There are 4 factors to look at.

1) How have you configured Workflow? In the screen

Administration -> Advanced Customisation -> Workflow & Escalation Configuration

Are you using the Escalation service? e.g. Use Escalation Service:Yes

2) If so is it running?

If the escalation service is not running then escalations will only happen when someone (anyone) is logged on into the system. (Same as if you are not using the escalation service).

3) Are you using Escalation engine tuned for: Immediate delivery or System Performance?

With Immediate delivery when an insert or an update occurs then the escalation rules are checked. This obviously places a load on the system. System performance setting then uses the Notify Interval to decide when the rules are checked.

4) Individual rules can have a setting associated with them called 'interval' which changes the interval at which those rules are checked.

Josh

Well......actually......notifications are exactly the same as escalation rules. The rules are all stored in the workflowrules table and are all of type 'Time'.

The feature Notification simple provides a simpler user interface for the definition of the escalation rule.

So they are still governed by all the escalation behaviour.

The only one of my 4 points not relevant for Notifications is point 4 as the simple screen does not give you access to define the 'Interval' for the notification.

Notifications use the same mechanism as escalation rules so they should not be any more or less flakey than escalations rules.

All that the escalation service should do is provide a mechanism for 24/7 checking of rules. This isn't relevant for on-screen notifications as the users needs to be logged on for the message to be displayed on the screen. But if you notification rules send out emails then you may want the escalation service to run - although the rules tend to be too simple to require that.

Escalation rules are not very difficult to create. You can find several articles that give you examples.

Jeff,

I am using notifications not workflow and escalation. Notifications are Administartion >> customisation >> cases >> notifications. escalations service has to be off for this to work.

The escalations workflow is separate and different.

Josh

Jeff,

thanks. Do you think then that i need to re-instate escalation service to be on, and use workflow and escalation rules rather than notifications? Are you also saying that notifications are only activated when the user is logged into the crm ?

I did read a post by Toby that the notifications can be a it flakey and unreliable.

It just seems a bit more in depth and complicated to set these rules up? although i have not looked for some time.

Thanks again.

Josh

I still stand by that they are flaky I just did one as a test to satisfy I am happy saying they are flaky, and here is what I find...

Run a trace and I can see my rule is picked up with the following:

select * from vNotificationCases WITH (NOLOCK) WHERE ( case_three = 111) AND ((Escl_EscalationId is NULL ) OR (Escl_WorkflowRuleId is null ) OR (Escl_WorkflowRuleId <> 13183 ) OR ((Escl_WorkFlowRuleId = 13183 ) AND Escl_Datetime < '20150909 11:07:39' )) ORDER BY Case_CaseId

Looking at vNotificationCases, it has the following:

SELECT Cases.*, vPersonPE.*, vCompanyPE.*, Users.*, Escalations.*
FROM Users
INNER JOIN Cases ON Case_AssignedUserID = User_UserId AND Case_Deleted IS NULL
LEFT JOIN vPersonPE ON Case_PrimaryPersonId = Pers_PersonId AND Pers_Deleted IS NULL
LEFT JOIN vCompanyPE ON Case_PrimaryCompanyId = Comp_CompanyId AND Comp_Deleted IS NULL
LEFT JOIN Escalations ON Case_CaseId = Escl_RecordID AND Escl_TableId = 3 AND Escl_Type IS NULL AND Escl_Deleted IS NULL
WHERE User_Deleted IS NULL

The important thing to note here is, the primary table in the view is Users, with an INNER JOIN to the cases on the case_assigneduserid. So the notification will only work IF the case has an assigned user. Now, of course, you could argue, why would you have a case that was not assigned? But, what if the case was managed by a team rather than an individual? Legitimate case, you could argue, and nowhere in creating the notification, does it tell you that this is the case, which could cause a fair but of annoyance to the users creating them.

Escalation rules are so much easier to manage, and they give full control over to whomever has created them, which is why I would always suggest using them over the notifications.

Notifications are for simple and quick rule definitions by people who don't know SQL. They are horses for courses and although you may feel they do not pass the 'Head & Shoulders' flake-free test none-the-less they work fine and dandy for many people. So there.

But generally I write my own escalation rules because I can.

Thanks For the Replies, both Jeff and Toby.

As I am not an SQL guru, or know how to script things in SQL i have to rely on the HUI that comes with the CRM and the tools within that GUI.

So, my question remains. Do I need to turn back on escelatyions services and use the Escelations rather than notifications, or should the notiofications work the way i have them setup?

If they should work, do the notifications only run when the user who is assigned the notification logs into the crm? that seems to defeat the point of an email notification all together. If i update a case, and assign it to another user, that user should recieve an email with the update notification in it. Makes sense to me.

It should also happen instantly, not at random intervals.

I appreciate any more thoughts on this subject.

Regards

Josh

Josh

Imagine a set of notifications. There are all simple notifications created on an entity like 'Opportunity'. Some are simple on screen notifications e.g. "Your colleague has submitted a new quote for xxxxx to xxxxx". And some are emails "An opportunity for xxxx amount needs authorising".

Imagine the escalation period is left at the default of 300 seconds (5 minutes).

Every 5 minutes the notifications are refreshed. And if any new email alerts require sending they are sent.

Now imagine during the morning every one in the office is working. There is always someone logged onto the system.

The system is configured to use escalations but it is not using the escalation service. Every five minutes the escalation process ticks over and the notifications are refreshed or an alert is sent.

But when people go to lunch and everyone logs off the Sage CRM server drops out of memory because the IIS application pool times out. When the first comes back from lunch they log on. They don't notice any difference because they are only shown on screen notifications but another user who is still at lunch suddenly gets a burst of 3 emails from the system. These are emails that fell due just at the beginning of the lunch time but were never sent because the system timed out.

My suspicion is that the seemingly random email alerts are because of the timeout of the system.