Options for Email Notifications

Every email notification has 3 required settings associated with it: the user or group who will receive the emails, the path that is being monitored for activity, and the frequency those mails will be sent. Other options allow you to fine-tune the notifications so you're notified only about the activity of interest.

Choosing Which Users' Activity Triggers A Notification

By default, activity from any user in any group (except the recipient) cause an email notification to be sent.

Site Administrators can choose which users' or groups' activity will trigger the notification. Separate notification settings let Site Administrators choose a list of groups and a list of users whose file activity generates the notification mail message. Only Site Administrators can choose these options because viewing the listing of all users or groups requires administrative permissions.

To reduce unnecessary noise, users are not notified about their own file activities by default. You can include this type of activity in the notification's settings. This is disabled by default because it can generate numerous, potentially redundant emails.

Recursion Option for Notifications

Each notification includes a setting for whether matching activity in the folders's subfolders triggers the notification.

By default, notifications are fully recursive, meaning that activity in any subfolders will trigger activity for the folder. This is the default behavior because it makes creating notificaitons simpler, since users who want non-recursive notifications are the exception rather than the rule. This approach also prevents a common pitfall where users might miss important activity occurring in subdirectories because they forgot to explicitly enable recursion.

When you configure your notification so that it no longer includes subfolders, only activity on files located directly in the notification's folder generate mail messages.

Limit Types of Activity That Trigger a Notification

A notification only generates an email in response to specific file actions that are listed in the notification's settings. The file activities that generate an email notification are uploading, downloading, deleting, and copying or moving files into the target folder.

Unless you change the default actions in your notification, only uploading files will cause an email notification. This is the default setting for a new notification because uploading is the most typical activity that requires an action in response.

Any activity that matches the selected types will be included, regardless of the interface used. Previewing a text file is logged as a download, which triggers download notifications, even when the file isn't obviously saved to the previewer's device. Similarly, editing a file using an integrated online editor will both download the and upload the file as it moves between your storage and the editor system; this activity will trigger corresponding notifications.

Limit File Names That Generate a Notification

You can choose to limit the file names that will generate a notification. By default, any file name can trigger the email notification.

Activity from web visitors to Share Links is not included by default. You can choose to include this activity in the notification's settings. If your intent is explicitly to monitor that a Share Link was received, or that your recipient uploaded to a Share Link, there are separate notification options that can be enabled on your Share Link.

Custom Notification Message

Each email notification can include a custom message, which is included in the contents of each generated mail message.

This setting is helpful when you create multiple notifications across different folders for the same people. By adding a custom message specific to the folder, you lower the cognitive load for people who are reading the notification message. This makes acting upon the notification faster and easier by reducing the need for the user to remember the purpose of the notification or what next steps to take.

Include Activity from Share Link Visitors

Activity from web visitors to Share Links is not included by default. You can choose to include this activity in the notification's settings. Enabling this setting on your notification will only alert you that file activity happened, but it will not include any registration information.

Share Link Notifications are a separate feature designed to support the workflow around Share Links. If your intent is explicitly to monitor that a Share Link was received, or that your recipient uploaded to a Share Link, enable those notifications on your Share Link rather than creating an email notification.

User Option for Daily Email Notification Send Time

If a user has any notifications that are sent once per day, the Daily email notification send time user setting can select the hour when daily notifications will be sent. Site administrators can modify the Daily email notification send time value for a user in the user's settings. All users can change their own Daily email notification send time. The setting is only visible in the web interface for a user who has at least one notification configured to be sent once per day.

If a user has set any email notifications to deliver on a Daily basis, those emails will only be generated during the hour specified in their Daily Email Notification Send Time. If the notification that isn't being received is set to Daily delivery, check the send time for the user.

Show "Log In" Link in Email

Site administrators can choose whether notification emails should include a link to the login page with the Show "Log In" link in email setting.

By default, email notifications include a link for the user to access your site. This simplifies the workflow for users who need to immediately follow up when they receive a notification.

Administrators can create a notification that alerts a user to a folder they do not have permission to access. Doing this is helpful when staff are responsible for ensuring that a file exchange is happening but do not need to access the contents of the transferred files. When administrators create notifications for users who don't have access to the folder, the link includes the path the user can't access. This generates an error when those users click the link. Site Administrators can disable the Show "Log In" link in email setting to prevent these types of errors.