Disclaimer: This article outlines how to use the new notification service, which will be publicly released to all clients at the beginning of 2025. For information about the rollout schedule see the community post: New notification service rollout: Gradual release plan | Community.
→ If you see differences between this article and your platform, please refer to the article on Legacy notifications. 
Learn more about the release cycle.

Introduction

Shortcodes are tags such as {{course_name}} or {{first_name}} that you can include in the text of a notification. These tags are replaced with the relevant data when a notification message is sent out. 

This article provides additional information about the use of shortcodes in notifications. For complete instructions on how to configure a notification see the main article: Configuring notifications.  

Shortcodes can be inserted when you compose the message text of a notification. The shortcodes available depend on the notification event type, and the article Notification events and conditions lists the shortcodes available for each event type. 

Tip: With the transition to the new notification service, the base URL of links in your notifications will always correspond to the domain of each notification recipient. For more information see the chapter Shortcode links and extended enterprise domains.

Shortcodes and clickable links

Shortcodes referencing links, such as {{course_link}}, will not actually create clickable links in the notifications. Rather, they only contain the URL in text format without HTML tags.

If you want to create an active link, you have two options: 

• Use the Insert/edit link toolbar button and paste the shortcode (for example, {{course_link}}) in the URL field.
• Use the Source code button in the toolbar and directly insert the HTML tag, using the shortcode as the href attribute. For example, <a href="{{course_link}}">My Course</a>

→ Note for extended enterprise platforms: Refer to Shortcode links and extended enterprise domains to ensure that the domain in the shortcode URL (https:/www.domain.xxx/path_url_platform ) corresponds to the domain of the recipient user.

Shortcode links to courses or sessions

When using shortcodes involving links to specific courses or sessions, please note that these do not work in the same way as deep links, meaning that the user will receive an error when clicking on the link without being enrolled in the course.

When you include the {{course_link}} shortcode in notifications, users clicking on the link will land on a different page, depending on their user level and on whether they are logged in to the platform:

• If the user clicking on the link is either Superadmin or a Power User (having full permissions on the linked course):
  - If logged in to the platform, they will land on the course management page.
  - If NOT logged in, they will land on the course page in learner view.
• If the user level is User, they will always land on the course page in learner view, irrespective of whether they are logged in or not.

Shortcodes with dates and times

• When including the {{expire_at}} shortcode in notifications, remember that the time expressed in the notification received by the user is expressed in the user's timezone.
• {{session_dates}}:
  When a user enrolls in an ILT course session they are automatically enrolled in all the events of that session. The session dates are the dates on which those session events are scheduled to take place.
  →the {{session_dates}} shortcode is populated with all the session’s dates, even when some or all of them are in the past.

Shortcodes with login credentials

Some notifications, such as User has been created, can include a {{user_password}} shortcode. A typical use case is to communicate login instructions to users, ie  the platform link and credentials to be used (username and password).

In the notification, the {{user_password}} shortcode is always replaced by a “Reset your password” link. Upon clicking this link, the user is prompted to enter their email address, so that they can receive another reset link to finally create their password. 

This two-step workflow enables an administrator to create users (either with or without an initial password, depending on the mechanism used to create them) and then through the notification have the users themselves create or change their passwords.

Shortcode links and extended enterprise domains

For extended enterprise platforms, when using shortcodes such as {{course_link}} in a notification, the base URL of the link needs to match the recipient’s domain. 

→ For example, a user who accesses the platform at https:/<branch1_domain>, needs to receive a course link with that same base URL https:/<branch1_domain>/path_to_course.

However, in a situation where a user belongs to more than one extended enterprise client (possible in platforms with nested branches, or platforms that allow users to be placed in more than one branch), notifications may not always use the expected base URL. See the chapter Shortcode links and nested extended enterprise branches.

Shortcode links and nested extended enterprise branches

If you have an extended enterprise domain associated with a parent branch and another domain associated with a child branch, please note that users of the child branch may receive notifications that use the base URL of the parent domain. However, they will still be able to access the linked resource. 

For example, with the following configuration:

A user who belongs to the Sales branch would expect to receive notifications containing links that use  the base URL of their domain (academy70.docebosaas.com/paperoga)
However, since such a user also implicitly belongs to the Marketing branch (parent of Sales), they may instead receive links that use the other base URL   (academy70.docebosaas.com/academy)

→  In such a parent/child scenario it is not guaranteed that the shortcode links will have the expected base URL, although even with the “parent” URL, the resources will still be accessible to the user.