Configuring notifications

Introduction

The Notifications feature lets you configure automated messages that will be sent out when a specified event occurs in the platform. This article covers in detail how to configure and manage notifications on your platform.

Overview of notifications

When you configure a notification, you have to set up:

• Event type: The type of platform event that triggers sending of the message. For example, User enrolled in a course.
• Recipients: The intended recipients of the message. These are defined in terms of their relationship to the event. For example, you might want to send a User enrolled in a course notification to the learner who has been enrolled, or to the Instructor of the affected course.
• Delivery channel: The method by which the message will be sent. For example, email, or in-platform notification.
• Message: The actual text of the message to be sent. You will generally want to tailor this to the chosen event type, as well as to the intended recipients.
• Timing: Depending on the type of event, you may have some options for scheduling when the message goes out. For example, immediately at the time of the event, or a certain number of days after the event.
• Trigger filters: You can optionally apply filters to narrow down the cases when the notification is sent. For example, you might want to create a User enrolled in a course notification that goes out only for a subset of courses, or only when a particular subset of users enroll in a course.

The article Notification events and conditions provides a full list of the platform events for which you can configure a notification. For each event type, it also shows you the recipient groups to whom you can direct the notification, and the possible scheduling options.

Prerequisites

Notifications app

The Notifications app must be activated on your platform, as described in the Managing apps and features article. The app is listed in the Docebo additional features vertical tab, which is accessible via the Manage add-ons and integrations item from the Add-ons and integrations (jigsaw icon) in the Navigation menu.

Permissions

Power Users must be assigned the relevant notification permissions to be able to view and manage notifications. They will only have visibility on the notifications pertaining to their assigned resources (groups, branches, courses and learning plans).

Docebosuite domains

For the notification management page to load correctly, your firewall or network infrastructure must not be blocking the *.docebosuite.com domains. Check with your IT department to ensure that *.docebosuite.com domains are placed on the allow list.

View the notification list

Select Navigation menu > Configuration (spanner icon) > Automation > Notifications. Here, the Notifications tab shows the list of already-configured notifications.

For each notification, you can see its Event type and icons representing the configured delivery channels, as well as its Status. Only Active notifications can be sent out. Some notifications have a Play (triangle) icon that can be used to manually trigger its sending. You can apply filters or use the search field to help you find a particular notification.

The available filters are:

• Event category
• Event type
• Attribution (only for Community notifications)
• Status (Active, Inactive, or both).

To see more details about a notification’s configuration, you need to either click its name or select ellipsis menu > Edit.

Tip: In this list, Power Users will only be able to see the notifications pertaining to their assigned resources. This means that any groups, branches or courses/learning plans set as trigger filters for aa notification must also be assigned to the Power User as resource. Otherwise, the notification will not be visible.

The Logs tab lets you check on which notifications have been recently sent out, either automatically or manually. Refer to the chapter, check the notification logs.

Create a new notification

To create a new notification, select Navigation menu > Configuration (spanner icon)> Automation > Notifications and click the + icon in the top right corner.

Next, in the Create notification panel that opens, define the platform Event for which you want to configure this notification: first select the Event category (for example, Courses), and then select the specific Event type within that category (for example, ILT event starting).

Give the notification a descriptive Name, that will help you easily identify it in the list and logs.

Tip: By default, this field is prefilled with the Event type, but remember that you may have multiple notifications for the same Event type (for example, targeting different recipients or different subsets of courses). It is therefore useful to provide a distinctive name.

When you are ready, press Create and edit to continue the configuration.

Please note: When you do this the selected event becomes read-only. You cannot later edit a notification to change its event, however, all other aspects of its configuration can be subsequently changed.

Continue as described in the chapter Configure a notification.

Configure a notification

To begin configuring a new notification first complete the steps in the chapter Create a new notification.

To access the configuration page for an existing notification, select Navigation menu > Configuration (spanner icon) > Automation > Notifications and click the notification’s Name.

