Schedule and broadcast alerts, reminders, and updates using Sugar notifications, popups, and email.
User Guide
System requirements for installation
Supported Versions
- 10.x
- 11.x
- 12.x
Supported Editions
- Sell
- Serve
- Enterprise
- Professional
Supported Databases
- MySQL
- MSSQL
- Oracle
- DB2
Supported Languages
- English
Overview
Upsert® Notifications is a global notification center that grants the ability to send messages and reminders to any and all users within Sugar, such as:
- Upcoming system maintenance
- Company and team updates
- Customer-specific alerts
Upsert® Notifications is available to all administrative users and any other user, role, or team identified within the plug-in’s configuration settings.
Installation
Once you have completed your order for the Upsert® Notifications plug-in, you should receive an email with instructions to download the necessary file. Once you obtain the file, complete these steps to install the plug-in to your Sugar instance:
- Log in to your Sugar instance as an admin user
- Go to Admin > Module Loader
- Select the Upsert® :Notifications ZIP file and click ‘Upload’
- Click the ‘Install’ button
- Review the license agreement, toggle the option to ‘Accept’, and click ‘Commit’
Once the installation completes, proceed to the ‘Configuring Upsert® Notifications’ section.
Configuration
Once Upsert® Notifications is installed, you will need to enter your license key to enable functionality on the Configurations page.
Configuring Upsert® Notifications
Enable the functionality of the plugin via the following steps:
- Go to Admin, and select ‘Configuration Settings’ from the Upsert® Notifications section
- Enter your license key that you received via email from your initial purchase Note: If you installed and configured other Upsert® plug-ins, the license key will pre-populate into this screen and not require re-entry
- Select any specific user(s), role(s), or team(s) that should have access to create and send notifications in addition to administrative users
- Click ‘Save’
Validating the License
If access to the Upsert® Notifications functionality is interrupted, you can manually validate your license via the following steps:
- Go to Admin, and select ‘Configuration Settings’ from the Upsert® Notifications section
- In the right panel, click ‘Validate License’
- If successful, the status will be updated to ‘Enabled’ and the service start and end dates will be populated. If unsuccessful, there will be a message indicating the reason for the failure with further instructions.
Note: The server hosting your Sugar instance must be able to reach https://upsertconsulting.com to successfully validate your license.
Notification Templates
The Upsert® Notifications plug-in functions by creating and sending ‘Notification Templates’ within the Administrative area.
Delivering a notification to your users consists of three core steps: 1. Creating the notification template 2. Adding attachments to the template 3. Sending the template
Creating Notification Templates
Each notification you want to send to one or more users requires a notification template to be created. Notification templates define the parameters for the content of the notification, when and how the notification will be delivered, and the severity level.
Field Listing
| Field Name | Description |
|---|---|
| Subject | Display header that appears at the top of the notifications sent to users |
| Assigned To | Defaults to the user creating the ‘Notification Template’ record |
| Severity | Designation given to flag each notification with the one of the following colors: - Alert: Red - Info: Blue - Other: Blue/Gray - Success: Green - Warning: Yellow Note: Severity only serves as a visual cue and does not affect the behavior of the notification. |
| Additional Alerts | By default, all notifications will appear in the ‘Notification Bubble’ located at the right of the top menu bar. The sender can also choose to include a ‘Pop-Up’ notification that will appear on their screen and/or an ‘Email’ version of the notification and link sent to their email address recorded in Sugar. |
| Type | Determines how and when the notification will populate for users. ‘Scheduled’ notifications will be sent to all recipients at the same time. ‘On Login’ notifications will be sent when a recipient logs into Sugar during a specified time frame. Note: If a user is already logged in at the time the notification is set to send ‘On Login’, the user will receive the notification without having to log out and log back in. |
| Status | Determines whether the ‘Notification Template’ is still in the process of being composed, if it has been ‘queued’ to send at a specified time, or if it has already been sent to recipients Notes: - Once the status is listed as ‘Sent’ the notification template will become ‘read only’. - If the notification ‘Type’ is ‘On Login’ the status will not update to ‘Sent’ until the time in the ‘End Date’ is reached. |
| Related To | Users can relate notifications to records within other modules. These relationships will only appear on the notification. |
| Description | Body of the notification that will be sent to recipients |
