Send alert e-mails to task assignees when they have overdue tasks

If you are a Project Manager, you may find that managing projects in SharePoint is great - if you could just get your team members to update their task status. They remember to complete the work; it's just updating the task in SharePoint that is often forgotten. Sending them an e-mail when they have an overdue task, will go a long way to get them to update their tasks. Including a link to the task item in the body of the email makes it even easier for them. Follow these simple steps to set up an alert on overdue tasks that does just that.

To create a new alert, click New Item in the Alert Plus Web Part interface. Refer to the sections below to configure information on each of the tabs of the interface.

On the Event tab specify the items that generate the alert and how often the alert emails are sent.

1. Which List contains the items to alert on? Select your Tasks list. If your Tasks list is on a different site than your Alert Plus Web Part, check the box labeled Select another... to specify another site where you will choose the Tasks from.
2. What triggers the alert? Select An item exists for sending reminder alerts.
3. How often are emails sent? Some project managers want to send these emails As Soon As Possible but others would rather send a summary email message Every Day. Select the option you prefer. If you want a summary email, don't forget to check the Combine multiple alerts into summary notification checkbox.
4. Which items in the List generate an alert? For this alert, we only want to send an email if the task item's Date Due is in the past AND the task Status is not equal to Completed. In other words, the task is overdue. There are two ways to configure this: use a list view or use a CAML query:
   • Choose Items in a List View. Use this option if you have an existing view that filters your Tasks list so only items where Date Due < [Today] AND Status <> Completed. When you select the radio button, a list of the existing views for the selected list appears. Choose the view you want.
   • Choose Some Items (Advanced). Use this option to have a bit more flexibility in describing the items that generate the alert. You can either use the Criteria Builder or write your own CAML query. The CAML that you need for this alert is:

<Query>
<Where>
    <And>
        <Lt>
          <FieldRef Name="DueDate" />
          <Value Type="DateTime"><Today /></Value>
        </Lt>
        <Neq>
          <FieldRef Name="Status" /><Value Type="Choice">Completed</Value>
        </Neq>
    </And>
</Where>
</Query>

On the Recipient(s) tab specify who will receive the alert emails.

1. Who should the alert e-mails be sent to? Select Lookup an E-mail Address in the Alert List.
2. Which user lookup column in the Alert List should be used to find the recipient? Select  Assigned To, or the column that specifies the user who is assigned to complete the task.
3. Where are the e-mail addresses to lookup stored? Since the Assigned To column has just a person's name, you need to tell the Alert Plus where to find the e-mail address. Select in SharePoint User Profiles.

On the Mail Format tab compose the e-mail message. You can use tokens that will be replaced with information from the alert item at runtime.

1. Subject. Enter the text you want to appear in the Subject line of your e-mail message. If you want to include the task title in the subject include the token {Title}. Be careful, tokens are case sensitive, if you use {title} instead of {Title}, you won't see your task title in the message.
2. Message. Enter the text you want to appear in the body of your e-mail message. If you want a hyperlink to the task item in the message so the task assignee can easily get to the item and update its status, include the token {itemlink}.

 

On the Admin Options tab there is one option to consider. Often, you don't have to worry about the things on this tab, but when you use the An item exists trigger; you will want to set the E-mail Follow-up Wait Days. Set it to 1, and your task assignees will receive an e-mail message about an overdue task every day until its Status is changed to Completed. Set it to 3, and the task assignee will receive an e-mail every 3 days until the task is marked completed.