On the configuration page for the notification, you will see three tabs: Properties, Recipients, and Trigger filters. Here you can configure all the settings of the notification, apart from its event which is read-only.

Proceed as follows:

• Recipients tab: Set to whom the notification is addressed. See the chapter Set the recipients of a notification.
• Properties tab > Composition: Here you can set one or more delivery channels and compose the text of the message that will be sent. See the chapter Compose the message
• Properties tab > Details and timing: Here if desired you can edit the Name of the notification. Remember that the notification event is read-only. Then in the Scheduler area configure the timing of when the notification is sent. See the chapter Schedule a notification.
• Triggers and filters tab: Here you can set which resources (user groups/branches, courses and learning plans) will trigger the notification. See the chapter Set trigger filters for a notification.

At any point, you can always click Save changes to save your partial configuration.

Set the recipients of a notification

On the configuration page for a notification, select the Recipients tab.

Here you can select what users "roles" will receive the notification, based on their relationship to the notification event. The options can include: Users, Power Users, Managers, Instructors, Superadmins.

For example, you can configure a Certification has expired notification addressed directly to the affected users, or addressed to the Managers of those users.

• When you create a new notification, the first valid recipient role is selected by default. But you can change this and choose a different role out of those available. 
• The roles available for selection depend on the event type. The article Notification events and conditions details which recipients are allowed for each notification event. Some notification events may not require setting a recipient role.

• Note that you cannot select multiple recipient roles. To do this you will need to configure two separate notifications, with the same event type but with different recipients.

  Tip: When doing so, remember that some recipient roles may overlap. For example, the same person might be both a Power User and Manager, and so would receive notifications addressed to both roles.

Notification recipient behavior for courses and learning plans

When Instructors, Power Users, Managers, or Superadmins are enrolled in courses or learning plans, the system treats them as learners for notification purposes. 
This means they will receive notifications targeting enrolled learners, addressed to the “Users” recipient type.

Compose the notification message

On the configuration page for a notification, select Properties tab > Composition.

Under Composition you will see one or more headings, corresponding to the delivery channels enabled on your platform. These may include: Email, Platform notification, mobile push notification.

You must set up at least one delivery channel to be able to activate the notification. 

Email notification

For an email notification, select Properties tab > Composition > Email. Then in the panel on the right select the check box Enable email as delivery channel.

In the Sender area, you will need to provide a sender name and email address.

Please note: The email address you enter for the sender, for example, noreply@mydomain.com must have been previously configured in Domain management. See the article configuring email sender domains.

Then in the Message area you can compose the content of your notification. You will need to enter the Subject and Body of your message. For instructions see the article Customizing the notification message.

In-platform notification

Platform notifications are delivered to users within the Notifications area of the platform (bell icon on the header bar).

To configure this delivery channel, select Properties tab > Composition > Platform notification, and in the panel on the right, select the check box Enable platform notification as delivery channel.

Then in the Message area you can compose the content of your notification. You will need to enter the Subject and Body of your message. For instructions see the article Customizing the notification message. 

In-platform notifications are retained for about approximately 90 days; after that, they’re automatically removed from the Notifications area and can’t be recovered or extended beyond this retention period.

Slack notification

Please note: The integration Docebo for Slack is incompatible with the new Docebo platform notifications system. Please migrate to the Docebo for Slack version 2 integration in order to use the most current notification system.

Slack notifications are delivered to users within a specified Slack channel.

To configure this delivery channel, select Properties tab > Composition > Slack, and in the panel on the right, select the check box Enable Slack as delivery channel.

Next, choose if you wish to send a direct message to each recipient or if you want the message to be sent to one or more Slack channels. If you choose to deliver to Slack channels, select the Slack channels radio button and in the text field, add up to ten channels that you would like the message to be sent to.

