Customizing Notifications - Adding Attributes

Question

Hello Experts!
Got a question about working with Notification Templates.  I'd like to be able to add some customized information to a template in the form of a custom attribute.  Is there a way I can do this? The only custom items I seem to be able to add are the "PAR_..." ones.
Thanks!
Matt

Answer 1

Since you asked and I was involved in the development of that notification task thing I thought I'd put together a blog on the topic, but as a quick answer to you:
One solution is to add an action that sets the additional context variables named #MSG_PAR_<something> before the approval task that kicks off the Notification task. Any context variables that exist are inherited by the child task (Assignment Notification in this case). These can be used as PAR_<SOMETHING> in the template file without any other changes:
The Add custom message variables action has a To Generic task that looks like this:
And the script does this:
// Main function: setCTXVARS 
function setCTXVARS(Par){ 
  tmp = Par.get("MSGVARS"); 
  ctxVars = uSplitString(tmp,"!!");  
  for (ctxvar = ctxVars.iterator(); ctxvar.hasNext();dummy=1) 
  tmp = ctxvar.next(); 
  vals = tmp.split("="); 
  ctxVarToSet = "#MSG_"+vals[0]; 
  ctxValToSet = vals[1]; 
  OutString = uSetContextVar(ctxVarToSet, ctxValToSet); 
As a result I can use something like this in the template file. Just remember to run the job that imports the modifed template file...
Hi PAR_RECIPIENTSDISPLAYNAME
You have an approval waiting in IDM. You should also remember to buy PAR_SHOPPINGLIST on your way home after work.
Also, some important guy said PAR_QOTD
Hope this helps,
Chris