| Start Date | Date and time that the notification will send to designated recipients Note: When sending a notification, the sender can choose either ‘Queue for Sending’ or ‘Send Immediately’. This field will only be adhered to when the sender selects to queue the notification for sending. |
| End Date | Hidden date/time field that displays when the ‘Type’ field is set to ‘On Login’. Combined with the ‘Start Date’ field, this reflects the span of time the notification will display when recipients log in. |
| Users | Users that should receive the notification |
| Teams | Teams that should receive the notification |
| Roles | Roles that should receive the notification |
| Comment Log | Additional information regarding the template that will not display on the notifications sent to recipients Note: Like ‘Comment Log’ fields available throughout Sugar, users can use this field to create ‘mentions’ to communicate with other users. |
| Tags | User-created keywords or phrases that can help users find, group, and classify large amounts of data by common attributes that are not already defined via basic database fields |
Scheduled Vs. On Login Notifications
When creating notification templates, you have the capability to create two different types of notifications: Scheduled and On Login. These notification types have a few distinct differences in how they operate.
Scheduled
Scheduled notifications require a start time to be defined when creating the notification template to determine when the notification should be sent. The application will deliver the notification to any active user at the time it is processed.
On Login
On Login notifications require a start and end time to be defined when creating the notification template to determine the boundaries of when a user is eligible to receive the notification. Once the start time has elapsed, any user currently logged into Sugar and any user that logs into Sugar until the end time is reached will receive the notification.
Steps to Create a Notification Template
- Go to Admin > Create Notification Template
- Fill in all required fields. A notification template must have at least one recipient so a minimum of one user, team, or role must be set as a recipient in the template. For more information on selecting recipients for a notification, please refer to the Recipient Lookup section.
- Click ‘Save’
Once you create the notification template, proceed to Adding Attachments and Sending Notification Templates sections to complete and deliver the notifications to your intended recipients.
Recipient Lookup
Depending on whether you are creating a new notification template or viewing an existing template, Upsert® Notifications provides a mechanism to search for users, teams, and roles to add as recipients for the notification.
Search Bar
When creating a new notification template, a search bar is located in the right side panel. Users can begin typing the name of a team or role to populate the list of associated users, or the name of a single user to populate any team or role with which they are associated.
To view what users are associated with a team or role, you can click on the down arrow listed next to the title to display the full list. To add all of the members at once, click the (+) next to the team or role title to instantly populate it into the correct field on the record. To add single users, just click the (+) next to their individual name.
Dashlet
Once the Notification Template has been created and saved, the search bar will no longer be available in the record. Instead, the ‘Recipient Lookup’ dashlet can be added to the intelligence pane dashboard. This dashlet behaves identically to the search bar described above.
Note: For more information on adding a dashlet to a dashboard, please refer to the documentation for your version and edition of Sugar.
Adding Attachments
After a Notification Template is created, the sender can attach files to the notification so that users will receive the file along with the notification itself.
To add an attachment to a Notification Template:
- Go to Admin, and select ‘View Notification Templates’ from the Upsert® Notifications section
- Select the Notification Template record that you would like to attach a file to
- Drag and drop each file into the designated ‘Attachments’ field OR click into the field and select the file from your computer
- Click ‘Save’ Notes:
- The file size limit will be based on your ‘Maximum upload size’ setting located in Admin > System Settings as well as potential server PHP configurations settings on file size. - Because recipients will need to refer to the ‘Attachments’ subpanel located in the notification record to see if any files were attached, we recommend bringing additional attention to its presence by stating that an attachment has been included in the notification’s subject line or description.
Sending Notification Templates
After a Notification Template is created, the sender can choose whether to send the notification immediately or queue it for sending at the designated start time. Note: The ‘Upsert :: Send Scheduled’ and ‘Upsert :: Expire on Login’ schedulers must be active to process queued notifications. The notifications will be sent when the schedulers are run on or after the notification start time.
