Simon Help Portal

Notification Centre

Email notifications can be used to communicate information to various stakeholders throughout a user’s experience. Examples of notifications include a Welcome Email to the user, a reminder email to the user’s Manager to complete their Probation Review 60 days after their start date, and confirmation to various internal stakeholders that a user has completed their experience. Notifications are queued to send based on triggers, which are explained below.

To access this module, log in to the Control Panel from the Simon home page located at https://<yoursubdomain>.exphub.com.au/manager. Navigate to the Global Site Configuration menu and click to expand. Finally, select “Notification Centre”.

Add New Email Notification

To create a new Notification, navigate to Global Site Configuration > Notification Centre > Add New Email Notification and follow the steps below:

1. Select the Trigger Type. The Trigger Type controls at what point during the user’s experience the notification will queue to send. Available Trigger Types are:

Trigger Type	Description	Tips and information
After Experience Delivered	The notification will queue as soon as the user’s experience has been delivered.	An example notification could be a Welcome Email to the user, providing them with their username and password.   We recommend a Welcome Email be configured for all organisations.
After Employment Documents Accepted	The notification will queue as soon as the user completes the Document Acceptance element in their experience.	An example notification could be a confirmation to the user’s Manager that the user has accepted their Employment Documents.
After Forms Completed	The notification will queue as soon as the user completes the Forms element in their experience.	An example notification could be a confirmation to Payroll that the user has completed their forms.
After Checklist Completed	The notification will queue as soon as the user completes the Checklist element in their experience.	An example notification could be a confirmation to HR that the user has completed their checklist.
After General Content Screen Opened	The notification will queue as soon as the user opens the General Content Screen element in their experience.	An example notification could be a thank you e-mail to the user.
Document Expiry	The notification will deliver to recipients on the date that a selected document expires.	The notification needs to be attached to the relevant document in Employee Files or in the configuration of the Document Upload Request. These notifications can’t be selected when delivering an experience to a user. For more information about document expiries and notifications, please refer to the Employee Files guide and the Document Upload Centre guide.

2. Select the Timing Type. The Timing Type controls the date that the notification will be sent. Note - Timing Types are not available for notifications that are triggered on Document Expiry as these notifications will deliver on the date the document expires. Available Timing Types are:

Timing Type	Description	Tips and information
Immediately	The notification will send on the date it was triggered.	Use this timing type for notifications that need to be sent immediately, for example the Welcome Email to the user.
After xx Days	The notification will send x days after it was triggered.	When this timing type is selected, enter the number of days after being triggered that the notification should send in the “Enter days to send Email” field. For example, if the number entered is 7, the notification will send 7 days after the notification is triggered.   Use this timing type for notifications that are sent on a delay, for example a survey sent to the user 7 days after completing their experience.
+/- Days and option for Time to send based on a custom/system date field	The notification will send x days before or after the date selected in a custom field on the user profile.	When this timing type is selected, enter the number of days before or after the custom field date that the notification should send in the “Enter days to send Email” field. Select the custom field that contains the reference date from the “Select custom date field” list.   For example – if you require the notification to send 7 days before a user’s Start Date, enter “-7” and select the Start Date custom field. Similarly, if you require the notification to send 7 days after the Start Date, enter “7”. If you want the notification to send on the start date, enter “0”.   Note 1 – Only custom fields that have been configured as a Date Picker label type will appear in the “Select custom date field” list. For more information about configuring Custom Fields, please refer to the Custom Settings – Custom Field Settings guide. Note 2 – When using the Expiry Date option, it’s important to make sure a Document Expiry Date is included when delivering the experience to the employee. If an expiry date is not selected, the notification will deliver immediately. For more information about configuring an expiry date, please refer to the Deliver an Experience guide.   Use this timing type for notifications that are sent relative to a date on the user profile, for example a reminder to the user’s Manager to complete a Probation Review 60 days after start date.

