Appointment Notifications

Missing appointments can damage your image with a customer. Once there is an appointment assigned in the calendar, it’s normal to receive notification:

  • Upon a new or changed event

  • Upon cancellation of an event

  • Before the event, as a reminder

Notification relieves the agent the stress of mentally tracking appointments.

OTRS appointment notifications satisfies this need. Here an administrator can easily set notifications with general rules, including trigger events and filters. Afterward, appointments fitting the bill notify the correct users at the correct time.

Use this screen to add appointment notifications to the system. In a fresh OTRS installation an appointment reminder notification is already added by default. The appointment notification management screen is available in the Appointment Notifications module of the Communication & Notifications group.

Appointment Notification Management Screen

Appointment Notification Management Screen

Manage Appointment Notifications

To add an appointment notification:

  1. Click on the Add Notification button in the left sidebar.

  2. Fill in the required fields as explained in Appointment Notification Settings.

  3. Click on the Save button.

To edit an appointment notification:

  1. Click on an appointment notification in the list of appointment notifications.

  2. Modify the fields as explained in Appointment Notification Settings.

  3. Click on the Save or Save and finish button.

To delete an appointment notification:

  1. Click on the trash icon in the list of appointment notifications.

  2. Click on the Confirm button.

Delete Appointment Notification Screen

Delete Appointment Notification Screen

To export all appointment notifications:

  1. Click on the Export Notifications button in the left sidebar.

  2. Choose a location in your computer to save the Export_Notification.yml file.

To import appointment notifications:

  1. Click on the Browse… button in the left sidebar.

  2. Select a previously exported .yml file.

  3. Click on the Overwrite existing notifications? checkbox, if you would like to overwrite the existing notifications.

  4. Click on the Import Notification configuration button.

Appointment Notification Settings

The following settings are available when adding or editing this resource. The fields marked with an asterisk are mandatory.

See also

For an example, see the default appointment reminder notification which is included in a fresh OTRS installation.

Basic Appointment Notification Settings

Appointment Notification Settings - Basic

Appointment Notification Settings – Basic

Name *

The name of this resource. Any type of characters can be entered to this field including uppercase letters and spaces. The name will be displayed in the overview table.

Comment

Add additional information to this resource. It is recommended to always fill this field as a description of the resource with a full sentence for better clarity, because the comment will be also displayed in the overview table.

Show in agent preferences

Define how the notification should be displayed in agent preferences. The following options are available:

No

The notification won’t be displayed in agent preferences. The notification is sent to all appropriate agents by the defined method.

Yes

The notification will be displayed in agent preferences for selection. The agents may opt-in or opt-out.

Yes, but require at least one active notification method.

The notification will be displayed in agent preferences, but require at least one active notification method. This is annotated by an asterisk next to the name.

Personal Appointment Notification Settings

Personal Appointment Notification Settings

Available for agent in groups

The notification will only appear to agents that belong to the selected groups. If no group is selected, it is available for all agents.

Agent preferences tooltip

This message will be shown on the agent preferences screen as a tooltip for this notification.

Validity *

Set the validity of this resource. Each resource can be used in OTRS only, if this field is set to valid. Setting this field to invalid or invalid-temporarily will disable the use of the resource.

Appointment Events

Appointment Notification Settings - Events

Appointment Notification Settings – Events

Event

Here you can choose which events will trigger this notification. An additional appointment filter can be applied below to only send for appointments with certain criteria.

Possible events are:

AppointmentCreate

Executed after an appointment has been created.

AppointmentUpdate

Executed after an appointment has been updated.

AppointmentDelete

Executed after an appointment has been deleted.

AppointmentNotification

This is a special appointment event that will be executed by the OTRS daemon in time. If an appointment contains a date/time value for notifications, as already described in this documentation, and such a notification date is reached, the OTRS daemon will execute this kind of event for every related appointment separately.

CalendarCreate

Executed after a calendar has been created.

CalendarUpdate

Executed after a calendar has been updated.

Appointment Filter

Appointment Notification Settings - Appointment Filter

Appointment Notification Settings – Appointment Filter

This widget can optionally be used to narrow the list of appointments by matching configured values:

Calendar

Select which calendar the related appointment needs to be part of.

Title

Filter for a part or complete title of the appointment.

Location

Filter for a part or complete location of the appointment.

Team

Select which team the related appointment needs to be assigned to.

Resource

Choose from a list of teams or resources assigned to the appointments.

Dynamic fields

This section is displayed only if at least one dynamic field for appointments is created in Dynamic Fields screen.

Appointment Notification Recipients

Appointment Notification Settings - Recipients

Appointment Notification Settings – Recipients

Send to

Select which agents should receive the notifications. Possible values are:

  • Agent (resources), who are selected within the appointment

  • All agents with (at least) read permission for the appointment (calendar)

  • All agents with write permission for the appointment (calendar)

Send to these agents

One or more agents can be selected who should receive the notifications.

Send to all group members (agents only)

One or more groups can be selected whom agents should receive the notifications.

