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Managing Course and Session notifications

Course and session notification types, scheduling properties, calendar attachments, and how to activate and edit them.

Course and session notifications are automatically generated emails that you can activate and customize. For example, you can activate a notification that is sent to users when they enroll in a course, and keep students informed of enrollment details for individual sessions.

Before you begin

  • CourseMill's email management service must be enabled for notifications to function. If your system is using an external email service, the notifications are mailed to the email address specified in the user profile. If your system is using CourseMill's internal email service, the notifications are accessible from the users' Mail (EMAIL) tab on the student interface.
  • Notifications are sent to the student using the email configuration that is selected for the organization, from the system administration email address. For details about selecting the email system for an organization, see Choosing an email configuration.
  • Notifications turned on at the session level override notifications at the course level. Notifications turned off at the session level are overridden by the course level notifications.
  • Course notifications are sent from the course instructor's email address. If no instructor is set up, they come from the Administrator defined by the AdminEmail and AdminName managed properties. Session notifications are sent from the instructor's email address using the email system that was selected for the session; if there is no instructor, the email comes from the system administrator's email address.

Tip: If the typical user does not have an email address, use CourseMill's internal email management service, or specify the manager's email address in the student's profile to alert or distribute the messages. You can also set CourseMill email to be Internal Only so the user can read email messages when they log in.

Course notification types

There are 12 types of course notifications. You can customize the sample text of each. Notifications can be activated for the following events:

  • Enrolled in the course – Notifies a student of successful enrollment in a course. Contents: the course name.
  • Removed from the course – Notifies a student of successful removal from a course. Contents: the course name.
  • Added to the wait list – Notifies a student of being added to the wait list of a course. Contents: the course name.
  • Removed from the wait list – Notifies a student of being removed from the wait list of a course. Contents: the course name.
  • 7, 5, 2 days prior to the start of the course – Notifies a student that the course is about to start. Contents: the course name and the start date.
  • Course is completed – Notifies a student of course completion. Contents: completion certificate attached. This notification is what drives a physical paper certificate to be created for a course, if one exists. The course can use the standard certificate, or it can have a course-specific certificate by creating a PDF file named the same as the Course ID. This PDF file must be loaded on your server. See Creating custom certificates for more information.
  • 4, 3 days prior to the end of the session reminder – Notifies a student that the session is about to end. Contents: the course name and the end date.
  • 7 days after the completion of the course – Notifies a student a set number of days after completion of the course. Contents: the course name and the end date.
  • Entry made into the Discussion board – Notifies instructors when a post is made on the course discussion board. Contents: the content of the post. This notification sends an email to the course instructor as well as anyone else who posted in the discussion board.
  • 2 days prior to course due date – Notifies a student that has not completed or passed a course a set number of days prior to the end-of-session date. Contents: the course name.
  • 1 days after the course due date – Notifies a student a set number of days after the course due date. Contents: the course name.
  • Prior to end of session – Notifies a student that has not completed or passed a course a set number of days prior to the end-of-session date. Contents: the course name.
  • Course approval request denied – Notifies a student that his or her approval has been denied. Contents: the course or session name.

Session notification types

Notifications for a session are created when you activate the session notification. Otherwise, the details for the session are copied from the course notification. The following notifications can be activated for session-based events:

  • Enrolled in the course – Notifies a student of successful enrollment in a session. Contents: the session name.
  • Removed from the session – Notifies a student of successful removal from a session. Contents: the session name.
  • Added to the wait list – Notifies a student of being added to the wait list of a session. Contents: the session name.
  • Removed from the wait list – Notifies a student of being removed from the wait list of a course or session. Contents: the session name.
  • 7 days prior to the start of the course/session – Notifies a student that the course or session is about to start. Contents: the session name and the start date.
  • Course is completed – Notifies a student of course completion. Contents: completion certificate attached.
  • Prior to end of session – Notifies a student that has not completed or passed a course a set number of days prior to the end-of-session date. Contents: the session name.
  • Discussion board posting – Notifies instructors when a post is made on the course discussion board. Contents: the content of the post.
  • Post-Completion – Notifies a student a set number of days after completion of the course. Contents: the session name.

When notifications are sent

If turned on, seven of the 12 course notifications (those without a number of days in the title) are sent immediately upon the corresponding action. For example, when a student is enrolled in a course, the corresponding notification is sent immediately. This is true whether the instructor/administrator performs the enrollment or the user self-enrolls. It is also true if existing users are Auto-Enrolled, as well as future students that match the auto-enrollment rules. Use the Notification Schedule (Admin Tasks > Manage Scheduled Tasks > Notification Schedule) to set when notifications are sent during the nightly notification maintenance run. For details, see Managing scheduled tasks.

