HIMSS - Manage Notifications

Manage email and HIMSS messages and who will receive them.

Notification Types

There are six standard notifications in HIMSS. These notifications are triggered by certain actions you take in the system or those that are triggered by changes in data in the file coming from your district’s SIS each night. 

Here are the notification types and the triggers that will generate the email and message:

Notification Type	What Triggers the Notification	Typically Sent to
New Homeless Student – SIS Data Share	When a nightly data file from your SIS is imported, if a Student ID is found that was not in the current list of students in HIMSS	District Liaison
New Homeless Student	When a student record is first marked as "Approved" in HIMSS on the Homeless Student Data tab, and saved	Assigned Service Contacts Assigned Social Worker School Staff
Homeless Student Withdrawal	In the nightly data file from your SIS, a Student ID is not present indicating they are no longer enrolled at a school in the district	Assigned Service Contacts Assigned Social Worker School Staff District Liaison
Student Address Change	In the nightly data file from your SIS, if the student's address is different than the address they have in their current registration record OR If a student's address is changed in HIMSS on a student's Participant Information screen, and saved	Assigned Service Contacts Assigned Social Worker School Staff District Liaison
Assigned Social Worker Change	When a social worker assigned to a student is changed in HIMSS on the Homeless Student Data tab, and saved	Newly Assigned Social Worker Previously Assigned Social Worker

View / Edit Notification

To view the pre-set notifications and/or to edit them, choose the Notification Management card (Settings > Program Settings > Notification Management) and click Manage Notifications.

Each row shows which notification type and who it will be sent to. To edit a Notification record, click the blue pencil icon.

Add a New Notification Record

To add a new Notification record, click green +Add button. The following screen will appear:

1. Pick one of the six notification types. Note the email Subject and Body have been filled for you based on the Notification Type. These are pre-defined in HIMSS and cannot be changed.
   
   
   
   
2. Decide who should get this notification – a single user or all users of a certain security level.
   
   
   
   *Note that if security level Service Contact and Social Worker are selected, all Users with that security level will not get the email – only those assigned to a student. For all other security levels, all Users with that security level will receive the emails. 
   
   
   
   
3. Complete the email Header and Footer to personalize the email for your program.
   
   
   
   
4. When finished click Save and Close and a new record will be created.
   

Important Notes About Notifications

If you want a notification to go to more than one User or security level, you will need to repeat this process for each user or security level to create their own notification record. The benefit of this is that you can customize the header and footer for each type of user that will be receiving the emails. 

For example, when a District Liaison approves a newly imported student’s record in HIMSS, emails need to go to the assigned service contacts, the assigned social worker and possibly any other district staff. This is shown below. In this case, the District Liaison is sending an email to themselves perhaps to verify the system is sending emails as expected. Another notification could actually go to the school-based staff security level, so they know to keep an eye out for this student and be supportive in whatever capacity they play at the student’s school. Each notification’s header and footer can be customized for their recipient.

Another example is that a change of address notification for a student is important to a transportation coordinator but may not be important to a nutrition service provider.  So, the header or footer of an email to assigned Service Contacts Users may say something like “This may not impact you, but please be aware that a student’s address changed.”  

Alternatively, you could create a “Student Address Change” notification record specifically for the individual Service Contact User associated with Transportation. In this way, the Service Contact for nutrition will not get an email. Note that if the individual Service Contact User associated with Transportation leaves their position or the district, no one will get those important emails until the new person is added as a Service Contact User. 

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