If you want to notify people about a business event,
you should understand the notification methods that an agent can
use. The notification method you choose should contain all information
relevant to the event, and each person who must know about the event
should be notified.
An Event Studio agent can notify people about business events
by
The notification feature can contain dynamic
information. This means that source items from a package can be
inserted into the message. The values for these items are not retrieved
until the agent is run because a notification message about a critical
data item always contains the current values.
Both email and news item notifications can contain dynamic information.
In an email task, the email can contain dynamic content in the list
of recipients, the subject, and the message body. For more information,
see Example - Add an Email Task.
The parts of a news item notification that can contain dynamic
content are the headline, the screen tip, and the text. For more
information, see Example - Add a News Item Task.
Although email and news item notifications can both
show content dynamically, only email notifications can change their
target dynamically. By inserting email address items in the recipient
fields, you can specify that the recipient list change according
to the data in the event list.
You can notify people by email using either a report task or
an email task. To help you decide which method to use, you should
understand how they differ.
You can use either a report task or an email task
For an email task but not a report task, you can also
Emailing reports from an Event Studio agent is useful if you
want the report to be tailored to a specific event. However, if
you want to regularly send a report by email that is not related
to an event, you do not need to create an agent. You can send it
by email from Cognos Connection. For more information, see the Cognos
Connection User Guide.
A news item task publishes a headline to a folder whose contents
can be viewed in a Cognos Navigator portlet and in any folder view.
When someone clicks on a headline, they can open Cognos 8
content or view a Web page.
When you create an email message, you can drag data
items into the message body. These data items act as placeholders.
When the agent runs, the placeholders are replaced with actual values
from the data source.
If the agent detects several events that satisfy the event condition,
the size of the message body in the delivered email can increase.
Every line in the message body that contains a data item placeholder
is repeated for each event instance that satisfies the task execution
rules.
For information about how multiple events affect email
messages, see Example - Add an Email Task.
If data items appear only in the message body, a single message
is usually sent containing details of all the events detected. However,
if the address or subject fields include data items, many emails
may be sent.
For some messages, the appropriate recipient depends on the values
in the event. For example, a message about a support call from Customer
A must be addressed to Customer A's account manager.
If the data source includes an item that represents email addresses,
you can drag this item to the recipient fields. The agent uses this
data to generate the email address dynamically. If the agent detects
several events that satisfy the event condition, it generates one
message for each email address. The source items in the message
body are grouped by address.
If you include a source item in the subject field, the agent
generates one message for each subject. The source items in the
message body are grouped by subject.
If you include source items in both the address and subject fields,
the messages are grouped by address and subject.
