Posts Tagged ‘SharePoint alerts’

Contract renewals in Office 365

Date:April 30th, 2013 Author: Tags: , , , , , ,
Category: Reminder 365, SharePoint Alert, SharePoint Online / 365 / Cloud Comments:0 ;

Reminder 365

Remembering to check when contracts are up for renewal can be a chore. Instead of waiting for someone to nag you about it, beat them to it with your own monthly reminder e-mail.

Here’s how you’d set it up

Select your list and view:

Choose list

Then choose when you’d like the e-mails sent. Here we’ve set them up for the first Monday of each month:

Pick schedule

Next choose “Items due before next check” and the column with the renewal date in. This will send e-mails for renewals due this month:

Send alerts for

Give the e-mails a subject and some explanation in the header. We’ve chosen to end the e-mails to HR and copy in the manager:

Email

Give it a name, save it, and that’s it! Reminder 365 will start delivering e-mails like this every month:

Example email

 

signup

Sales follow-ups in Office 365

Date:April 30th, 2013 Author: Tags: , , , , , ,
Category: Reminder 365, SharePoint Alert, SharePoint Online / 365 / Cloud Comments:0 ;

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If you’ve got a list of potential or current customers, it’s likely you’ll want to keep in regular contact with them (especially in the case of sales leads). So skip making checking the list every morning, and just get a summary e-mail of today’s contacts. That’s less time logging in or messing around trying to use SharePoint from a mobile phone, and more time making calls.

Here’s how you’d set it up

Select your list and view:

Choose list

Then choose when you’d like the e-mails sent:

Pick schedule

Next choose "Items due before next check" and the column with the next contact date in (this will send e-mails for contacts due today):

Send alerts for

Then give the e-mails a subject, header, and a motivational footer like ours:

 Email

Above we’ve chosen to send e-mails to the assigned Agent, CC-ing the manager. Give it a name, save it, and that’s it! Reminder 365 will start delivering e-mails like this every morning:

 Example email

 

signup

Meeting reminders in Office 365

Date:April 30th, 2013 Author: Tags: , , , , , ,
Category: Reminder 365, SharePoint Alert, SharePoint Online / 365 / Cloud Comments:0 ;

Reminder 365

Want to send reminders of all your meetings, without having to manually set them up in Outlook? Reminder 365 can send all attendees a summary of all of their meetings today first thing in the morning.

Here’s how you’d set it up

Select your calendar and the All Events view:

 Choose list

 

Then choose when you’d like the e-mails sent:

Pick schedule

Next choose "Items due before next check" and the meeting start time:

Send alerts for

Then give the e-mails a subject (and optional header/footer), and choose to send them to the attendees:

Email

Just name your alert, save it, and that’s it! Everyone now gets meeting reminders like the below every day: It’s that easy.

 Example email

 

signup

Reminder 365: Date-based alerts for Office 365

Date:April 26th, 2013 Author: Tags: , , , , , ,
Category: SharePoint Alert, SharePoint Online / 365 / Cloud, SharePoint Reminder Comments:0 ;

Reminder 365 is now available! Sign up today for your free account!

What is it?

Our Reminder web part has been extremely popular for those using the on-premises version of SharePoint but its not been available for those of you on Office 365 / SharePoint Online. Now we have a version of Reminder especially for SharePoint Online customers.

Reminder 365 builds on SharePoint Online’s built-in alerts, so you can get more from Office 365:

tick Create alerts for due or overdue items
tick Customize alert e-mails
tick Send daily, weekly, or monthly summaries
tick Free to use: Upgrade if and when you want
tick No installation: Just sign up and go

What’s it for?

Here are some of the things our beta testers used Reminder 365 for:

Why not see what it could do for you:

signup

Reminder 365 – Overdue alerts for Office 365

Date:March 6th, 2013 Author: Tags: , , , , , , ,
Category: SharePoint Alert, SharePoint Online / 365 / Cloud Comments:0 ;

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Reminder 365 is now in beta! Sign up now to try it for free:

Customisable and data-based alerts for Office 365 / SharePoint Online

What is Reminder 365?

