Global System Notifications

The Global System Notification Function is a specialized subset of the Notification Message Feature that provides a means by which LMS Administrators can create global messages that will be made available to all LMS users upon login to the system.

There are two Global System Notification Function Message Types:

OPTION 1 / TOP OF THE PAGE - System message that will appear near the top of the page above the Section Tabs for all users. Additionally, this message can link to external web pages, documents or even videos.

OPTION 2 / AUTO-LAUNCH VIEWER - Auto-Launch a Viewer with a System Message and content (e.g. html page, video) for all users that will immediately grab the user’s focus when logging into the system. This window will need to be closed before the user can access the features of the LMS system.

Configuring the Global System Message Notification

The Global System Message Notification is a specialized version of the Notification Message Feature and is only available to CSA’s (and designated Admins with Policy Rights to this feature). To access the Notification Message Feature:

1. Use the Advanced View > Learning Objects drop down menu to select the item Notification Message.
2. This will bring up the Notification Message List, a listing of all standard and customized messages. The Name may or may not be “Global System Notification Message” as both name and description are configurable by the client, but the Global System Notification Message is ALWAYS a specific message with the ID = 15.
3. To access the Global System Notification Message details where you can add, edit or delete messages, simply double click the name column of the row with ID = 15. This will bring up the Notification Details page.
   1. If Active - The Email Subject and / or Email Body sections will have text populated.
   2. If Inactive - Both the Email Subject and Email Body sections will be blank.
4. Click the Edit button in the upper right corner to enter edit mode.
5. The Email Subject and Email Body fields control the content of the notification and the way it will display (top of page or as a popup). 
   1. Content added to the Email Body field will display at the top of the Overview when users login. 
   2. Email Subject field controls the link to a page that can be loaded as a popup when users login. 

Formatting a message to appear at the top of the page

1. Navigate to the Email Body Section.
2. If there is a current message and it will not be used, delete the message (e.g. select all the entered text / links in the Email Body textbox and click delete).
3. Enter the message you wish the user to see at the Top of the Page. If you want to go beyond basic text formatting, use the HTML tab at the bottom of the Email Body section to enter the HTML for formatting, adding links, etc. 
4. Click the Save button to save changes. The page will update and exit edit mode.
5. Return to the Overview page in simple view to preview.

Formatting global auto-launch viewer (popup)

1. Navigate to the Email Subject Section.
2. If there is a current link and it will not be used, delete the link, but keep the “EXTERNALPAGE|” Prefix; this is required.
3. You will create a three-part string using the pipe separator between parts for the Subject to launch a popup. The format will look like this: EXTERNALPAGE|url|number
   1. EXTERNALPAGE  - just tells the notification it will appear as a popup.
   2. URL - Enter the URL for the page to be loaded in the viewer. This can be the full URL including https:// or it can be a relative path. 
   3. number - this last parameter is the number of times the popup should appear for a specific user. Remember they will need to click the X to close the popup each time they login. 
4. Remove any text out of the Email Body if you don't want anything to appear at the top of the page, but you can have both working simultaneously. 
5. Click the Save button to save changes. The page will update and exit edit mode.
6. Log out and back in to view updates.

Troubleshooting global notifications

If you are on production and point to a video that sits on sandbox, it won't show because it sits on a different server.

Example, you are in production and indicate that the popup video is in https://lsglm500.learnsoft.com/LSGLM/Login/testfile.htm, this will give an error and show an eternally spinning loading screen.

What you should use in Email Subject instead is to give a ‘relative path’, meaning that you should use “../Login/testfile.htm” so it grabs the popup video from the same server.

Links included in the Email Body that display at the top of the page are less of an issue using different servers there since any link opens a new window.