Send to all role members

One or more roles can be selected whom agents should receive the notifications.

Send on out of office

If this option is checked, the notification will be sent even if the agent is currently out of office.

Once per day

Notify users just once per day about a single appointment using a selected transport. If this is the first notification about an appointment, then the notification will be sent. If a notification was already sent before and this option is checked, the OTRS daemon will check the time the last notification was sent. If there was no notification sent in the last 24 hours, the notification will be sent again.

Note

The notifications respect the permissions of the agent. Notifications are sent to agents only if the agent has at least read permissions for the appointment in that moment in time when the notification is triggered.

Appointment Notification Methods

Appointment Notification Settings - Notification Methods

Appointment Notification Settings – Notification Methods

Enable this notification method

Enable or disable this notification method. A notification method can be email, web view with browser notification support or SMS.

Enable browser notification

This option is available for web view only. If checked, the system sends a browser notification, too. Web view notifications will be displayed in the notifications area of the agent interface while a browser notification is a native browser notification which needs to be enabled in the web browser at first time.

Note

To use the SMS notification method, Cloud Services need to be enabled.

Active by default in agent preferences

This is the default value for assigned recipient agents who didn’t make a choice for this notification in their preferences yet. If the box is enabled, the notification will be sent to such agents.

Note

This field is displayed only if Yes is selected in the Show in agent preferences setting above.

Additional recipient email addresses

Additional recipients can be added here. Use comma or semicolon to separate the email addresses.

Article visible to customer

An article will be created if the notification is sent to the customer or an additional email address.

Send ICS file

It is possible to include an ICS file to the appointment notification sent to users. In the Events widget above select AppointmentCreate, AppointmentUpdate or AppointmentDelete as event before activating this feature.

You can even configure to use the additional shown information out of the Custom timeline view (configurable per calendar) in the ICS file generation as well. Just activate the setting AppointmentCalendar::ICSFiles::UseAppointmentDescription to combine the regular description with the configured text.

Email template

Select which email template should be used for the notification.

Note

Additional email templates can be added by placing a .tt file into the folder <OTRS_Home>/Kernel/Output/HTML/Templates/Standard/NotificationEvent/Email/. See the existing email templates for an example.

Send signed and/or encrypted email

Checking this option will encrypt the notification email.

Note

To use this feature, PGP Keys or S/MIME Certificates need to be enabled.

Email security level

If Enable email security is checked, then this setting is activated. The following options are available:

PGP sign only

Sign only the notification email with PGP key. If no PGP keys have been added to the system, this option is not visible.

PGP encrypt only

Encrypt only the notification email with PGP key. If no PGP keys have been added to the system, this option is not visible.

PGP sign and encrypt

Sign and encrypt the notification email with PGP key. If no PGP keys have been added to the system, this option is not visible.

S/MIME sign only

Sign only the notification email with S/MIME certificate. If no S/MIME certificates have been added to the system, this option is not visible.

S/MIME encrypt only

Encrypt only the notification email with S/MIME certificate. If no S/MIME certificates have been added to the system, this option is not visible.

S/MIME sign and encrypt

Sign and encrypt the notification email with S/MIME certificate. If no S/MIME certificates have been added to the system, this option is not visible.

Note

To use this feature, PGP Keys or S/MIME Certificates need to be enabled.

If signing key/certificate is missing

Select the method, that should be used if signing key or certificate is missing.

If encryption key/certificate is missing:

Select the method, that should be used if encryption key or certificate is missing.

Appointment Notification Text

Appointment Notification Settings - Notification Text

Appointment Notification Settings – Notification Text

The main content of a notification can be added for each languages with localized subject and body text. It is also possible to define static text content mixed with OTRS smart tags.

Subject *

The localized subject for a specific language.

Text *

The localized body text for a specific language.

Add new notification language

Select which languages should be added to create localized notifications. The language of the customer or agent will be used as found in the customer and agent preferences. Secondarily, the system default language will be chosen. The fall back will always be English.

Warning

Deleting a language from the DefaultUsedLanguages setting that already has a notification text here will make the notification text unusable. If a language is not present or enabled on the system, the corresponding notification text could be deleted if it is not needed anymore.

Appointment Notification Variables

Using variables in the text makes it possible to personalize messages. Variables, known as OTRS tags, are replaced by OTRS when generating the message. Find a list of available tags stems for this resource at the bottom of both add and edit screens.

Appointment Notification Variables

Appointment Notification Variables

For example, the variable <OTRS_APPOINTMENT_TITLE[20]> expands to the first 20 characters of the title allowing a template to include something like the following.

Title: <OTRS_APPOINTMENT_TITLE[20]>

This tag expands, for example to:

Title: Daily meeting in the…

The values of the following variables are translated based on the chosen language of the customer user.

<OTRS_TICKET_Type>
<OTRS_TICKET_State>
<OTRS_TICKET_StateType>
<OTRS_TICKET_Lock>
<OTRS_TICKET_Priority>

If the language is not supported the default language is applied.

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