3. Enter the Template Name. The name is what you will see when selecting the Notification to include when delivering an experience. For example, “Welcome Email”, “Reminder to Manager”.

4. Enter the email address you would like the notification to be sent from. All emails delivered from Simon are sent from an @exphub.com.au email address - you only need to enter the first section of the email address in this field. Example: If the sender address you'd like to configure was thinksimon@exphub.com.au, you would only enter thinksimon into this field.

5. Enter the email addresses you would like the notification to be sent to. Multiple addresses can be included in this section. If you are including multiple addresses, separate each one using a comma (,). Please note these email addresses are static and will not change unless they are edited.

6. If you would like to configure a "Reply to" email address, enter this in the "Reply To Email-Address" field. If the recipient of the notification selects "Reply" from the email they've received, their reply will be sent to the email address configured in this field. This is an optional field.

7. If you’d like the notification to deliver to a Distribution Group, select the group from the list. If you don’t require a Distribution Group to be included, leave this blank. For more information about Distribution Groups, continue reading below.

8. If you’d like the notification to deliver to an email address (or email addresses) that have been entered into an Email Label Type custom field on the user’s profile, select these fields in the Email Address field. This is multi-select. Please note that only Email Label Type custom fields will be available for selection. For more information about Custom Field Label Types, please refer to the Custom Settings – Custom Field Settings guide . If you don’t require the notification to be sent to an Email Label Type custom field, you can leave this section as is.

9. If you would like the user’s Hiring Manager to be included as a recipient, tick the “Include Hiring Manager in Email” box. When this box is ticked, the notification will be sent to the e-mail address that has been saved in the “Hiring Manager Email Address” field on the user profile. Note: The Hiring Manager Email Address may appear in your organisation’s instance under a different name if it has been renamed. For more information about renaming this field, please refer to the Custom Settings – System Field Configuration guide. For more information about the user profile, refer to the Create An Employee guide and the Manage Employees guide.

10. If you would like to include the user as a recipient, tick the “Include Primary Email” box. When this box is ticked, the notification will be sent to the email address that has been saved in the “Primary Email Address” field on the user profile. Note: The Primary Email Address may appear in your organisation’s instance under a different name if it has been renamed. For more information about renaming this field, please refer to the Custom Settings – System Field Configuration guide. For more information about the user profile, refer to the Create An Employee guide and the Manage Employees guide.

11. If you would like to include the Secondary Email Address as a recipient, tick the “Include Secondary Email” box. When this box is ticked, the notification will be sent to the email address that has been saved in the “Secondary Email Address” field on the user profile. For more information about the user profile, refer to the Create an Employee guide and the Manage Employees guide. Note: The Secondary Email Address may appear in your organisation’s instance under a different name if it has been renamed. For more information about renaming this field, please refer to the Custom Settings – System Field Configuration guide.

12. If you would like the notification to be sent only if the user responds with a particular response in their Forms element, tick the “This email will only be sent if the following conditions are met” box. Then, select the question and corresponding answer that should trigger the notification to be sent. For example, you may want the notification to send to a HR team if the user indicates they have a criminal history. In that case, you would select the question “Do you have a criminal history?” with the corresponding answer “Yes”. The notification will then only send if the users answers “yes” to that question.

If you would like the trigger to be based on an AND statement, select the “And” option and select the second trigger question and corresponding answer. For example, you may want an e-mail to send if the user has a criminal history in the last 10 years. To configure this, you would select “Do you have a criminal history?” with the corresponding answer of “Yes” in the first trigger section, select “And”, and then select “Was your last criminal offence in the last 10 years?” with the corresponding answer of “Yes”. If the user selects “yes” for both questions in their Forms, the notification will send. If the user selects “yes” for one question and “no” for the other, the notification will not send.

 

Important Note 1 – Only fields that have been configured as a List Label Type will be available in this section. For more information about configuring Fields, please refer to the Forms guide.

