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From the Automatiomodule, you can set up notifications containing information about orders, sales, and/or inventory for your users and customers. DEAR notifications can be delivered as alerts in the notification centre, and/or as emails intended for one or more recipients. External notifications can also be set up to send information to third-party applications.


Other features of the Automation module include workflow automation, which allows setting up events and actions that trigger automatically once certain conditions are achieved in sales processes, and tasks, which are linked with notifications to create workflows related to Purchases, Sales, Suppliers, Customers, Credit Notes, and Assembly/Disassembly. 


For more information on workflow automation, see Managing Workflow Automation in DEAR. For more information on the Tasks module – The Tasks Module: Using Notifications & Tasks to Create Workflows.


NOTE: Access to the Automation module requires adding a subscription to the module to your DEAR Inventory paid plan. See Adding Trials of the POS, B2B, API and Automation Modules to Paid Plans for more information.


Prerequisites


Table of Contents

  1. Accessing the Automation Module
  2. Configuring Notifications
  3. Setting up a Mailing List
  4. Scheduling a Report
  5. Setting up a Reminder


Accessing the Automation Module

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To access the Automation module, navigate to Settings → Automation.


Configuring Notifications

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DEAR allows you to set notifications for different events.


To enable a notification:

  1. Navigate to Settings → Automation → Notifications.
  2. Click on the notification type you wish to enable. For example, click Sale to see all sale-related notifications and whether they are active or disabled. Click through to the notification you wish to configure.
  3. Switch on the notification by toggling the button on the top right corner to Active. See below for more information about different delivery methods and how they work.


Delivery Methods

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DEAR notifications can be delivered as alerts in the notification centre and/or emails sent to one or more recipients. External notifications can also be set up for API users. More than one method can be selected for each notification.


To enable a delivery method, click the button for that method to activate it. Some notifications do not support all delivery method types. If the notification type is supported, a switch for that method will be available in the Delivery Method section of the notification.


Enabling a delivery method will activate a message template field below. Each delivery method for the same notification can have a different message.


Internal

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Internal notifications are delivered to all DEAR users in your company. These notifications are sent to the notifications centre on the top right corner of the screen. You can configure the message and see the internal execution log from the Notification settings screen of a notification.


At the moment, it is not possible to send internal notifications to a single user or group of users. For this, use email notifications instead. For more information, see Email notifications.


Clicking the Notifications buttons displays the most recent Notifications with a link to the relevant details and the date/time that the notification was triggered.

 

Email

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Notifications can be delivered via email using this option. Several default options are available for email delivery. 


If All Active Users is enabled, the notification will be sent to the email of every registered user in your organisation.


If All Company Contacts is enabled, the notification will be sent to all email addresses listed in Reference Books Company Contacts.


If Send to Customer/Supplier is enabled, the notification will be sent to the Default Customer Contact, Default Supplier Customer, or B2B user.


Extra recipients can be added in the BCC field. If you wish to send a notification to an individual DEAR user or an external email contact, you can enter their details here.


You can also select a mailing list to send notifications to via email. Follow the link for more information on how to set up a Mailing List.


External

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External notifications let you notify third-party applications about events occurring in DEAR. For example, you can set up a notification about a change in the quantity of goods. This will allow you to receive data about a product change in a third-party service or your own application. The External API call is not supported by all types of notifications.


External URL is the address of the external service that will receive the request. The request body will contain a JSON object representing a key-value pair. 


The JSON object is formed from the parameters available for the notification indicated the top of the screen.

Additionally, you can configure the authorisation method and add request headers. Three values are available for authorisation:

  • No Auth – no authorisation is required.
  • Basic Auth – login and password are required
  • Bearer Auth – a token must be specified.

You can add key-value pairs in the request headers. For example, specify the secret key of the user, which is required by a third-party service to verify the user.



Message Template Fields

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Custom messages can be entered into the message field. Use parameter names in your notifications by clicking on the corresponding button(s). The parameter name will be saved to your clipboard and can be pasted into the Message template, Email subject, or Email template fields.


Mailing Lists

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Mailing lists can be used to group together company or external contacts so they can be easily notified.


To create a Mailing List:

  1. Navigate to Settings Automation Mailing List.
  2. Click + to add a new mailing list.
  3. Enter a name for the mailing list.
  4. Enter the email addresses to be included in the mailing list.
  5. Click the Emails button to choose from the two options for entering emails:
    • List – enter emails into the field immediately below the button, separated by a comma. This is the default option when you create a mailing list.
    • Table – enter the first email address into the box, then click the + button for each new email address to include in the mailing list.
  6. Click Save.


NOTE: Contacts can be added to an already created mailing list when they are added to Company Contacts in Settings Reference Books Company Contacts.



Report Scheduling

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Reports can be run daily, weekly, or monthly, and sent to those who need them directly from within the Automation module.


NOTE: You need to create a mailing list before you can schedule a report. For more information, see Setting Up a Mailing List.


To schedule a report:

  1. Navigate to Settings Notifications.
  2. Click Report Scheduling.
  3. On the Scheduled Reports page, click the button on the top left.
  4. In the New Scheduled Report wizard, toggle the Active button to Yes, then select the report to be scheduled from the list.
  5. Click Next.
  6. On the next page of the New Scheduled Report wizard, select either HTML or the default layout for the report, then set the period to be covered by the report. The period can be set for the current month, last 30 days, previous month, current year, previous year, or a custom period that you specify.
  7. Click Next.
  8. On the next page of the New Scheduled Report wizard, select the start date, frequency (daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly, or custom), report format (PDF, RPT, and Excel with totals or without totals) and the mailing list to which the report will be sent.
  9. Click Save.


Setting Up Reminders

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System reminders on pending tasks that require your immediate attention can be set up so that you can be reminded about them as soon as you log on to DEAR Inventory. These appear in the Reminders portlet on your dashboard.


To set up a reminder:

  1. Navigate to Settings Automation Notifications.
  2. Click Reminders.
  3. On the Reminders page, select a reminder from the predefined list, then toggle it On.

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