Creating Web Alerts

Web alerts are created and maintained in the Ares client. The Web Alerts form is found under the System ribbon on the Home form. You can add, delete, edit and purge web alerts from this form. These alerts display by default on the righthand side of the Main Menu page of the web interface for both instructors and students but the location of web alerts can be edited on the html web pages. This alert is embedded into the Main Menu page for both Instructors (IHome.html) and Students (UHome.html) through the use of a <#ALERTS> tag that can be removed and added to other pages. 

Web Alert Fields

Web alerts are created using the following fields found in the Web Alerts form.

Web Alert Types

• System sends the alert to all registered users.
• Username sends the alert to a specific user.
• Status sends the alert to a group of users assigned to a specific status, such as Faculty, Staff or Undergraduate.
• Type sends the alert to either Instructors or Users.

Creating a New Alert

To create a new web alert:

1. Navigate to the Web Alerts form by clicking the Web Alerts button located on the System ribbon.
2. Click the Add button to open the Add Alert form.
3. Choose the type of alert you want to create using the Type dropdown.
4. Choose the specific recipients for the selected Type using the Specifier dropdown. If you selected the System type, the Specifier field will be greyed out.
5. Enter the title of the alert and select the active and inactive dates.
6. Specify whether you would like users to be able to delete the alert by checking or unchecking the User can delete checkbox. This removes the alert from the user's web page but does not delete it from the system.
7. Type the message of the alert in the Message box.
8. Click the Save button to publish and save your alert.

Editing an Alert

To edit an existing web alert:

1. Navigate to the Web Alerts form by clicking the Web Alerts button located on the System ribbon.
2. Click on the alert you want to edit in the alerts grid. The alert information displays in the Edit Alert form.
3. Edit the alert by making changes to the fields.
4. Click the Save button to post the updated alert to the web pages.

Deleting an Alert

You can delete one alert or multiple alerts. To delete existing web alerts:

1. Navigate to the Web Alerts form by clicking the Web Alerts button located on the System ribbon.
2. Click on the alert(s) you want to delete in the alerts grid. The alert information displays in the Edit Alert form.
3. Click the Delete button to delete the alert.
4. A popup message displays to confirm that you want to delete the selected web alert(s) and informs you that the action is irreversible.
5. Click Yes to delete the alert(s).
6. Alerts are immediately deleted and removed from the alerts grid, the web interface, and the system.

Purging Alerts

Purging alerts allows you to delete all alerts with an inactive date prior to your specified date. The default purge date is today's date. To purge existing web alerts:

1. Navigate to the Web Alerts form by clicking the Web Alerts button located on the System ribbon.
2. In the Prior To box, enter your cutoff date and click the Purge button.
3. A popup message displays to confirm that you want to purge all alerts prior to your chosen date and informs you that the action is irreversible.
4. All web alerts with Inactive Dates before the Prior to date are immediately deleted and removed from the alerts grid, the web interface, and the system.

Using HTML in Alerts

You can embed html links into web alerts using standard html coding. The sentence, "Please see our hours page for further details" would be written as:

Please see our <a href=http://www.atlas-sys.com/ target=blank>hours</a> page for further details.

If you want the link to open in a new window or tab, you would need to format the tag in the appropriate manner.