E-mail notifications, how to avoid spam from the server?

[AndreyZ]

MPS 2007 + SP1
MPP 2007 + SP1

Situation:
- Project with ~200 tasks and ~70 resources
When I publish Project the e-mail notifications with subj "Assignments have
been updated on Project01" sent to all 70 resources even if there were no
changes in dates, descriptions and so on.

Sometime when only one task was changed only one notification is sent to the
resource, but sometime to all resource in project.

How it can be fixed?

Thanks,
AZ

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

AndreyZ --

I would recommend that everyone in your organization log into PWA and then
click the "Personal Settings" link in the Quick Launch menu. On the
Personal Settings page, click the "Manage My Alerts and Reminders" link.
On the Manage My Alerts and Reminders page, deselect the "My project tasks
are modified" option and then click the Save button. This is the one sure
way to eliminate those pesky e-mail messages that feel like spam to your
team members. Hope this helps.

 

[Jonathan Sofer]

Andrey,

Asking all users to change this value under their personal settings might be
a large task. I have one other option for you that a colleague of mine
discovered in respect to globally changing the default personal notification
option for all users. It requires updating a single value in the Published
database.

Be aware that updating the SQL database directly is not supported or
recommended by Microsoft and I personally make no guarantees to the effects
this would have on your environment. However, I have tested this out on a
development environment of mine and it seems to work fine.

Go to the Published database on your SQL Server and run the SELECT statement
below to view all the default notification options. You will see they are
all turned on by default (i.e. Set to 1)

QUERY:
SELECT [ALERT_NAME],[ALERT_ENABLED_BY_DEFAULT]
FROM [MSP_ALERT_DEFINITION]

RESULTS:
"ALERT_ME"
"ALERT_ENABLED_BY_DEFAULT"
AssignmentDeleted 1
ManagerRejectsNewTask 1
ResourceUpdatesAssignment 1
EnterpriseResourceDeleted 1
ManagerRejectsNewAssignment 1
QueueJobFailed 1
ResourceSubmitsNewTask 1
AssignmentCreated 1
StatusReportRequestChanged 1
ResourceSubmitsStatusReport 1
ManagerRejectsUpdateToAssignment 1
AssignmentModified 1
ResourceSubmitsAdminTime 1
ManagerRequestsTaskUpdate 1
TaskDelegationRequest 1

You can either run this UPDATE statement or go directly into the database
table to update the value for 'Assignment Modified ' to 0

update [MSP_ALERT_DEFINITION]
set [ALERT_ENABLED_BY_DEFAULT] = 0
where [ALERT_NAME] = 'AssignmentModified'

Now, when the resource goes to their "Personal Settings>Manage My Alerts and
Reminders" they will see that the checkbox next to "Task Alerts>My project
tasks are modified" is unchecked.

Hope this helps,

Jonathan

 

[Janson Shi]

I think it is a bug for projecet server 2007。
For you know we can't deselect the option "My project tasks
are modified". we want it.

 

[AndreyZ]

Thanks, it works. Let's say it usefull workaround until MS not fixing this
BUG (server).
I hope it will be fixed in next SPs or hotfixes.

Thanks,
AZ

Andrey,

Asking all users to change this value under their personal settings might be
a large task. I have one other option for you that a colleague of mine
discovered in respect to globally changing the default personal notification
option for all users. It requires updating a single value in the Published
database.

Be aware that updating the SQL database directly is not supported or
recommended by Microsoft and I personally make no guarantees to the effects
this would have on your environment. However, I have tested this out on a
development environment of mine and it seems to work fine.

Go to the Published database on your SQL Server and run the SELECT statement
below to view all the default notification options. You will see they are
all turned on by default (i.e. Set to 1)

QUERY:
SELECT [ALERT_NAME],[ALERT_ENABLED_BY_DEFAULT]
FROM [MSP_ALERT_DEFINITION]

RESULTS:
"ALERT_ME"
"ALERT_ENABLED_BY_DEFAULT"
AssignmentDeleted 1
ManagerRejectsNewTask 1
ResourceUpdatesAssignment 1
EnterpriseResourceDeleted 1
ManagerRejectsNewAssignment 1
QueueJobFailed 1
ResourceSubmitsNewTask 1
AssignmentCreated 1
StatusReportRequestChanged 1
ResourceSubmitsStatusReport 1
ManagerRejectsUpdateToAssignment 1
AssignmentModified 1
ResourceSubmitsAdminTime 1
ManagerRequestsTaskUpdate 1
TaskDelegationRequest 1

You can either run this UPDATE statement or go directly into the database
table to update the value for 'Assignment Modified ' to 0

update [MSP_ALERT_DEFINITION]
set [ALERT_ENABLED_BY_DEFAULT] = 0
where [ALERT_NAME] = 'AssignmentModified'

Now, when the resource goes to their "Personal Settings>Manage My Alerts and
Reminders" they will see that the checkbox next to "Task Alerts>My project
tasks are modified" is unchecked.

Hope this helps,

Jonathan

AndreyZ --

I would recommend that everyone in your organization log into PWA and then
click the "Personal Settings" link in the Quick Launch menu. On the
Personal Settings page, click the "Manage My Alerts and Reminders" link.
On the Manage My Alerts and Reminders page, deselect the "My project tasks
are modified" option and then click the Save button. This is the one sure
way to eliminate those pesky e-mail messages that feel like spam to your
team members. Hope this helps.

 

[Brad Harris]

Dale,

Big Problem. Users do not wnat peky redundant emails that have no change.
The Alert setting is My project tasks are modified....modified is the key
word here. Users want to know when their cheese moves, pardon the
expression. How can this be accomplished. The double edged sword is that
you leave the box checked to get the changes and risk users ignoring the
email due to redundant information. OR, turn it off and risk getting no
information. Does MS see this as a bug or working properly?

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Brad --

It is working as designed, I guess. Only Microsoft could confirm whether
this behavior is as designed. With the option selected, team members feel
like they are getting spammed by Project Server. I really don't know of any
way to work around that short of deselecting the option. Sorry.

 

[Brad Harris]

Not griping at you Dale.............Just wanted to clearify. Thanks again
for supporting all of us on the forum!!!!!

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Brad --

Well, your are more than welcome for the help, my friend! Thanks for
the kind comments.

 

[AndreyZ]

Defenitelly it is a bug!

Brad --

It is working as designed, I guess. Only Microsoft could confirm whether
this behavior is as designed. With the option selected, team members feel
like they are getting spammed by Project Server. I really don't know of any
way to work around that short of deselecting the option. Sorry.