Please note: Slack's API rate limits message deliveries to a specific user or a channel to a maximum of one message per second. Excess messages are placed in a queue and delivered sequentially. Any message remaining in the queue after 7 days due to this limit, will be deleted.

Then, in the Message area, you can compose the content of your notification. You will need to enter the Subject and Body of your message.

Tip: Unlike other notifications within Docebo, Slack messages do not support html formatting. You can use markup to add formatting to your text. Docebo for Slack supports bold, italics, strikethrough and code. For more information, please see Format your messages (opens in a new tab).

For more information about using Slack for notifications, please see Docebo for Slack version 2.

Mobile push notification

Mobile push notifications are delivered to users of the Go.learn mobile app or of the branded mobile app, provided they have enabled this on their device. 

Please note that the mobile push delivery channel is available only for a subset of event types. You will see the Mobile push notification option only for the following, supported event types:

Course:

• User approval
• User approved into ILT session
• User enrolled in ILT session
• User enrolled in a course
• ILT session starting
• Learner completed a course
• ILT event starting
• ILT session changed
• ILT session deleted
• Learner has yet to complete a course
• Assignment has been evaluated
• Instructor evaluated a test question
• New ILT session created
• User was declined from an ILT session

Learning plans:

• User has been enrolled in a learning plan
• Learner has completed a learning plan
• Learning plan enrollment expiring
• New content in learning plan
• User was unenrolled from a learning plan

To configure the mobile push delivery channel, select Properties tab > Composition > Mobile push notification, and in the panel on the right select the check box Enable mobile push notification as delivery channel.

Now you can enter a Title (maximum 50 characters) and a plain text Message (maximum 150 characters).

• You can include shortcodes only in the message text. Please consider that the text must remain within 150 characters even after the shortcodes are replaced by their values. Otherwise any excess text will be trimmed in the notification that users receive.

The App URL section at the bottom shows the mobile app link that the notification will open. This field is read-only and is automatically filled based on the event type.

As for the other notification channels, you can enable the Translate fields option to enter the mobile push notification message in other languages.

Schedule a notification

Notes about scheduling notifications:

• It is not possible to resend scheduled notifications.
• Scheduled notifications are sent periodically and are not triggered at the time of the event. These notifications leverage a job that is executed on a scheduled basis (the frequency is dependent on the notification’s configuration).

On the configuration page for a notification, select the Properties tab > Details and timing. In the Scheduler area you will see the available timing options for your chosen notification event.

• The timing options for each event type are listed in the article Notification events and conditions.

Depending on the event type, there may be only one fixed scheduling option, or you may be offered a choice between two or more of the following:

• At the time of the event
• Before the event
• After the event
• Manually
• Every

For many of the scheduling options you can set the exact Time of day when you want the notification to be sent, and also specify the relevant Time zone.

At the time of the event

The notification will be sent to recipients as soon as the triggering action has been completed in the platform. For example, in the case of the User bought a course event, with this setting the notification will be sent out as soon as the user completes the purchase.

Please note: In some cases, the "at the time" notification may be delayed somewhat with respect to the event. For example, the system monitors checklists for updates every three hours, so that a checklist notification could be delayed up to three hours from the actual event.

Before the event

This option is available for events due to occur at a known time. The notification will be sent to recipients a certain amount of time before the event, for example, before a webinar or ILT session begins.

• You can set how many hours, days, weeks or months in advance the notification will be sent.
• If you set days, weeks or months you can also schedule the time of day when you want the notification to be sent, and specify the relevant time zone.

Hours before the event

The scheduler will send the notification the specified number of hours before the event, also taking minutes into account. For example, suppose an ILT session is due to begin at 10:25am:

• If you set the notification for two hours before the event it will be sent at 8.25am.

Days before the event

For days before the event, each day at the scheduled time the system will look for events occurring within a 24-hour time span that is the specified number of days away.

