Communication/Notification Settings on Action Types/Steps

Summary: Update/Understand what the Notification Rule on the Action Types do and how the homeowners Communication Preferences affect this rule.

Action Items can send notifications upon each Step change automatically. What notifications are sent, and to what users, is determined by how the Action Step is set up.

To navigate to the screen that allows you to change these notification setting, go to the Settings tab, select Action Types/Steps, Click on the down arrow on the action type you wish to modify, and select Rule. 

The Send To selection determines what users will receive notifications from that Action Item. This can be set to any role and will send the Action Step to applicable users of that role. For example, if you choose the Homeowner role, the Step will send to the Homeowner assigned to that Action Item. If you choose a Manager role, it will send to all Managers with responsibilities tied to that Action Item's assigned association.

If you wish to modify the Send To selection, simply hit the Edit button and it will become editable.

Now click on the down arrow on the Notification section of the rule screen to see your options.

What are the options?:

• General User Preference: This Notification setting is used when wanting to differ to the homeowner's communication preference. If the user has multiple notification methods chosen, this will send through all of them. Additionally, if the user's communication preference is not set to email, text, or app, this will default them to paper regardless of setting. These preferences can be update/viewed by going to the homeowner's account in Vantaca.

• No Notification: You guessed it! This Notification setting will not send a Notification to the user. Note that these users can still see the Action Item under pages such as My Action Items.
  
  
•  Paper: This Notification Setting will send any letter templates/documents attached to this step on the Action Type to the Print Queue. Having the Notification setting of Paper will not send Email's to the Print Queue. The Paper Notification setting should only be used if there is going to be an attachment letter template or document that the user wishes to send to the Print Queue (Again, this will NOT send emails to the print queue, if it is set to Paper on a step with an Email it will not send that email at all). This setting will override the homeowners communication preference. For example, if the homeowner is set to 'Email' as their communication preference, this setting will still send the letter/document to the Print Queue to be mailed to the homeowner.

• Email: This Notification Setting will send any Emails, letter templates, and documents attached to this step to the homeowner by Email. This setting will override the homeowners communication preference. For example, if the homeowner is set to 'Paper' as their communication preference, this setting will still send the Email with any letters/documents to the homeowners Email. If the user does not have an email set to send to, no notifications will be sent. 

• Electronic (General User Preference): This Notification Setting is used when wanting to deliver a notification electronically but still giving the homeowner the option of Email or Text notification. This feature is especially useful in paperless associations. If neither of these are selected, it will default to email. 

• Paper and Electronic (Billing User Preference): This Notification Setting is used when wanting to send Billing Notifications/Letters/Documents by Paper and Email/Text.  

• Electronic (Billing User Preference): This Notification Setting is used when wanting to send Billing Notifications/Letters/Documents by only Email/Text.
  
  
• Electronic Preference, If None Then Paper: This will default to an Electronic preference (Email or Text) when available. If no primary email is on file, then the item will be sent via Paper. 

Once you have your Notifications set, you will need to select what to actually send. If you click on the menu expanding icon on the Action Step, you will be able to set up several categories of things to send to the Action Step's user(s).

NOTE: In order to successfully send a Paper notification from the Action Step, you must have at least one of these attachments selected or attach something to the Action Step manually. Otherwise there will be nothing to print.

If you send an Email notification, the attachments selected here will appear as attachments to the send email.

Letter - Select one or more letters you have set up under Settings > Letter Templates.

Email - Set up the email as you want it to be sent from this Action Step. If this is empty and the Action Step sends an email it will send a default email with minimal information.

Reports - Select one or more Reports, either from the regular Reports module or from your Custom Reports.

Documents - Select documents uploaded to the Association > Documents page. You can also set the Action Step to export documents to that page for other uses.