Why do we need alerts in SharePoint?
Imagine yourself working on multiple tabs in a busy work schedule, instead of deleting some content in one tab, you deleted in another. No worries, you will get a pop-up “Are you sure you want to delete?” –this saves you from huge risk. This is one of the usual definitions of Alert.
What is “Alert me” in SharePoint?
If you come to SharePoint the definition slightly changes, instead of pop up or modal dialogue , boxes appear for every content deletion as an alert in traditional websites. You will get notification via email or text message for any content changes in SharePoint List or Library- “Sound Interesting is it?”. Yes, in this article you will see the “Alert me” feature in detail.
We’ll cover something interesting about SharePoint Alert me Feature. Do you feel that getting an alert message for any change in the SharePoint list requires code or workflows? If you feel yes, you are in the right place to learn something different where you are able to get an alert message with zero code or no workflows.
If you feel you are already aware of this feature. Stay cool, you can brush up the topic a little deep from this article.
Before getting into the SharePoint “Alert me” feature let’s understand some basic concepts of alert me.
Types of Alert in SharePoint lists
- List Level Alerts
- List Item Level Alerts.
Follow the screenshots given below to know about the SharePoint “Alert me” feature.
Step 1:
Login into SharePoint site Create a new list or use existing one. If someone edits something or does some modification in this list, Alert needs to be triggered.
Step 2:
Navigate to the three-dot icon on the top right corner of the command bar. You will be able to see two things i.e. (Alert me and Manage my alerts). First let’s create an alert for our list and then we’ll manage the alerts.
Step 3:
Once you click “Alert me”, it will take you to the view as given below in the screenshot. Now we are in the right place to create an alert for the list. Let’s explore Individual section,
- Add Alert titleUsually it acts as a subject line of the alert.
- Send Alerts to section deals with notification receivers, either Admin or Owner.
- Delivery Method Either via mail or SMS to your mobile phone.
- Change Type It deals with the type of alerts you want to receive based on the list update or modification and so on.
5. Send Alerts for these changes Send Alerts for these changes deals with when someone changes anything in the list or only created or modified by me.
6. When to send Alerts When to send deals with time or period, when you want to receive the alerts.
After choosing all the values needed as per requirement, Click Ok.
Step 4:
Now let’s go back to the list, try to add a new item to the list. Click Add new item as given below in the screenshot Add the new item to the list.
Step 5:
New items are added to the list. Let’s see how alert works in the next step.
Step 6:
As the new item is added to the list, Mail should have been triggered to the registered mail ID while creating the alerts. Mail contains the name of the alert as the subject as given below in the screenshot.
Step 7:
Yes, we are done with creating the alert. Now let’s manage the alert as we did in earlier steps.
Step 8:
After choosing manage alert the page given will appear like below screenshot. You will find two options either to add alert or to delete the alert.
Step 9:
Click Add alertChoose a list or document library Click the radio buttons for which you wish to enable alertsClick ok.
Step 10:
In case you fail, you no more need alerts for the list. Choose delete selected alerts and choose from the available active list of alerts and remove the alert.
You can utilize this alert feature not only in SharePoint list but also in the SharePoint document libraries too.
Hope this article provided the insights of working with alerts in SharePoint online without writing a single line of code and with zero additional cost.