How To Set Up Team Alerts for Overdue Keys
Sending overdue key reminders to the key holders should get your keys back in about 80% of cases. Sometimes, however, the person with the key needs a bit of extra encouragement. If you don’t take further action, there is a real risk of keys getting lost.
That’s where team alerts come in.
We highly recommend that you set up a sequence of notifications to your team, for keys that have not been returned after a short period. This will prompt them to take further action (like calling the offender to chase the keys back!)
It's important to ensure that your team follow up on late keys. The best way to do this is to allow some time for them to chase a key, then if the key hasn't been returned, or the due date updated, then send another message to their boss, who will want to know why they didn't follow up!
You must be an Office Administrator to set up team notifications
Set up Team Notifications
- Choose Messages & Alerts from the Admin menu
- On the Messages and Alerts Screen, Click Start Here to select a predefined set of templates.
- Select 3. Email Overdue Alerts to Team. Click this and Click Apply.
- Three new message templates have been created in the in the Email Column, in the Automatic templates tab:
- Alert Key Issuer: Keyring 1 Day Overdue
- Alert Specific Person when Keyring is 3 Days Overdue
- Alert Specific Person: Keyring 5 Days Overdue
Only one of these messages is enabled initially- we’ll need to customize the others to make them work the way we want.
- Check the first new message created- you’ll find it under “Overdue Reminder (Before or After)” – it’s called Alert Key Issuer: Keyring 1 Day Overdue. This one will tell the person who handed out the keys if an overdue key still hasn’t been alerted after 24 hours. If this is what you want, then great- move on to the next step. If this isn’t right for you, you can change it. Here are some suggestions:
- You can change the amount of time before the key issuer is informed.
- You can change the person who is informed so it is someone other than the key issuer (maybe a manager, or a specific team member)
- You could remove the message altogether by toggling it to "disabled” and then deleting it.
For more detailed instructions on how to change the message, see Customizing Text Messages (Requires Professional Subscription or Above).
- The next two messages are set to “specific person”, meaning that it’s up to you to specific the person who will receive the message. The messages will not be able to be sent until you complete this step. For each message template:
- Click “Specify Person” next to the message (This should work even if you are not a professional subscription)
- Use the Search for Person box to select the person to receive the message. Alternatively you can change Send To so it points to a different person (maybe the logged in user).
- You can optionally change any other aspects of the message – see Customizing Email Messages
Don’t forget, you can easily add more email messages to the sequence of reminders if you want. Follow the instructions to create new Email Message Templates.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who are the best people to send team alerts to?
Depending on how your team works, it might make sense that different people receive team alerts. As a best practice, the first person to receive an alert should be the person most able to follow up - this is either the person who issued the key, or someone whose job it is, such as a member of admin staff. If nothing has been done to chase the key, send it to a team lead, then after that the office manager, or business owner. The idea is that the boss should never receive any messages, because the team are always following up!
Why can't I see Messaging and Alerts in the Admin Menu?
First, you must be an Office Administrator. If you cannot see the entire admin menu, then you're probably not an Administrator. If you can see the admin menu, but not the Messages and Alerts option, it's likely that messaging has been restricted down to just a few administrators. Contact your main administrator for help, or call support.
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