Custom Alert Email Templates Issue - List Alerts emails not using customized XML alert template

Question

I have recently customized the XML alerts template (AlertTemplates.xml) for our site collection in SharePoint 2010 to exclude specific fields in the email when users who have subscribed to a list using the "Alert Me" feature.  I
have renamed the custom alerts XML file and loaded the custom template in the following directory (%ProgramFiles%\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web server extensions\14\TEMPLATE\XML) and
restarted IIS.  Once users subscribe to the alerts using the list using the "alert me" function they received the customized email as intended. 
We needed to auto-subscribe users to the email alerts so what I did was used a powershell script to add users to the alert subscriptions using the script shown in below:
Import-Csv D:\Temp\filename.csv | ForEach-Object{
$webUrl=$_.WebUrl
$listTitle=$_.List
$alertTitle=$_.AlertTitle
$subscribedUser=$_.SubscribedUser
$alertType=$_.AlertType
$deliveryChannel=$_.DeliveryChannel
$eventType=$_.EventType
$frequency=$_.Frequency
$oldAlertID=$_.ID
$web=Get-SPWeb $webUrl
$testAlert = $web.Alerts | WHERE { $_.ID -eq $oldAlertID }
IF ($testAlert) {
$web.Alerts.Delete([GUID]$oldAlertID)
Write-Host Old alert $oldAlertID deleted. -Foregroundcolor Cyan
$list=$web.Lists.TryGetList($listTitle)
$user = $web.EnsureUser($subscribedUser)
$newAlert = $user.Alerts.Add()
$newAlert.Title = $alertTitle
$newAlert.AlertType=[Microsoft.SharePoint.SPAlertType]::$alertType
$newAlert.List = $list
$newAlert.DeliveryChannels = [Microsoft.SharePoint.SPAlertDeliveryChannels]::$deliveryChannel
$newAlert.EventType = [Microsoft.SharePoint.SPEventType]::$eventType
$newAlert.AlertFrequency = [Microsoft.SharePoint.SPAlertFrequency]::$frequency
if($frequency -ne "Immediate"){
$AlertTime=$_.AlertTime
$newAlert.AlertTime=$AlertTime
$newAlert.Update()
Write-Host Created $newAlert.Title for $subscribedUser . -Foregroundcolor Cyan
} ELSE {
Write-Host Alert $alertTitle for $subscribedUser already done. Moving on. -Foregroundcolor Magenta
When I ran the script and added the users and restarted the service, all users who were auto-subscribed via this method would get the email without the customizations that were done in the custom template.  All users who manually subscribed to the list
using the "Alert Me" function would get the customized email. 
Does anyone know why users who manually subscribe would get the custom email alert and why users who were auto-subscribed using the powershell script do not get the custom email alert?

Answer 1

Hi  ,
According to your description, my understanding is that users who were auto-subscribed using the PowerShell script do not get the custom email alert.
For your issue, it can be caused by the auto-subscribed alert email which is generated by PowerShell script is  using OOTB alert template. You can add the following script into your script for setting
the alerts’ alert email template:
$contentService = [Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPWebService]::ContentService
$AlertsTemplateCollection =new-object Microsoft.SharePoint.SPAlertTemplateCollection($contentService)
$newAlert.AlertTemplate = $AlertsTemplateCollection["YOUR_UNIQUE_TEMPLATE_NAME_VALUE"]
Reference:
http://sadomovalex.blogspot.com/2012/03/one-problem-with-updating-alert.html
Thanks,
Eric
Forum Support
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Eric Tao
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