• For example, if you set 2 days before the event the time span is between 48 and 72 hours in the future.
• The lower limit is inclusive and the upper limit is exclusive. So in this example:
  48hrs =< time to the event < 72hrs
• The hours to the event are counted from the time you set for sending the notification.

24hrs =< time to the event < 48hrs

Weeks before the event

For weeks before the event, the logic is the same as for days before:

number of days = number of weeks * 7

For example, for one week before the event, every day at the scheduled time the system will look for events in the 24-hour time span between 7 days (168 hrs) and 8 days (182 hrs) in the future. 

Tip: The notification will not necessarily be sent on the same day of the week as the event. For example, if the event is on Wednesday at 10am and you set a notification for 1 week before at 9am, then the notification will be sent on the preceding Wednesday. If you set the notification for 11am, it will be sent one day sooner, on the Tuesday.

Months before the event

For months before the event, every day at the scheduled time the system will look for events in a 24-hour time span that is the specified number of months in the future. 

Example: There is a notification scheduled for one month before the event, at 9am. Every day at the scheduled time the system looks at the current date (for example, March 2nd, 9am) and increments the month by one (for example, April 2nd, 9am): Then it looks for events in the 24-hour time span between April 2nd, 9am and April 3rd, 8:59:59am.

Please note: On March 31st, to increment the month by one the system will take April 30th (the last day of that month), and will therefore look for events in the same time span that it considered on March 30th. As a result, in case of events occurring in the final days of the month, the notification may be sent out on two consecutive days.

After the event

The notification will be sent to recipients a certain amount of time after the event or action is completed, for example, after a learner has completed a course.

You can set how many hours, days, weeks or months after the event the notification will be sent. If you set days, weeks or months you can also set the time of day (and time zone) when you want it to be sent.

Hours after the event

If you use the hours option the notification will be delayed for the exact number of hours that you specify from the event, taking also minutes into account.

Days after the event

Note that, for days after the event, the delay is computed as follows:

• Move forward the specified number of days (24-hour periods) from the date and time of the event.
• Then send the notification out at the first next occurrence of the scheduled time you set in the time field.

Weeks after the event

The option weeks after the event follows a similar logic to days after the event. From the date and time of the event, the scheduler moves forward by a delay = (number of weeks) * (7days/week) * (24 hrs/day). And then sends the notification at the first next occurrence of the scheduled time.

Tip: The notification will not necessarily be sent on the same day of the week as the event. For example if the event is on Monday at 11am and you set a notification for 1 week after at 9am, then the notification will be sent on the Tuesday of the following week. This extra day occurs if the notification time is earlier than the time of the event.

Months after the event

In the case of months after the event, the scheduler moves forward the specified number of months and then sends the notification at the first next occurrence of the scheduled time.

As mentioned for days and weeks after the event, the notification will go out an “extra” day later if the notification time is earlier than the event time.

Manually

Some notifications can be set to be sent Manually. This means they are never sent automatically by the scheduler. They can instead be manually triggered by clicking the “play” icon in the notification list.

Every

This is an option available for digest notifications, and allows the notification to be sent on a repetitive basis: hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly. 

For more information see the article on Digest notifications.

Set trigger filters for a notification

Trigger filters allow you to specify for which users and for which content the notification should go out.

Example: you might want to send a Learner has completed a course notification only when learners of a specific branch complete a course. Or you might want to send it only for certain courses.

Notifications can have two main types of trigger filters:

• One for selecting users (groups and/or branches)
• Another for selecting content (courses and learning plans)

Depending on the notification event, there may be only one type of trigger filter available. For example, not all notifications are related to content, in that case there will be only the user type trigger filters. A few notifications have no trigger filters at all.

Check the trigger filters

On the configuration page for a notification, select the Trigger filters tab. Here you can check any already-configured trigger filters, using the vertical navigation under Trigger type. 

Users

This part shows the user groups and/or user branches that can trigger this notification. If multiple groups or branches are set the logic between them is OR, meaning it is enough for a user to belong to at least one of them.

