Introduction
Digest notifications group multiple notifications about the same type of event into one larger notification. For example, instead of receiving seven separate notifications about courses that are not yet completed, the user can receive one notification with a list of the courses that they have yet to complete.
This article covers the configuration aspects specific to digest notifications. For general instructions on creating and managing notifications see the main article Configuring notifications.
Available digest notifications for courses
The available digest notifications are listed in the Notification events and conditions article. They are as follows.
- Digest: Course has expired: This will give a list of the courses that are about to expire. You can choose to list courses whose expiration date is an exact number of days away (eg, courses expiring exactly one week from now) or courses set to expire within a specified future time frame (eg, courses expiring any time within the next three days)
- Digest: Learner has yet to complete a course: This will send out a separate digest for each learner. Each digest will contain a “snapshot” of the courses in which that learner is currently enrolled, and where their enrollment status is not yet Completed.
- Digest: Learner has yet to complete a course (admin only): This version of the preceding digest is instead intended only for Superadmins, Power Users, and Managers. It sends out a single digest listing all the courses not-yet completed by the targeted set of learners.
- Digest: User enrolled in a course: This digest lists the enrollments that have occurred within a specified time frame, eg in the past week, in the past month, and so on.
Please note that, in each case, the users and content included in the digest will depend on the trigger filters set for the notification.
Available digest notifications for social learning
For the functionality pertaining to discover, coach and share (social learning), the following digest notifications are also available.
- Digest: Assets marked as outdated
- Digest: Courses marked as outdated
- Digest: New content in followed channels
Message composition for digest notifications
Digest notifications are configured similarly to other notifications. See the article Configuring notifications > Compose the notification message. When you compose the message body, the shortcode for items being listed in the digest must be placed between {{#items}} and {{/items}} tags. For example, for the Digest: User enrolled in a course:
|
Hello {{first_name}}, You have been enrolled in the following courses: {{#items}} {{course_name}} on {{subscribed_at}}. This course expires on {{expire_at}} and can be accessed here: {{course_link}} {{/items}} Enjoy! |
Please note: The courses in the digest will be listed in order of course creation.
Syntax tip: Remember that the {{#items}} and {{/items}} tags are always used in pairs–the first is an opening tag and the second is a closing tag. You must enclose between them all the shortcodes for those items that you want to enumerate. The system will automatically populate and repeat them for each item included in the list.
In addition, only for the Digest: New content in followed channels notification, there are {{#channels}} and {{/channels}} tags that are similarly used in pairs. These tags are used to enumerate the relevant channels, and in their turn must enclose {{#items}} and {{/items}} tags to list the relevant content for each channel. For more details see the article Notification events and conditions > Digest: New content in followed channels.
Scheduling digest notifications
Digest notifications are scheduled differently from other notifications. Instead of scheduling based on the time of an event, you just configure the frequency at which you want the digest to be sent out:
(hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly). Some digests can also be sent out manually.
Every option
To schedule the periodic sending of a digest, in the notification’s Properties > Details and timing > Scheduler area, select the Every option. Then set the hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly frequency for when the digest is sent out.
- Every hour: The digest will be sent once an hour.
- Every day: The digest will be sent once a day. You can specify the time of day and time zone.
- Every week: The digest will be sent once a week. You can set the day of the week (eg, Wednesday) and the time of day and time zone.
- Every month: The digest will be sent once a month. You can set the day of the month (eg, the 10th), and the time of day and time zone.
Note that if you set the 31st, on months with fewer days the notification will still be sent on the last day of the month.
Tip: forward-looking, backward-looking, and snapshot digests
The scheduling of a digest notification (weekly, monthly, daily, etc) has different effects depending on which type of digest you are sending.
Remember that:
- Digest: Learner has yet to complete a course provides a periodic “snapshot” of the situation, as it is when the notification is sent out.
- Digest: User enrolled in a course has a backward-looking time frame. For example, if sent weekly, it will list the enrollments that occurred in the past week.
- Digest: Course has expired is forward-looking. It will list the courses set to expire a specified amount of time in the future.
Manually option
With the Manually option, the digest notification can be sent out manually, and will not be scheduled automatically.
Extra settings
In addition to the standard notification settings, the following digest notifications include the Extra settings tab that allows for more granular control.
Digest: Course has expired
For the Digest: Course has expired notification only, the Extra settings tab lets you specify which courses to include in the digest based on their upcoming expiration dates.
Please note that the frequency for sending the digest is still that set in the Properties tab, with the Every option.
You can choose to include:
- Courses expiring on the date of the next scheduled digest: For example, if the digest is sent weekly, it will list all the courses expiring in a 24-hour period that is exactly one week away. So if sent on a Monday it will list only the courses expiring next Monday.
- Courses expiring within a time frame after the notification is sent: The digest will list the courses expiring within the specified number of days. (eg with 3 the digest will list all the courses expiring in 1, 2 or 3 days).
- Courses expiring an exact number of days after the notification is sent:The digest will list the courses whose expiration is an exact number of days aways (eg with 3 the digest will list all courses that expire in exactly 3 days).
Configuration tip for Digest: Course has expired: To ensure that no expiring courses are skipped in between digests:
- Select the option Courses expiring within a time frame after the notification is sent, and set a number of days equal to the frequency of the digest. For example, for a weekly digest set 7 days.
In this way, each digest will include all the courses expiring up until the next scheduled digest.
Both of the other options will list courses expiring within a 24-hour time window a specified amount of time in the future. So to avoid skipping expiring courses, the frequency must be at least daily.
→ For example, a weekly digest sent out on a Monday (with exact days option set to 1 day) will always list the courses expiring the next day, ie on Tuesday. Courses expiring on other days will not be included in any occurrence of the digest. But if the same digest is sent out daily, on each day, it will list the courses expiring the next day.
Digest: Learner has yet to complete a course
In the Digest: Learner has yet to complete a course notification, the Extra settings tab allows you to define whether the notification should include all incomplete courses, regardless of the learner’s enrollment validity, or only those where the learner’s enrollment has expired.
If you choose to include only courses with expired enrollments, the notification lists courses by expiration date in ascending order (from oldest to most recent) to make it easier to identify and prioritize the most urgent content to complete.
Tip: Limiting the number of courses listed in the notification reduces noise and helps learners focus on the most urgent courses to complete.