This topic describes how to configure the Email Notification workflow activity when you are building a workflow. For information on configuring emails that are sent to users with open workflow assignments, see Sending workflow assignment emails.
When creating a workflow, you have the option to include an Email Notification activity. The Email Notification activity allows you to send an email to a specific role or user as part of your workflow.
You can access the workflow editing page by using the navigation bar to go to Configuration > Workflows. For more information about creating a new workflow, see Establishing workflows.
If you are building a workflow that includes an Email Notification activity, you can customize the email as follows:
- Select the Email Notification activity
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In the Email Notification information panel, click the Edit tab to configure the email.
Tip: If the Email Notification panel does not open automatically, select the Email Notification activity, then click the Information icon in the top right corner of the workflow editing area.
- Type a Name for the workflow step, for example, "Email initiator".
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Select a Recipient Type to determine who the email should be sent to.
- Initiator - Sends an email to the user who triggers the workflow step.
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Responsibility - Sends an email to all users who have been assigned to a particular role. If you select this option, a Responsibility field will appear where you can select the name of the responsibility, such as Data Steward or Business Owner.
You can click Add a backup responsibility to define a second responsibility type. In this case, the system will initially look for users assigned to the first responsibility, but if there are no users assigned to that responsibility, the system will look for users assigned to the second responsibility and send the email notification to them instead. For example, if there are no Data Stewards, send the form to the Business Owner.
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Specific User - Sends an email to one or more specific email addresses. When this option is selected, a Recipient field is displayed. Enter the email addresses of each individual or group that you want to send the email to, for example
user@example.com, orfinanceteam@example.com. To enter more than one email address, use a semi-colon as the delimiter, and make sure there is no space between the semi-colon and the following email address, for exampleemail1@example.com;email2@example.com. - Followers - Sends an email to all users who are currently following an asset of the type on which the workflow is based. The Followers recipient type is only available on Item Changed, Action, Request Certification and Schedule type workflows.
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Group - Sends an email to all users who are currently members of the selected group. When this option is selected, a Recipient Group field is displayed for you to select the group. The group must already exist on the system, and only users who are members of the group at the time that the workflow activity is initiated will receive the form.Note: If the group is an Active Directory group, only users that have accessed Data360 Govern and have therefore been automatically added to the group will receive the email.
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Select or deselect Send to default users when no responsibility exists, as required.
This informs the system to send the email to the default recipient/s, as defined in the settings, if, for example, there are none for the chosen responsibility type. This setting only applies to the particular email activity, not for steps requiring a form to be completed.
The default is selected. If unselected, no default recipient automatically receives the email.
- Type a Subject for the email, for example, an email to an initiator may have the subject "Your request has been received".
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Type the Body of the email.
You may want to include a note about why the user is receiving a notification, for example, you may be notifying all data stewards that a new Business Term has been added to the system. You can add specific details about the item that the workflow has been triggered against by selecting a token from the Append field value list. A token is a placeholder that will be replaced with the relevant item details in the email. Choose from:
- [OBJECT_NAME] - The name of the object that the workflow step was triggered by. For example, the name of a new Business Term that was added to the system.
- [OBJECT_TYPE] - The type of the object that the workflow step was triggered by. For example, Business Term.
- [ASSET_PATH] - The asset path of the object of the workflow.
- [GOV_SCORE] - The Governance score of the item, if a score of this type has been calculated.
- [DQ_SCORE] - The Data Quality score of the item, if a score of this type has been calculated.
- [GOV_SCORE_PREV] - The previous Governance score of the item, if a prior score of this type exists.
- [DQ_SCORE_PREV] - The previous Data Quality score of the item, if a prior score of this type exists.
- [WORKFLOW_INITIATOR] - The name of the user who initiated the workflow.
- [WORKFLOW_INITIATOR_UID] - The resource UID of the user who initiated the workflow.
- [WORKFLOW_INITIATOR_EMAIL] - The email address of the user who initiated the workflow.
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[ACTION_DETAILS] - The action details, including; the action type (for example, "Data quality issue"), the item that the action was raised against (for example, a specific business term), and any description details provided by the user who raised the action. Note: The [ACTION_DETAILS] token is only relevant if the workflow is an Action Type workflow. This token should not be used for other workflow types.
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[RECIPIENT_TYPE] - Informs the recipient why they have received the notification and is dependent on the value set in the Recipient Type field (step 3):
- If the Recipient Type is Specific User, the token is replaced with "Specific User" in the email.
- If the Recipient Type is Initiator, the token is replaced with "Initiator" in the email.
- If the Recipient Type is Responsibility, the token is replaced with "Responsibility" in the email.
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[RECIPIENT_RESPONSIBILITY] - Informs the recipient that they have received the email notification because of an assigned responsibility type, for example Data Steward or Business Owner. This gives the recipient more information about why they have received the email notification.
- To use this token, set the value of the Recipient Type field (step 3) to Responsibility. If you have used the Add a backup responsibility field to define a second responsibility type, and the user could have received the email notification because of multiple responsibility assignments, the token lets the user know which responsibility type caused the notification.
- This token overrides the value of the Visible flag in Responsibility rules. When you use this responsibility type token it will display the responsibility specified in the email notification whether the Visible flag is set to true or false for the rule.
If the specified recipient cannot be found, the system will notify the default user or group as set by your administrator on the Administration > Settings page. In this case, the Recipient Type token will be replaced with a note in the email for example "Default - Administrators".
- [ASSET_UID] - The UID of the asset that was changed or added which triggered the workflow.
Tip: Any custom fields relating to the asset type on which the workflow is based will also be available to select from the Append field value list.Tip: You can copy and paste a token from the Body of the email into the Subject field if needed.For example, in the following Email Notification activity, three tokens have been added to the body of the email, [WORKFLOW_INITIATOR], [OBJECT_NAME] and [RECIPIENT_TYPE]:
[WORKFLOW_INITIATOR] has raised a data quality issue against the business term [OBJECT_NAME].[RECIPIENT_TYPE]An email generated by this workflow step would show text in place of the tokens, for example:
User A has raised a data quality issue against the business term Bank Account. You are receiving this email because you are a member of the default Administrators group.- The [WORKFLOW_INITIATOR] token is replaced by the user's name.
- The [OBJECT_NAME] token is replaced by the name of the business term.
- The [RECIPIENT_TYPE] token is replaced with a note informing the user that they are receiving the email because they are a member of the default Administrators group.
To add a link, highlight the text that you want to use to display the link, then click the link button. Type the link, including the protocol (http://, https:// or email://), and click Save.
- Select Include previous form responses if the workflow contains a preceding form step and you want to include a copy of the completed form in the email.