• When no groups or branches are set it means the notification will not be triggered by any user, and so will never be sent out
• Notifications with the option All users set as trigger can be configured only by Superadmins and are not visible to Power Users

Please note: An exception to this OR logic is the User subscribed to a group notification.

Courses and learning plans

This part shows the content that can trigger this notification. It is present only for notifications pertaining to courses or learning plans.

• When no courses or learning plans are set it means the notification will not be triggered for any content.
• Notifications with the option All courses and learning plans set as trigger can be configured only by Superadmins and are not visible to Power Users.

Add a trigger filter

To add a trigger filter press the + icon in the top right corner. Next, in the Add trigger filters panel select the type of trigger filter to apply (Users or Courses and learning plans) and press Next.

Only for Superadmins, in the next step, choose whether you want:

• The All option: In this case the notification will be triggered for all resources of the selected type (All users, or All courses and learning plans). Then press Confirm. At this point, the configuration of the trigger is complete.
• The Custom selection option: In this case when you press Next you will be able to select which specific resources should trigger the notification as described in the next step.

Make the custom selection according to the resource type you have selected:

• Users: In the Groups tab, select the check box alongside the user groups that should trigger the notification. In the Branches tab, select the check box alongside each of the user branches that should trigger the notification. Click the check box again to include or exclude descendants.
• Courses and learning plans: Select the check box alongside each course or learning plan that should trigger the notification.

If you are a Power User you will only be able to see here the groups, branches, or courses and learning plans that are assigned to you as resource.

Power User visibility of notifications based on trigger filters

As a general rule, Power Users will see listed only the notifications whose trigger filters match their own resource assignments. This means that:

• The resources set as trigger filters for the notification (groups, branches, courses and learning plans) must all be assigned to the Power User as resource.
• The recipient roles set for a notification do not affect its visibility to Power Users.
• If a notification has no user filters, the Power User needs to be assigned all branches (root branch and descendants) to see it. If the notification has no content filters, the Power User needs to be assigned all courses and learning plans to see it.

Please note: If a notification has groups or branches set as triggers, the Power User must be assigned the same groups and branches. It is not enough to have assigned all the individual users who belong to those groups and branches.

The above visibility rules always apply to notifications created by others (Superadmin or another Power User). However there are some exceptions for self-created notifications.

Visibility of notifications created by self

In the list, Power Users can always see the notifications which they themselves have created, including those with no user or no content filters.

However, if one of these notifications is later edited by someone else to target a resource not assigned to the Power User, then that notification will appear read-only in the list.

Activate a notification

On the Notification list page, the Status column shows whether each notification is activated or deactivated.

To activate (or deactivate) a notification, click the <notification name> to open its configuration page, then use the button in the bottom right hand side to switch the status between Active and Inactive.

Important notes:

• To be able to activate a notification, it must have at least one delivery channel set.
• Although you can activate a notification that has no trigger filters applied, remember that such a notification will target no users and no content, and so will never be sent out.

Editing notifications

• It is strongly recommended to deactivate a notification before you edit its configuration.
• Every notification’s modification will trigger a scheduled job deletion and recreation.

Community notifications

The Notification management page also shows any available Community notifications. These types of notifications are not created manually like the others. Instead, they are enabled as a set, for a given community, from the Community management area.

To do this select Navigation menu > Configuration (spanner icon) > Additional packages > Communities hub. This will open the Community management page, listing all the communities configured on the platform.

Next, press the name of a community to open its configuration page. Then in the Settings tab scroll down to the Notifications section. Here you can press Create community notifications to automatically create the set of preconfigured notifications for this particular community. If this action is not available it means it has been done previously, and those notifications already exist.

On the Notification management page, you can find the set of automatically created Community notifications by filtering for Event category = Communities and Attribution = <name of the community>.

