Acumatica’s Automated Notifications and Alerts

Are you finding yourself logging into Acumatica to check the status or assess updates?

If you are performing a lot of repetitive or manual tasks (i.e., sending the same reminder email or checking on the same status of items), it’s likely those tasks could be automated in the future to save you time. There are tools native in Acumatica that will help you monitor for updates and then send you an alert when you need it.

Business Events

Business events in Acumatica provide the ability to react to data changes by creating email notifications and updating business data.

It is a workflow automation tool that is focused on communication, allows you to do things faster, and adds value to your daily workflow. There are two broad categories of business events – notifications and alerts.

There are numerous benefits to using business events including:

• Automate complex business processes without customization – Business events from Acumatica’s standpoint are a triggering mechanism. Based off a certain set of parameters, pre-determined actions can result from those parameters.
• Establish consistent, branded communication with customers – From an external perspective, communication templates delivered to customers or prospects can be used to allow for a consistent message and brand that are company approved.
• Zero in on business priorities and delivery tools (i.e., reports, attachments, context information) so that business managers have clear next steps to move quickly – This allows for additional information to be included in an email or notification distribution to streamline the process.
• Monitor workflow “catches” such as expense claim rejection – With internal communication, business events allow immediate remediation of errors in workflows.
• Personalize to avoid “noise” communication – Formatting communication in this style allows you to bring it into Acumatica so the entire process can be streamlined.

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Components of Business Events

There are six basic components of a business event in Acumatica:

1. Generic Inquiry – Determines what data is available for conditioning and what can be drawn into the notification. It can be used to query data and if a certain condition is met, it can facilitate communication based off that condition.
2. Trigger Conditions – Based on the generic inquiry, when should the notification take place?
3. Notification Template – Determines what the notification says and who the notification should go to. These templates streamline and consolidate communications. Whether the communication is going out to customers, employees, or vendors, the message is consistent.
4. Notification Schedule – Within business events is the ability to automate notifications through scheduling. This takes the place of manual execution of notifications so you can be confident these behind-the-scenes schedules are running and distributing the necessary communication.
5. Subscriber Type – These are the more complex processes available with business events. Examples are text messages (SMS), email, push notifications, and import scenarios.
6. Attached Reports and Data Fields – Allows users to reference dynamic fields, such as “Invoice #”, and attach relevant documents. This is where you can incorporate attachments into a notification template to ensure communication goes out with the necessary reports. There are also data fields that enable communication to be personalized to the recipient.

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How to Schedule a Business Event

The way business events work in Acumatica is you will see a message leave the system directly from Acumatica and then it will go to wherever you specify in the business event. Using customer invoices as an example, here are the steps required to schedule a business event.

• Start in the Customization menu with Generic Inquiry as this will be the foundation of the business event. There are some key pieces of information on this screen – due dates of the invoices and email addresses of the customer where the invoices need to be directed to.

Once the generic inquiry is set up, the second step is to head into Business Events under the System Management menu. Create a new business event by clicking the plus (+) button.

• Enter a name for the business event in the Event ID field.

• Reference the generic inquiry and connect it with the business event. In the Screen Name field, use the searchable drop-down field to search for the original generic inquiry and then save.

• The next important selection is in the Type field. How do you want your business event to function? There are three key options in this field – Trigger by Record Change, Trigger by Schedule, or Trigger by Action. Select Trigger by Schedule to select a date and time for your notification.

• Under Raise Event, there are also three options to choose from – For Each Record, Once for All Records, or For Group of Records. The option “For Group of Records” allows you to group records by type so, for example, if you only want to send one notification per employee and you don't want that employee to receive all notifications individually. Most often, “For Each Record” will be the option selected.

• Add a description that details the business event.

• Next step is to add the trigger condition by clicking the plus (+) button under Trigger Conditions. In this example, the trigger condition is the due date of the invoice.

• To pull in the due date, under Table Name, select AR Invoice to add the condition that it's coming from the invoice.
• Then the field name is going to be Due Date.
• Select Equals in the Condition field.
• Under Value is where you can enter the date but what’s important here is to make the field dynamic. To do this, use the drop-down menu in that field to get dynamic date options. By doing this you won’t have to go back to the business event every time it triggers to enter the date for the next trigger condition. It will do this automatically.

• Add the subscriber. A subscriber is essentially the format of the business event that is being distributed (i.e., the notification). For example, when you have an email notification, this is essentially like writing the body of an email that includes who it should go to, what it should say, and any formatting or logos. Types of subscribers are Email Notification, Mobile SMS Notification, and Mobile Push Notification.

• The final step is to set up a schedule for the business event. When do you want the notification to go out? Under the Schedules tab, click Create Schedule. Then the form behaves like a recurring event in Outlook by entering the number of times the business event should be repeated, the time it should take place, etc.

• Lastly, save the entire business event.

In Summary

A business event is the process of creating and sending an automatic notification based on a trigger condition. The generic inquiry is the foundation of the business event, the notification template explains what you're sending to the customer, and the notification schedule is when it’s going to happen. Subscriber type is the format of the notification and in it you have the ability to attach reports and reference data fields.

If you have questions or require assistance with utilizing these Acumatica tools, contact SVA Consulting at technicalsupport@svaconsulting.com. We are here to help.