Notification Rules

Email Notification is the process of sending an email to a related party for the purpose of keeping them up to date on a current issue.

On any update to the system, the default behaviour of FIT is to send a notification to the user who is currently assigned to the modified issue. The one exception to this rule is that a person making the change does not need to be notified. In fact, the email for the person making the change is compared against each of the notification recipients. If it matches, then no email is sent for that user. In this case, there is no need to send a redundant email to the user that just made the change. This can be a little tricky if you are testing it because it demands two unique email addresses.

In addition, several notify lists can be used to direct notifications:

each issue includes a "Notify List", which contains additional email addresses and/or userids, who would like to remain informed of any changes to this issue. The contents of this list remain intact throughout the life of an issue, until they are manually removed.
filters can be saved with a "Notify List" which directs a notification to users any time an issue is saved and matches the associated saved filter.
Mail Rules can contain a "Notify List" for bug creation when using anonymous email retrieval.
Workflow Actions have a "Notify List" option if using workflow rules.

The system keeps track of where to send a notification, using the email address associated with the user profile for each user. This address can actually include multiple addresses, if they are separated by a comma or semi-colon.

When a bug is modified, the system creates an email notification and directs it to a list which contains the following:

A. All email addresses in the assignee profile

B. Any addresses in the Notify Lists

C. Any addresses contained in the profiles for any users in the Notify Lists

This list is automatically stripped of duplicates and/or a matching assignee email address (which avoids the redundancy problem outlined above).

All notification is accomplished using a SMTP server, as configured in the Server Configuration menu of the Admin section.

Notes:

- Email lists can include multiple addresses, which are delimited by semi colons ; or commas ,. Each address is then sent a notification.

- The Notify List exists as a field for every bug so that a list of users can be notified about all updates to a specific bug. This list can contain usernames or email addresses and there is a dropdown list (with add button) for quick additions. This list is configurable in the Admin menu.

- The "Automatically add creator to notify list" option in the Server Configuration menu will add the creator to the notify list, so that they are kept informed throughout the life of an issue.