1. Alert Me
The Alert Me option found in the right zone
below the search box provides the ability to set notifications when the
result provides for a specific search query change (Figure 6).
This is useful for users who need to know if new content relevant to a
search query has been indexed, existing results are altered, or results
are removed from the set. Alerts can be created to make one or more
users aware of these changes. They can also be set to be delivered via
e-mail or SMS text message.
To set an alert for a
result set, first click the Alert Me button on the search results page.
This will navigate the user to the new alert page.
Figure 6. Alert Me button location
The new alert page provides the ability to set the parameters of the alert (Figure 7). On this page, the following options can be configured.
- Title: The subject field of the e-mail or introductory text of SMS text messages
- Recipients: Which users should be alerted
- Delivery method: If an e-mail and or SMS text message should be sent to recipients
- When to alert: If the alert should trigger only when the
search would yield new results, when content of an existing result is
changed, or both
- Alert frequency: If checks for changes that will trigger the alert should be performed on a daily or weekly basis
Other users can also be added to this alert,
which would then make a duplicate alert for them. Once another user has
been added to the alert, the creator will no longer be able to edit it
for that user.
Figure 7. New Alert page
Note
Changes that trigger search alerts are based on the crawled content. An
alert can therefore never fire more often than the crawl intervals of
the content sources that yield the search results for the specific
search alert.
Once the desired settings are entered, clicking
OK will create the alert. Alerts will continue to be delivered by
SharePoint at the established delivery method and frequency until the
alert is removed. To add, edit, or remove previously set alerts, select
Manage My Alerts under the Page tab on the ribbon (Figure 8). This will provide access to manage only the logged-in user's existing search alerts.
Figure 8. Manage My Alerts option
The alerts management page
displays a list of all existing alerts and delivery methods for the
logged-in user. To edit any alert, simply click the alert name. To
delete one or more alerts, select the check boxes next to the alerts
that need to be deleted, and then choose Delete Selected Alerts. To
create a new alert, select Add Alert. Alerts created through the My
Alerts page are not restricted to a set of search results. Alerts for
any list, document library, or document can be created through this
option (Figure 9).
Figure 9. My Alerts page
By selecting an alert, the user is taken to a
page that is almost identical to the New Alerts page. The only
differing option is that only alerts for the current user can be edited
(Figure 10).
As a result, this page does not allow a user to add recipients. The
other fields of the chosen alert can be edited and updated.
Figure 10. Editing Alerts page