Our new hosted product for Office 365 (aka SharePoint Online) that allows you to send alerts for:

  • Items that are due soon: Send a daily nag e-mail to task assignees
  • Overdue items: Let managers know what’s gone overdue this week
  • All items on a view: Get summaries every month of new documents

There’s no installation: Just sign up on the site and you’re good to go.

How much does it cost?

Reminder 365 is free during beta. Final pricing has not yet been decided.

How long will the beta last?

We intend to run the beta for between 3-6 weeks. So the sooner you start, the better!

Are there any perks to being a beta tester?

You get a chance to shape the product before it’s released to the general public. We’re not ruling out discounts for active beta testers, but since we haven’t finalised the pricing we don’t yet know what we’d be discounting!

I’ve got an idea, request, or bug I need to tell you about!

Please do! You can contact us at: [email protected]

 

Join the Reminder 365 beta!

Turn A SharePoint Task List Into A Task Master

Date:October 19th, 2012 Author: Tags: , , , , , ,
Category: FilterPoint Web Part, Highlighter, PivotPoint Web Part, SharePoint Alert, SharePoint Planner, SharePoint Reminder, SharePoint webparts Comments:0 ;

Here’s how you can turn SharePoint’s built-in Task list into a powerful task tracking tool, using Pentalogic products.

These are just examples to get you started – we’re only scratching the surface here of what’s possible with our range of flexible SharePoint web parts.

To start, just create a new blank site and add a task list. Here’s one I made earlier:

start

Now just follow our guide for each section (or just the sections you want):

Each section has step-by-step instructions and a screenshot of the configuration to compare against.

Task list: Priority and Due Date highlighting

Uses Highlighter

To make the high-priority and upcoming tasks really stand out, we’re going to add a couple of highlighter columns.

Here’s what you will see on the All Tasks view – coloured flags to show priority, a column showing how long we’ve got left to complete items and a red highlight for things that are overdue.

highlighter_result

hl_priority

Highlight Priority

  • Create a new Pentalogic Highlighter column
  • Name the column Task Priority
  • Choose the column type Highlighting
  • Choose Show Icons
  • Click the Default icon, then click Clear
  • Change Base on column to Priority
  • Select Replace ‘Priority’ on all views
  • Under Rules click the Auto-create button
  • Click OK

Due Date Countdown

    • Create a new Pentalogic Highlighter column
    • hl_countdownName the column Due
    • Choose the column type Countdown
    • Change the Start option to [Today]
    • Change the End option to Due Date
    • Select Add to default view, on the Right
    • Uncheck all the display options except Days
    • Under Rules click the Auto-create button

Home page: Task calendar overview and summary

Uses Planner

On your site’s home page we’re going to add an at-a-glance overview of your tasks: A view of the task list (highlighted, if you did the previous section) and a task calendar.

Here’s what your home page will look like once we’ve finished:

mainpage

List view

  • Edit the page and add Tasks from the Existing Lists category
  • Edit the web part
  • Change the Selected view to All Tasks (to ensure Highlighter columns are displayed)
  • Click OK

Task calendarplanner_config

  • Edit the page and add Planner v2 from the Miscellaneous category
  • Set the Style to By Category
  • Set the Planner Source to Tasks
  • Set the Start Date to the column Start Date
  • Set the End Date to the column Due Date
  • Set the Category to Assigned To
  • Set the Label to Title
  • Set the Progress to % Complete
  • Set the Period to Auto
  • Change Set colour by column to Priority
  • Assign appropriate Colors to the priorities (e.g. High – Red)
  • Optional: Set a Fxed width under the Appearance section
  • Optional: Set the Font size to Medium

Analysis page: Graphs and granular reporting

Uses FilterPoint and PivotPoint

Now we’re going to create an Analysis page to produce some graphs and reporting data from your task list.