Unlike other notifications, Community notifications have only a Properties tab. You can activate/deactivate them and edit the message composition. However you cannot delete or duplicate these notifications. 

For more information see the article Community notifications. 

Monitoring notification delivery status

Docebo tracks the delivery status of every notification sent through your platform, whether you use Docebo's internal SMTP server or a custom SMTP configuration. This comprehensive logging allows you to verify successful delivery, identify failed attempts, and take corrective action as needed.

Viewing the notification delivery log

Once a notification has been sent, its delivery information appears in the logs panel. Access the delivery log as follows:

Select Navigation menu > Configuration (spanner icon) > Automation > Notifications. Next, click the name of the notification you want to monitor. In the notification configuration page, select the Logs tab.

The Logs tab displays a table of all delivery attempts for that notification. By default, the table shows:

• Recipient: The user or email address that received the notification
• Status: The delivery status (Queued, Delivered or Failed)
• Sent date: When the notification was sent
• Message ID: The unique identifier assigned to the message (appears when delivery succeeds)
• More information: Error messages or details explaining why a delivery failed

Please note: 

• When using a custom SMTP server, delivery confirmation may take several seconds. If Docebo does not receive a response within 15 seconds, the status displays as Failed and the system doesn’t retry to send the notification.
• A Delivered status means the notification was successfully handed over to the external delivery service. Beyond this point, our system has no visibility into the final delivery to the user. 

Filtering notification delivery status

You can filter delivery logs by status to focus on specific outcomes. For example, filter for Failed status to see all notifications that did not reach their intended recipients. Use the Status filter in the Logs panel to narrow your results.

Tip: The date range you set cannot exceed 14 days and it cannot be more than 3 months in the past.

Delivery status values and meanings

Troubleshooting delivery failures

If you observe a high rate of failed notifications, review the error messages in the More information column. Common causes include:

• Incorrect recipient email addresses
• Issues with your custom SMTP server configuration
• Server connectivity or authentication problems

Tip: Use the Status filter to isolate failed notifications, then examine the error messages in the More information column. This helps you identify patterns and address the root cause quickly.

Export the notification log

From the Logs tab, you can export the notification log as a file for auditing, troubleshooting and reporting purposes. Logs are retained for 90 days with a maximum filtered range of 14 days at a time. To start an export, click the Export icon in the bottom-right corner of the screen. When you click Export, the system generates the file in the background. Once the file is ready, it downloads automatically to your device. A notification appears on screen to confirm the export has started.

Please note:

• Only Superadmins can access the export functionality.
• The export generates asynchronously in the background. You can navigate away from the Logs tab while the file is being prepared. The download will begin automatically once generation is complete.

The exported file contains the following columns in this order:

Please note: The file is encoded in UTF-8 to support special characters in user names and event titles.

Tips for notifications

• 4-byte Unicode characters: 4-byte Unicode characters are not supported by the platform when creating or editing a notification.
• Long notifications: Notifications have a character limit of 65535 characters. Any notification that is generated that exceeds this limitation will not be displayed correctly. Please note that this character limit is a limit of the number of characters received by the notification system. As such, content which is not displayed, such as HTML code and converted shortcodes, are also counted towards this limitation.
• Resend the welcome notification: If you want to resend the welcome notification, first of all check that you have an active notification configured for the event "User has been created (by administrator)". Then select Navigation menu > People (people icon) > Users. On the Users main page, select all the relevant users, click the Choose action button at the bottom of the page and select Send activation notification.
• Enrolling users into unpublished courses: When enrolling users into courses that are not yet published, decide on whether to send notifications for those enrollments ahead of time and be sure to turn off any notifications for enrollment prior to enrolling users. Once done with enrollment, you can re-activate the notifications. This can occur when you need to enroll users into unpublished courses to keep an enrollment history.
• ICS files: ICS files, opened with Outlook, will open in a new calendar and not in the default calendar.