This article looks at the emails generated by the core iCM platform, either by scheduled tasks, as content is updated, from reports, or by users choosing to email iCM or website users. It doesn't cover emails sent by forms or as part of workflow processes.
For hosting and email security information see Emails.
Automated Emails
iCM notifies users as things happen, or when schedules are set up for tasks and reports. Most of these emails are sent to user's who "own" content. Owners are the users who first created the content, generally seen on the "Properties" tabs of various content types. Other emails are sent to the "task status" recipient, set in iCM's autoconfig when iCM is first installed. Please raise a support ticket if you need to update this address.
Article Approvals
The article approval process can potentially generate lots of emails. Users have some control over the emails they receive in their user preferences. Any notes added by the users or approvers during the process are included in the emails.
Approval Requests
When an approver approves, rejects or cancels an approval request, the user who submitted the content is emailed.
When you set up iCM users you can set whether they should be notified about their content being approved using the "Default notify when approved" checkbox. When those users submit content they can uncheck this box if they don't want to be notified about a particular submission.
Approvers
If a user is responsible for approving content, they'll receive an email when it is time for them to do so. If multiple users are potential approvers (ie a group has been added to the approver list) all users will receive an email.
If multiple emails are sent out for the same approval requirement, once one member of the group has dealt with it, other group members are notified.
Approvers can turn off email notifications using the "Approval notification" drop-down in their personal settings found on the iCM homepage.
Errors in Approvals
There are times when an approval chain will error, most commonly when a group or user is deleted from iCM, leaving no valid approvers to complete an approval chain. iCM warns you about this before you can delete the user, but if you go ahead anyway, users who have the iCM Management privileges related to user creation are emailed.
Responsibility Changes
During approvals an approver can take over responsibility for an article, interrupting the approval chain. If they do an email is sent to the user who originally submitted the approval request.
Article Archiving Errors
When articles are archived they are moved beneath a new parent. If an article that is due to be a parent for an archived article is deleted, the following email is sent to the "task status" email address set in iCM's autoconfig and accessible using the iCM settings area of iCM Management.
Article or Media Change of Ownership
If a user updates the "Properties" tab of an article or media item and selects a new owner, the original owner is emailed. The original owner needs to have the "Default notify when approved" checkbox checked in their iCM user's preferences to receive this email.
Article Updates
If someone other than the owner updates an article, the owner receives an email. The owner needs to have the "Default notify when approved" checkbox checked in their iCM user's preferences to receive this email.
Decache Errors
When content is submitted in iCM, messages are sent to the website to decache pages so the new content can be seen. If any errors occur, an email is sent to the "Email recipient for website errors" address in iCM's autoconfig.
Offline Settings
You can schedule parts of the platform, like forms and workflow processes, to go offline for maintenance. When you set up these schedules you can configure emails that will be sent to iCM and registered website users. Additionally, if iCM itself is scheduled to go offline, iCM sends emails to anyone who is currently logged in at intervals before the offline time. All of these options are covered in the System Online/Offline documentation.
Reports
When a user sets up a report they can choose to run it "now", with the results displayed on screen in iCM, or at a set time, in which case the results are sent by email. The person setting up the report enters the address (or addresses, using a comma separated list) the report will be sent to. Reports are generated as csv files.
Scheduled Tasks
A range of housekeeping scheduled tasks can be set up in iCM. These automated tasks cover things like archiving articles, checking external links, indexing custom search collections and logging out inactive users.
When these tasks complete they send an email to the "task status" email address set in iCM's autoconfig when iCM is first installed. Please raise a support ticket if you need to update this address.
Stale Content
If you are running the stale article checking scheduled task and articles or media items in iCM have "Update due" dates set in their "Schedule" tabs, emails will be sent to the content owner while it's in the stale content warning period. Once the update time has passed, emails continue to be sent to the owner while still in the escalation delay period.
After the escalation delay period, articles that still haven't been updated by the owner trigger emails to other users. If an article is subject to an approval chain, the first approvers in the chain are notified. If an article isn't subject to an approval chain, all iCM users with the "Publish immediate" privilege are emailed.
There's more information about stale articles and the warning periods in the Content Settings article.
Contacting Users
iCM users can also send out emails to other users, or to admin users by requesting support.
Contacting Site Users
iCM can send emails to users registered with your site. This topic is covered in the Bulk Mail documentation.
Emailing iCM Users
It's possible to email other iCM users. You can email all users, just the users who are logged in, a single user, or all users in a particular group. Emails are sent from the iCM Users section of iCM Management. See the Emailing iCM Users documentation for more information.
Support and Feedback
The action panel on the iCM homepage has two options that send emails, "Request support" and "Send feedback". These emails are sent to the addresses set in iCM's autoconfig when iCM is first installed. Please raise a support ticket if you need to update them.
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