late-notification” handler
“Task Monitor” process
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Notification Engine •Short Comings
What about email notification when:
Target is added or removed
Job is promoted or demoted
Job is suspended or resumed
Task is reassigned or delegated
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Notification Engine •Solution Feature
Ability to send an email on specified action
When a target is added or removed
When a job is promoted or demoted
When a job is suspended or resumed
When a task is reassigned or delegated
…Or on any other action defined by the EPM module including user actions
No restriction on placement
Place it wherever it suits your needs of notification
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Notification Engine •Short Comings
What about:
Defining your own format for an email body
Ability to change an email format without any code change
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Notification Engine •Solution Feature
Ability to configure body of the email notification
Create an email body as a text dataset template
Create unique templates for each type of notification Template for job suspension notification
Template for job resumption notification
Template for task promotion notification
Template for task demotion notification
Template for task approval notification
Template for task rejection notification
Etc.
Reconfigure email body without any code change
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Notification Engine •Short Comings
What about:
Adding critical information related to the job, task, or target to the notification
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Notification Engine •Solution Feature
Ability to embed property values in the email body
Specify property value keys in the template
Create seamless email body text
Property value keys expand to actual property values
Embed properties of Task, job, or target objects
Any other object related to above
Properties could be Attributes, references, runtime properties, compound properties,
or relational properties
Scalar properties or array properties
Integer, float, double, character, string, date, logical or tag
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Notification Engine •Short Comings
What about:
Escalation of overdue tasks to appropriate superiors when reviewers do not take timely action on an initial reminder
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Notification Engine •Solution Feature
Multiple levels of escalations for late notifications
Configure number of escalation levels
For each escalation level, specify Recipients
Time when escalation level triggers
Late notification email body template
For example: 1st level – send email reminder to undecided reviewers
2nd level – send email to the reviewer and to the supervisor
3rd level – send email to the supervisor and to the manager
4th level – send email to the manager and to the VP
… so on and so forth
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Notification Engine •Other Features
Multiple options to specify recipients, For example:
Responsible party
Reviewers of current task or any other task
Undecided reviewers
Users in a group, users with a role
Teamcenter user
Email address
Resource pool
Distribution list, alias list
Combination of above specified in a property of a target
… Or any combination of above
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Introducing Handler •SOT-Notify
Argument Value
–onAction Action upon which notification is to be sent. Useful only when placed under ‘Perform’ action.
–subject Optional. Default subject is “job name + task name”. This argument value is appended to default subject when provided.
-comment Optional with no default. This argument value is added to the top of the email body when provided.
–format Name of the notification email body template.
–recipient Recipient of the notification. Multiple arguments allowed to specify multiple recipients.
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Introducing Handler • SOT-Late-Notification
Argument Value
–nLevels Number of escalation levels configured by the handler.
–baseSubject Optional. Default subject is “job name + task name”. This argument value is appended to default subject when provided.
–baseFormat Name of the late notification email body template.
–level<n>Recipient Recipient of the nth level notification. Multiple arguments allowed to specify multiple recipients.For example: –level1Recipient, –level2Recipient, etc.
–level<n>Time Duration, in minutes, after due date when nth level notification is triggered.For example: –level1Time, –level2Time, etc.
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Sample Notification •Template
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Sample Notification •Property Keys
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Sample Notification •Property Keys
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Sample Notification •Property Keys
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Sample Notification •Property Keys
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Sample Notification •Property Keys
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Sample Notification •Property Keys
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Sample Notification •Property Keys
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Sample Notification •Property Keys
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Sample Notification •Property Keys
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Sample Notification •Property Keys
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Sample Notification •Property Keys
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Sample Notification •Property Keys
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Sample Notification •What Was…
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Sample Notification •Becomes…
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Demo •Meet the Process
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Demo •Meet the Team
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Demo
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Q & A
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Thank You!
Siemens PLM Connection 2011
Las Vegas, NV
May 2-5