Important Note 2 – Notifications that are based on triggers will need to be selected for relevant users when the experience is delivered. The system will then ascertain whether to trigger the notification based on the user’s responses in the Forms element.

Important Note 3 – Notifications based on Field triggers are only available if the Trigger Type selected is After Forms Completed.

13. Enter the subject line of the notification in the Subject field. 

Tip 1 – Avoid using words such as “Congratulations” or exclamation marks in your subject line, otherwise some email clients may categorise the notification as spam.

Tip 2 – Custom field parameters can be used in the subject line to personalise your message. To include a custom field parameter, simply include the parameter inside { }. For example, “Thank you for completing your experience, {fname}”.

14. Format the body of the notification in the Body field. For instructions on adding and/or editing images and text in this section, please refer to the Editor Tool Instructions guide. 

Tip 1 – We recommend keeping the formatting simple, as different email client settings may display more complicated formatting incorrectly.

Tip 2 – Custom field parameters can be used in the body to personalise your message. To include a custom field parameter, simply include the parameter inside { }. For example, “{fname} has completed their Forms”. Available parameters can be found by clicking the “?” icon on the right-hand side of the screen. For more information on utilising parameters, please refer to the How to use parameters to customise your message guide.

15. Configure the send conditions if applicable. A send condition is a condition based on the experience completion status that ascertains whether or not the notification should be delivered.
 

If you do not require a Send Condition to be configured (i.e. the notification should deliver regardless of the status the experience is in), you can leave this box un-ticked.

 

If you would like a Send Condition configured:
 
 i. Tick the box under the “Send Condition” heading.
 ii. Select the condition from the first “Select Answer” list. If you select ‘is in’, the notification will only deliver if the experience it’s related to is in the status that you select in the next box when the notification is due to send. If you select ‘is not in’, the notification will only deliver if the experience it’s related to is not in the status that you select in the next box when the notification is due to send. Some examples are below to put this into context.
iii. Select the Completion Status the experience must be in at the time the notification is due to send to satisfy the condition in the last “Select Answer” box. Tip - The Completion Status of an experience can be checked on the My Experiences screen. For more information, please refer to the My Experiences guide.

Example 1 - Alf Stewart wants a notification to send to users 7 days before their start date to thank them for completing their experience. Alf only wants this notification to send to a user if they have completed their experience. Alf would therefore configure the Send Condition for the notification as below:

Example 2 - Alf also wants a notification to send to users 7 days after the experience has been delivered to remind them to complete the experience. Alf only wants this notification send to a user if their experience is in Progress. Alf would therefore configure the Send Condition for the notification as below:

Tip 1 – If you’re wanting to configure a notification to remind a user to complete their experience after a certain number of days, you may need to create two notifications – one to send if the experience is in “In Progress” status, and one to send if the experience is in “Not Started” status.

Tip 2 – You can check whether a notification with a Send Condition has been delivered via the Email Logs. For more information, please refer to the Email Logs guide.

16. Once all fields have been completed, click Submit to save the notification.

If your organisation has API enabled, you may see an additional option to configure assignment rules. For assistance with assignment rules for your specific API configuration, or to enquire about enabling API for your organisation, please contact your Account Manager or e-mail help@thinksimon.com.au.

Editing a Notification

Navigate to Global Site Configuration > Notification Centre > All Notifications. You will then be presented with a list of notifications that have been configured.