You will have an Analysis page that looks like this – showing  charts for each persons workload.

analysispage

Creating the page

  • From Site Actions choose New Document Library (to put the page in)
  • Call the library Pages
  • Set Quick Launch to Yes
  • Set Versioning to No
  • Change the Document Template to Web Part Page
  • Click Create
  • From Site Actions choose More options…
  • Under Page choose Web Part Page
  • Call the page Analysis
  • Change the Template to Full page, Vertical
  • Set the Document Library to Pagespivotpoint_pie_config

Graph and Report: Priority skew

Let’s add a graph to show us if tasks are being raised too often as “High priority”:

  • Edit the Analysis page
  • Add the PivotPoint web part from the Pentalogic.net category
  • Edit the web part
  • Set Display to Both
  • Set List to Tasks
  • Under Columns set Field to Priority
  • Under Chart options set Chart type to Pie
  • Click OK

Graph and Report: Status by Personpivotpoint_stack_config

Next we’ll add a graph to show the status of tasks assigned to everyone. That’ll show us if we have any bottlenecks in the team:

  • Edit the Analysis page
  • Add the PivotPoint web part from the Pentalogic.net category
  • Edit the web part
  • Set Display to Both
  • Set List to Tasks
  • Under Columns set Field to Status
  • Under Rows set Field to Assigned To
  • Under Chart options set Chart type to Bar
  • Set Color mappings to Automatic colors
  • Click OK

Filteringfilterpoint_config

Lastly, let’s add a filtering web part. this will allow us to drill down into our data by selecting certain statuses and date ranges:

  • Edit the Analysis page
  • Add the FilterPoint web part from the Pentalogic.net category
  • Connect the other web parts via the menu (Connections -> Provide filter to)
  • Edit the web part
  • Under Filters click New
  • Change the Label to Status
  • Set the Style to Drop Down
  • Under Get the filter values select From a list
  • Still under Get the filter values, the list Tasks and field Status
  • Under Filters click New
  • Change the Label to Start Date
  • Set the Style to Date Range
  • Set the Field name to From the connected web part and select Start Date
  • Click OK

You can display the page on the Quick Launch menu via Site Actions -> Site Settings and selecting the Quick Launch option under Look and Feel.

Alert page: Configure “Overdue” alerts

Uses Reminder

The last step is to configure Reminder to send email alerts to us when tasks are overdue. You’ll need to create the Pages document library if you skipped the previous section, and then continue with the instructions:

  • From Site Actions choose More options… reminder_config
  • Under Page choose Web Part Page
  • Call the page Reminder
  • Change the Template to Full page, Vertical
  • Set the Document Library to Pages
  • Edit the page
  • Add the Reminder web part from the Miscellaneous category
  • Edit the web part
  • Set Watch list to Tasks
  • Under Email to select Assigned To from the dropdown
  • Under Email CC enter the manager’s e-mail address in the text box
  • Next to Subject click “” and enter the following into the popup box:Overdue task ([Title])
  • Next to Message click “” and enter the following:This task is overdue: Title: [Title]
    Due date: [Due Date]
    Priority: [Priority]
  • Under Send When expand Overdue and choose by 1 Days
  • Click OK

You should hen see the following on the page:

reminderpage

You can also setup email alerts to remind you when tasks are due in a few days.

Finished!

Your mundane Tasks list is now an all-singing all-dancing Task Master!

This is just one example of the many possible solutions that can be achieved with our products. Please feel free to browse the product pages below to learn more or take advantage of our 30 day free trial:

SharePoint Highlighter Released for Sale – See it, Try it, Buy it!

Date:May 6th, 2011 Author: Tags: , ,
Category: General, Highlighter, SharePoint Ideas Comments:0 ;
At last we are there!

After months of heated debate, midnight-oil-burning and general blood, sweat and tears, our latest new product, SharePoint Highlighter is released for sale today!SharePoint Highlighter Features

So come on, what are you waiting for? Get those credit cards out! You know you can’t do without the ultimate tool-kit for brightening up your SharePoint lists!

