Email notifications when tasks are due, past due, and completed

Description

This simple functionality sends an automatic email to a user when due dates are approaching, late, or marked complete. The system should allow the administrator to set rules regarding the frequency and timing of these emails.

Example Use Case

Scenario: A global consulting firm uses CPM software to manage and monitor its annual budget build. Each budget involves several collaborators from various departments.

Solution: The finance team uses the software to assign tasks and automatically remind users when actions are required. This saves the finance team from having to notify each of these users separately when tasks are past due or have just been assigned.

Considerations

It is important in any business process to avoid sending too many emails to users. They'll start to ignore the messages, and you'll be back where you started. For this reason we prefer task management tools that allow us to limit the amount of reminders that go out. Another alternative is to only allow the system to send an email when an admin triggers it. For example, if budgets are due today, the admin can review who is past due and only trigger nag messages to those people.

While this requirement is specific to email notifications, there are plenty of other mechanisms. IM? Text? Push notifications via an app? If the vendor provides that, awesome.

Questions to Ask a Vendor

• Notification Customization: How easily can the triggers for email notifications be customized within your system?
• User Control: Can users easily set their own preferences for what type of notifications they receive and how frequently they receive them? Can we as the administrators override their settings, especially for users who disable notifications altogether?
• Other Notification Types: Do you offer other methods of contact like IM or text?