All Notifications field definitions

Field	Description	Tips and information
ID	The system generated identification number given to the Notification.	This ID number is a system generated field only.
Template Name	The name that has been configured for the Notification.	This is the name you will see when selecting Notifications when delivering an experience. For more information about delivering an experience, please refer to the Deliver An Experience guide.
Status	Shows whether the Notification is Active (can be selected) or Inactive (cannot be selected).	To change a Notification to Active or Inactive, click the Status button.   Making a notification inactive will not cancel any notifications that are already pending to be sent. If you need to cancel these, you will need to do so manually in the Email Logs. For more information, please refer to the Email Logs guide. Tip 1 - Before making a notification inactive, check if it's included in a Notification Group. If it is, remove it from the Notification Group before making it inactive. For more information about Notification Groups, please continue reading below. Tip 2 - Before making a notification that is trigged on Document Expiry inactive, check that the notification isn't attached to a Current document. If it is, remove the notification from the document before making the notification inactive. For more information about document expiry, please refer to the Employee Files guide.
Last Updated/Last Updated By	The Last Updated and Last Updated By columns show the date and time the Notification was last edited and which administrator made the edit.	The time will be displayed in your organisation's configured timezone.
Actions	Options to Edit or Delete.	We recommend making a Notification inactive rather than deleting. If a Notification is deleted, it cannot be retrieved.   Continue reading below for information about the Edit option.

To edit a Notification, select the Edit option from the Actions menu next to the relevant notification. You will then be presented with a screen identical to the Add New Notification screen. For more information about these fields, please refer to the Add New Notification section above.

If you need to duplicate a notification, we recommend copying the Source code by clicking the “Source” button in the Editor, and then pasting into the relevant Source section of the new Notification you are creating. This will ensure the formatting of your notification is consistent. For more information about using this function, please refer to the Editor Tool Instructions guide.

Tip – Editing a notification will not edit any notifications that are already pending to send. If you need to edit a notification that is already pending to send, you will need to manually edit it in the Email Logs. For more information, please refer to the Email Logs guide.

Notification Previews

Notification Previews allow you to see exactly what a notification will look like, including any configured custom fields, text, and images, without the need to trigger it in reality. This feature is useful when designing notifications so that you can make real time changes as you move along.

To use the Notification Previews feature:

1. Edit the notification you are wanting to preview by navigating to Global Site Configuration > All Notifications and selecting "Edit" in the Actions menu next to the relevant notification. Important Note: A notification must be saved before it can be previewed. This is also the case for any changes to a notification that you are wanting to preview, i.e. the changes need to be saved before they will be reflected in the preview.

2. Scroll to the bottom of the notification and click on "Send test e-mail".

3. Select a user to use in the preview. The information that is used to populate any custom fields used in the notification preview will be pulled from the profile of the user you select. If the notification includes a custom field that has not been completed on the selected user's profile, the custom field will not be populated in the preview. The selected user will not receive the notification preview.

4. Input the e-mail address that the preview should be sent to (this would normally be your e-mail address). The preview will only be sent to the e-mail address that is typed in this field - any e-mail addresses that the notification would normally send to in reality will not receive the notification preview.

5. Click "Send" - the notification will be sent to the e-mail that was input. Notification preview e-mails can be identified by the text "Test |" at the beginning of the subject line.

The preview will show the notification exactly as it will appear when triggered in reality. Any unpopulated custom fields could be due to:

a) The user selected for the preview does not have the custom field populated

b) The custom field parameter has been misspelled in the notification

c) The custom field parameter does not exist

To make changes to a notification and re-preview, make the required change and save the notification. Select "Edit" in the Actions menu, and then re-send the preview again following the above steps.

Note: Reply To functionality will not be reflected in a Notification Preview.

 

Distribution Groups

Distribution Groups allow you to configure groups of email addresses for notifications to be delivered to. Using Distribution Groups means that you don’t need to type each email address separately into each notification.

Creating a new Distribution Group

1. Navigate to Global Site Configuration > Notification Centre > Distribution Group Centre > Add New Distribution Group.
2. Name the Distribution Group. This is the name that will show in the list when configuring a notification (e.g. Payroll Team).
3. Enter the email addresses that should be part of the group in the “Distribution Group List” section. Multiple email addresses should be separated by commas without spaces:

4. Click Submit. The Distribution Group will be ready to use. For more information about including a Distribution Group in an email notification, refer to the Add New Email Notification section above. 

Editing a Distribution Group

Navigate to Global Site Configuration > Notification Centre > Distribution Group Centre > All Distribution Groups. You will then be presented with a list of Distribution Groups that have been configured.

