Manage Project Alerts

Overview

Manage Project Alerts (or Project Level Custom Banner) feature allows project Admins and users with access to manage project alerts to configure their own banners, which then will be visible to other CommCare HQ users of the project each time they log-in. You can add new alerts, update existing alerts, schedule them and enable/disable an alert and all the users can dismiss them once they see it. The alerts will be shown again when users performs a re-login.

Usage

In certain cases, where project Admins (or users with access to manage project alerts) would like to notify other users on CommCare HQ about any possible event (like a scheduled/unscheduled server maintenance, or reminder to generate reports for their assigned location at a frequency etc.), they can setup a custom alerts/banners using this page and activate/deactivate them as per the requirement

Configure Custom Banners

In this section, you will how you can utilise the CommCare HQ to manage project alerts.

User Permissions

For a CommCare HQ user to access Custom Banner, the roles assigned to them must have the Manage Project Alerts permission enabled. As a project administrator, you can add or update the roles of other HQ users to have this permission enabled for them.
You can use https://dimagi.atlassian.net/wiki/x/oTPKfw to understand more on how to update roles and permissions. 

For you to update Manage Project Alerts permission of certain roles, you can navigate to Roles and Permissions page under the User menu. 

• Once you land on Roles and Permissions Page, you will have to update the permission of the role for which you want to allow users to manage project alerts. 

• On clicking on the Edit Role button of the role, you will see the list of current permissions allowed for the selected role. 

• Locate Manage Project Alerts permission from the popup and enable it. Once you save this role, the users with this role will be able to update alerts for the project. 

Open

Navigation

Once you have the access to Manage Project Alerts permission, you can access the Custom Banner configuration by navigating to:

• ‘Project Settings’ from the gear icon on top right corner

• On the left-pane menu, under ‘Project Administration’, you should see the option ‘Manage Project Alerts’

Open

You can use this page to : 

• Add a new alert 

• See the list of available alerts and options to

  • Edit an alert

  • Delete an alert

  • Activate an alert

  • Deactivate an alert

Add a New Alert

You can add a new alert for your project  by specifying the description of the alert in the Text box provided and clicking on ‘Save’. 

You can specify the time range between which the alert will be shown to users by choosing the Start Time and End Time.
Please note that the alert will be shown to users only when they are 'Activated' and the project's time lay within this time range. 

Once you click on ‘Save’, you can see the newly added alert under the section ‘Available Alerts ‘

In order to avoid accidental release of incorrect or poorly formatted alert, a new alert is in ‘deactivated’ state by default, which means adding a new alert/banner doesn’t automatically show up right away. To show an alert, the user must activate it. The steps to activate an alert are stated below.

Activating an Alert

Once a new alert has been added, you can activate it by navigating to the required alert under section ‘Available Alerts’ and clicking on the ‘Activate Alert’ button.

Upon activating an alert, you can see the alert shown on top of your screen for the duration of time specified under 'Start Time' and 'End Time'. During this time, the alert will be visible to all the Commcare HQ users of the project whenever they login into Commcare HQ.

You can add multiple alerts/banners at a time and all the ones activated will be visible to each Commcare HQ user aligned on top of their screen depending upon the duration of time specified for each one of them. 

Please note that : 

• A maximum of three alerts/banners can be activated at any point of time. If you try to activate alerts/banners beyond three active alerts/banners, you will see an error message restricting you to activate any additional banners. 

• Multiple active alerts will be shown in the order of recently modified time. 

Note: 

• The Commcare HQ users may choose to discard this alert/banner for their current login session by clicking on ‘x’ icon on the right of the banner but this alert/banner will reappear any time in Commcare HQ upon user’s re-login. In case the user has dismissed the alert and stays logged in for more than 7 days, the banner notification will reappear in 7 days.

Deactivating an Alert

In case you want to deactivate a currently active alert/banner for users, you can do so by navigating to the activated alert/banner under section ‘Available Alerts’ and clicking on ‘De-activate Alert’ button. This will stop showing the alert to all the Commcare HQ users. Now whenever the logged in Commcare HQ users refreshes their screen or navigate to some other part of Commcare HQ, the alert will not be shown anymore. Also, a deactivated alert may be reactivated at any time.

Deleting an Alert

In case you feel that you don't require a particular alert/banner in future, you can choose to delete the desired alert by navigating to the alert under section ‘Available Alerts’  clicking on ‘Delete’ button on the alert/banner.

Editing an Alert

In case you want to update any alert/banner configuration, you can choose to edit the alert/banner by navigating to the alert under section ‘Available Alerts’ and clicking on Edit button on the alert/banner. Once you click on Edit on the alert/banner, you will be able to update the banner’s text, Start/End Time as well.

This is particularly useful when you want to update the details or description text of existing alerts/banners without having to delete the them and create new alerts/banners with required updates.

Note:  Editing the alert/banner configuration will instantaneously apply the updates to the alert/banner irrespective of the their activation state.