We realise that although Highlighter has been the centre of our universe for the last few months, some of you may have had other things to think about.  So, in case you have forgotten Highlighter is a custom column for SharePoint that lets you add:

  • Highlighting,
  • Color coding
  • Icons
  • Progress bars
  • Countdowns
  • And more

Let’s face, it compared to a lot of things we look at on our screen every day – things like the Facebook Wall, or a Google Search, or even an Outlook Calendar – a SharePoint list can look pretty dull.  You can easily find yourself staring at a mass of information, wondering “What is exactly is going on here?”, and “What on earth am I supposed to do with this?”

So Highlighter gives you a whole box of tricks to brighten up those lists and libraries, and make them much more user friendly.

You might choose to highlight high priority items in red on an issues list.

Or flag unpaid invoices by color, depending on just how old they are.

Or use color coded progress bars to show where you are in relation to your KPI’s or targets.

Or countdown to a task or event due date.

The possibilities are endless and with Highlighter you have a whole range of visual indicator options, allowing you to mark up your lists exactly as you want them.

We set ourselves two challenges when developing Highlighter:

  • Give people flexibility, a choice of options within one product.
  • Keep it simple, and easy to use.

We looked at what was on the market already and we found that although you can buy a progress bar, or a color coding column, or a KPI column for SharePoint, there isn’t anything out there that gives you a whole bundle of these options, all in one tidy product.  In fact, to get all the features you will find in Highlighter from anywhere else you would have to go to at least 3 different software providers – and pay more than double the money. 

So we think we are there with the flexibility, but what about ease of use – don’t all these choices make for a really complicated set up interface?

Well, hopefully not.  The really complicated (and powerful) bit is there, in our “Advanced Rules” section, but lots of people will never have to use this.  We have spent time developing the user interface, making it intuitive, so that lots of scenarios are actually set up semi-automatically.  When you use the software you will see that what you want to achieve can often be managed in just a few clicks.

So, what’s this all going to cost then?  Well just $995 for a single server license.

Plus, of course our 30 day free trail, which will give you plenty of time to see just how handy Highlighter is.

We hope you will give the product a try, and look forward to hearing your feedback.

Download the 30 Day Free Trial Today.

5 Things you never knew you couldn’t do with SharePoint Alerts

Date:July 19th, 2010 Author: Tags: , , ,
Category: General, SharePoint Alert, SharePoint Ideas, SharePoint Reminder Comments:1 ;

We often hear that communication is key to the success of any enterprise or organization. Making people aware of “what’s going on” is an essential.  So for a collaboration platform like SharePoint tools for telling people what’s happening are a central part of the setup.

SharePoint has it’s built in “Alert Me” feature.  New users seeing this often expect it to deliver functionality similar to that which comes as standard in MS Outlook.  But that isn’t what SharePoint Alerts do.  They tell you when something is added or changed.  This is great for document or content management, but not so good for managing calendars or tasks or projects – when you might prefer to be alerted when something is about to happen, or is overdue – or you might actually want to alert someone else, not yourself.

So here’s a little look at some of the things you might expect to be able to do with SharePoint Alerts but can’t.  And some suggestions as to how you might get round these shortcomings.

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Use SharePoint Filtered Views to Stop Sending Alerts to Yourself

Date:April 19th, 2010 Author: Tags: , , , ,
Category: Filter, General, SharePoint Alert, SharePoint Ideas Comments:0 ;

How annoying is it when you have just created or amended an item in SharePoint, and you immediately get an Alert email about it?

You know the kind of situation: you might be working in a team list, you have the list set up to alert you when an item assigned to you is added or amended, so as soon as you add or amend an item yourself an alert email pings through to your inbox. Completely unnecessary inbox clutter.

So, lets switch off those annoying “alerts to myself” – has to be an easy one click operation, right?

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SharePoint Alerts not working?

Date:December 2nd, 2009 Author: Tags: , ,
Category: General, SharePoint Alert, SharePoint Ideas Comments:1 ;

This is one of the most common questions posed in SharePoint forums.

SharePoint built in Alerts are one of the best used features of the system – but also one of the most problematic. There are just so many different ways they can go wrong! And when they do go wrong the internet advice available on how to put them right is very fragmented and often confusing. All manner of suggestions come up – many of then not appropriate to the particular problem the user is having.

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