To send a notification template:
- Go to Admin, and select ‘View Notification Templates’ from the Upsert® Notifications section
- Locate the desired template in the list view
- Click on the row-level action menu and select ‘Queue for Send’ or ‘Send Immediately’.
Note: When selecting ‘Queue for Send’, the notification will trigger off of the date and time entered in the record’s ‘Start Date’ field. At this point, the notification’s status will update to ‘Queued’ and will remain at that status until the notification has been sent.
When selecting ‘Send Immediately’, you will receive a pop-up prompting you to confirm that the notification should be sent at that time, disregarding what was entered in the ‘Start Date’ field.
Alternatively, you can also find the ‘Queue for Send’ and ‘Send Immediately’ options in the record view action menu when viewing a notification template.
Monitoring Sent Notifications
Once notifications are sent, admin and other designated users can reference which users received the notification and whether or not the messages have been opened.
Sent Notifications Subpanel
To easily view which users were sent a notification, the ‘Notification Template’ record contains a ‘Sent Notifications’ subpanel that lists out every individual who received the message. To navigate back to the record, designated users can go to Admin > View Notification Templates, select the appropriate record, and then scroll down to the bottom of the screen and open the subpanel listed as ‘Sent Notifications’.
View Notifications
By going to Admin, and selecting ‘View Notifications’ from the Upsert® Notifications section, users are able to view if each recipient has opened and read their individual notifications.
This feature allows the sender to follow up if they find users have not yet viewed a message that they need to.
Received Notifications
Reviewing Received Notifications
Users specified in the ‘Users’, ‘Teams’, and ‘Roles’ fields on the Notification Template will receive their notification based on how and when the notification was set to send.
Notification Bubble
By default, all notifications will be sent to each recipient’s ‘Notification Bubble’ where they can review all new and previous notifications.
Note: This area will also display any instances where the user is mentioned in a ‘Comment Log’ comment as well as any other notifications delivered natively by the Sugar application.
A user can access their entire notification history by selecting ‘View Notifications’ from the Notification Bubble dropdown.
Note: Admin users should ensure the filter 'My Notifications' is selected in this view to only see notifications for their individual user.
Pop-up Alert
Notifications designed to include an additional pop-up message will display in the center of the user’s Sugar screen. When the pop-up occurs the user has a choice to ‘Snooze’ the notification or to ‘View’ the notification immediately. If the user chooses the ‘Snooze’ option, the pop-up will reappear on the screen in 30 minutes. If the user wishes to view the notification during that period, they can always locate it within their Notification Bubble.
Note: If the user clicks the ‘X’ on the pop-up is disregarded and the notification can only be accessed through the Notification Bubble.
Email Alert
Notifications designed to include an additional email message will send the content of the notification to each intended user’s email address listed in Sugar.
Note: Viewing the notification by email does not mark the notification as ‘Read’ in Sugar.
My Unread Notifications Dashlet
And in addition to the Notification Bubble, pop-ups, and emails, a ‘My Unread Notifications’ dashlet is available to add to any Dashboard or Console on the ‘Home’ screen, as well as list view and record view intelligence panes on Sidecar modules.
Note: For more information on adding a dashlet to a dashboard, please refer to the documentation for your version and edition of Sugar.
Attachments
To view any files attached to a notification, recipients will need to open the notification record and review the ‘Attachments’ subpanel.
Note: The existence of attachments will only be known from the alert if the sender states it in the notification’s subject line or description.
Uninstalling the Plug-In
Follow the steps below to remove the plug-in from your Sugar instance.
- Log in to your Sugar instance as an admin user
- Go to Admin > Module Loader
- Locate the ‘Upsert® Notifications for SugarCRM’ package in the list of installed packages and click ‘Uninstall’
- Select the desired option for handling the related database tables:
- Do Not Remove Tables - You either want to upgrade the plug-in to a newer release or you want to retain the lockout audit log data. - Remove Tables - You want all data associated with the plug-in to be deleted and you have no intention of upgrading. 5. Click ‘Next’
The uninstall will process and provide confirmation upon successful completion.
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