The other five notifications (those with a number of days in the title) are scheduled for distribution by a managed property that tells CourseMill how many days before or after the event to send the notification. They are physically sent during the nightly Notification Maintenance run. Only the administrator can set these properties up. You can define any number of days for each notification. For example, a reminder can be sent 30 days prior to the start of the course, then also 25 days, 20 days, 15 days, and so on.

Managed properties for scheduled notifications

  • "Nn,nn,nn,nn" days prior to the start of the course – CourseNotificationDays specifies the nn values.
  • "Nn,nn,nn,nn" days prior to end of session reminder – SessionEndWarningDays specifies the nn values.
  • "Nn" days after completion of the course – SessionFollowUpDays specifies the nn values.
  • "Nn,nn,nn,nn" days prior to the course due date
    • DueDateApproachingDays – specifies the nn values.
    • DueDateWarningThresholdDays – specifies the number of days prior to the due date that the Yellow/Red visuals show up in the My Courses area.
  • "Nn,nn,nn,nn" days after the course due date – DueDatePassedDays specifies the nn values.

Calendar attachments for enrollment notifications

  • The Enrolled in the Course notification can be sent with an ICS file attached so the user can click it and add the session date to their Outlook calendar. To do this, set the managed property CreateCalendarEventFiles to Yes. This works only if the session has a start and end date.
  • The managed property CalendarReminderTime specifies, in minutes, when the calendar alarm warning notice activates in Outlook before the scheduled class start time. This works only if the session has a start date and time set.

Find a course or session

Before you can view or change the notifications for a course or session, locate it in the list.

  1. For a course, open the Curriculums/Courses side-tab and click Manage Courses. For a session, open the Curriculums/Courses side-tab and click Manage Sessions.
  2. Use the fields in the search window above the results table to filter the list.
  3. Select the course ID (or session ID) and click Notifications. Alternatively, select the course ID (or session ID), right-click on the table, and select Notifications.

Manage Courses search fields

  • Org ID – Org ID under which the course is registered.
  • Course ID – Enter any combination of letters and numbers to search for any courses that contain that combination in the Course ID.
  • Title – Enter any combination of letters and numbers to search for any courses that contain that combination in the title.
  • Description – Enter any combination of letters and numbers to search for any courses that contain that combination in the description.
  • Course Type – Use the list to select the type upon which to search.
  • Include Inactive – Enable this check box to include inactive courses in the results.

Manage Sessions search fields

  • Org ID – Org ID under which the course is registered.
  • Course ID – Enter any combination of letters and numbers to search for any courses that contain that combination in the Course ID.
  • Course Title – Enter any combination of letters and numbers to search for any courses that contain that combination in the title.
  • Location – Location of the session.
  • Show – Session availability.
  • Session Name – Enter any combination of letters and numbers to search for courses that contain that combination in the session name.

View the activity status of notifications

Find the course or session as described above and open its Notifications window. The Notifications dialog box opens and the activity status for each notification is displayed.

Activate or inactivate a notification

When a notification is active, students receive emails when the events occur.

  1. Find the course or session and open its Notifications window, as described in "Find a course or session."
  2. On the Notifications window, double-click the notification (or click the pencil icon).
  3. On the next Notification window, enable the Active check box to activate the notification, or disable it to inactivate the notification.
  4. Click Change. The activity status of the notification is changed.

Edit the contents of a notification

You can specify the subject and body text of a notification. Default sample text is provided and can be customized to your preference.

  1. Find the course or session and open its Notifications window, as described in "Find a course or session."
  2. On the Notifications window, double-click the notification (or click the pencil icon).
  3. On the next Notification window, edit the text of the Subject and Message fields as necessary. You can insert the text-variables listed below in the subject and body.
  4. Click Save.

Variables are field names, shown within < >, that are pulled from the database to personalize messages. The emails use these text-variables, which are replaced with information specific to the user receiving the email. Select Help to view a complete list of available content variables and their exact spelling.

Course notification text-variables

  • <#USER_ID#> – Student’s user ID
  • <#USER_FIRSTNAME#> – Student’s first name
  • <#USER_PASSWORD#> – Student’s password
  • <#USER_FULLNAME#> – Student’s full name
  • <#USER_LASTNAME#> – Student’s last name
  • <#COURSE_NAME#> – Course name
  • <#NOTIFICATION_THRESHOLD#> – The number of days that triggers the notification
  • <#DUE_DATE#> – Due date for course certification
  • <#END_DATE#> – Curriculum expiration date

Session notification text-variables

  • <#USER_ID#> – Student’s user ID
  • <#USER_FIRSTNAME#> – Student’s first name
  • <#USER_PASSWORD#> – Student’s password
  • <#USER_FULLNAME#> – Student’s full name
  • <#USER_LASTNAME#> – Student’s last name
  • <#COURSE_NAME#> – Course name
  • <#END_DATE#> – Curriculum expiration date

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