All Distribution Groups field definitions

Field	Description	Tips and information
ID	The system generated identification number given to the Distribution Group.	This ID number is a system generated field only.
Distribution Group Name	The name that has been configured for the Distribution Group.	This is the name you will see when selecting the Distribution Group when configuring a notification. For more information about configuring a notification, please refer to the Add new Email Notification section above.
Status	Shows whether the Distribution Group is Active (can be selected) or Inactive (cannot be selected).	To change a Distribution Group to Active or Inactive, click the Status button.   Making a Distribution Group inactive will not remove it from any notifications that are already pending to be sent. If you need to remove these addresses for notifications that are already pending, you’ll need to do so manually in the Email Logs. For more information, please refer to the Email Logs guide.
Last Updated/Last Updated By	The Last Updated and Last Updated By columns show the date and time the Distribution Group was last edited and which administrator made the edit.	The time will be displayed in your organisation's configured timezone.
Actions	Options to Edit or Delete.	We recommend making a Distribution Group inactive rather than deleting. If a Distribution Group is deleted, it cannot be retrieved.   Continue reading below for information about the Edit option.

To edit a Distribution Group, select the Edit option from the Actions menu next to the relevant Distribution Group. You will then be presented with a screen identical to the Add New Distribution Group screen. For more information about these fields, please refer to the Add New Distribution Group section above.
 
Tip – Editing a Distribution Group won’t edit any notifications that are already pending to send. If you need to edit the Distribution Group on a notification that is already pending to be sent, you’ll need to manually edit it in the Email Logs. For more information, please refer to the Email Logs guide.

 

Notification Groups

Notification Groups allow you to group notifications together. Using Notification Groups means that you don’t need to select each notification separately for each experience – you can simply select the relevant group.

Creating a new Notification Group

1. Navigate to Global Site Configuration > Notification Centre > Notification Groups > Add New Notification Group.
2. Name the new Notification Group. This is the name that will show in the list when selecting the notifications to include in an experience.
3. Tick the notifications that should be included in the experience each time the Notification Group is selected. Only active notifications and notifications that are not configured to trigger on Document Expiry will appear in this list. Tip - There’s no limit to the number of notifications that can be included in a group, and no limit to the number of groups a notification can be included in.
4. Click Submit. The Notification Group will now be ready to use.

Editing a Notification Group

Navigate to Global Site Configuration > Notification Centre > Notification Groups > All Notification Groups. You will then be presented with a list of Notification Groups that have been configured.

All Notification Groups field definitions

Field	Description	Tips and information
ID	The system generated identification number given to the Notification Group.	This ID number is a system generated field only.
Notification Group Name	The name that has been configured for the Notification Group.	This is the name you will see when selecting the Notification Group when configuring an experience. For more information about delivering an experience, please refer to the Deliver an Experience guide.
Status	Shows whether the Notification Group is Active (can be selected) or Inactive (cannot be selected).	To change a Notification Group to Active or Inactive, click the Status button.   Making a Notification Group inactive will not make any notifications that are included in the group inactive. For more information about changing a notification to Inactive, please refer to the Editing a Notification section above.
Last Updated/Last Updated By	The Last Updated and Last Updated By columns show the date and time the Notification Group was last edited and which administrator made the edit.	The time will be displayed in your organisation's configured timezone.
Actions	Options to Edit or Delete.	We recommend making a Notification Group inactive rather than deleting. If a Notification Group is deleted, it cannot be retrieved.   Continue reading below for information about the Edit option.

To edit a Notification Group, select the Edit option from the Actions menu next to the relevant Notification Group. You will then be presented with a screen identical to the Add New Notification Group screen. For more information about these fields, please refer to the Add New Notification Group section above.

Re-Sending a Notification

A notification can be re-sent to its recipients after it has been delivered. For instructions on how to re-send a notification, please refer to the Email Logs Guide.