SharePoint 2010 Alerts And Subscriptions

Overview

Many times, information presented on Web sites is categorized based on either some common interest or common element. In the world of IT, we have several types of information which can be either grouped or categorized as Security, Web Development, Legacy, Cloud and Virtual Computing, and Mobile Computing. People around the globe, while interacting with such information, prefer accessibility to such information based on predefined categories or classification.

Information in SharePoint 2010 and Alerts

In the SharePoint 2010 world, any information or content is stored; it can be tagged and/or categorized. Information can be either a blog or a wiki or a document. This information can be presented to the end user based on category. But many times, users (for this article, I am considering users as IT professionals who are aware of the basics of SharePoint 2010) would prefer an email-based update or information instead of directly visiting, where the information has been stored and presented. SharePoint 2010 Alerts enable end users to subscribe based on their interests and can to get the updates in their email inbox directly using OOTB functionality just by mere configurations.

Knowing typical alerts and subscribing requirements, for this article, we will consider a typical wiki site which will have wiki pages tagged based on predefined wiki categories.

Creating a Wiki Site

Create a wiki sub site within a publishing portal as shown below:

Creating Wiki Categories

Wiki pages created under this sub site need to be tagged based on "WikiCategories." Typically these wiki categories are considered as a managed metadata. This is SharePoint 2010’s default behavior for wikis. To define our information categories, let’s first ensure, "WikiCategories" are created as a part of Managed Metadata using Managed Metadata Service from Central Administration. Wiki Categories can be seen as below:

Mapping Wiki Categories to Wiki Page Library

Wiki Categories which are created from Central Administration as above can be mapped to the Wiki Pages Library using Library Settings. This can be done as below:

Now whatever wiki pages will be created, can be tagged using centrally-managed metadata based terms.

View Creation Based On Wiki Categories

As an IT professional, I am interested in information updates in the Security area. All the Wiki Pages which fall underthe Security category should be logically grouped and any changes or additions happening to them should be notified to me through an email. To enable this we need to first create a view on Wiki Pages library. Please find below how to create a view based on WikiCategory as ‘Security’.

Similar to ‘SecurityView’, other views can also be created for users to subscribe to updates in that category. (View has been named as a ‘SecurityView’ just to follow some standard showing ‘Filter ’as ‘Wiki Categories’ is equal to ‘Security’)

Create a New Alert

Since I am interested to know about any new addition or change from Wiki pages from Security category, I will create an alert on this Security View using Manage Alerts functionality from SharePoint 2010 as below,

Here is an important note, choose options for ‘Send Alerts for These Changes,' as we are interested in changes from SecurityView. Select an option of ‘Someone changes an item that appears in the following view’ and SecurityView from the drop down.

With an alert saved on a SecurityView for me, we are all set to receive email-based updates, when any new wiki gets added or changed falling under ‘Security’ category.

Let’s create a wiki page named ‘SharePoint 2010Security,' as if this page is newly getting added tothe site. And once this is added, it should send me an alert about this newly added and published page for ‘Security’ category.

Let’s add content for SharePoint 2010 Security wiki and tag it as ‘Security’ at ‘Wiki Category.

After finishing wiki page content creation, once we save the newly-created page, an email will be sent and you should see a newly-added wiki page of SharePoint 2010 Security in an email as below. (Assuming SharePoint 2010 Timer Job and SMTP based configuration is already done and working as expected.)

Having configured predefined views based on predefined categories, IT Pros can configure or subscribe their own alerts and receive an email based alert.