Best Practices: Defaults (Notifications)

Note:

This article highlights Simpplr's recommended best practices for your initial default notifications. For instructions on what each notification means, check out this article. 

These settings are a great way to drive adoption and engagement post launch of your intranet as well as ensuring user visibility of newly added content. To update Defaults go to Manage > Application > Defaults.

Please note that each individual user can set their preferred setting by going to their profile image in the upper right corner of the screen and clicking on My settings > Notifications. 

Email notifications

Recommendation: On

Reason: Email notifications are a great way to help reinforce the change management of the new intranet. By enabling email notifications it helps to guide your users back to the intranet after the initial launch while also providing visibility of new content and interactions. 

Email notification frequency

Recommendation: Summarize daily

Reason: We recommend this setting to prevent users’ inboxes from being flooded with individual notification emails. This setting will still grant all the benefits outlined in the box above without overwhelming your users. Should daily summarization emails be too much, they can be turned off. A summarization email will only go out when a user has a notification. If there are no notifications that day, the user will not receive an email in their inbox. 

Profile & expertise

Recommendations:
Follows: Off
Expertise: On

Reason: Turning off notifications for follows helps to cut back on some of the noise the intranet may generate in your users’ email notifications. While nice to know, there isn’t really a follow up action that can take place after someone follows you. However, having Expertise notifications helps to encourage engagement and interaction between your users. This is because if users received a notification that someone endorsed an expertise of theirs it can prompt them to go into the intranet and provide endorsements of their own to other users. 

Feed

Recommendations:
Replies on my post: On
Replies after me: Off
Replies on a post I like: Off
Like my post or reply: Off
Shares my post: Off
Posts to me: On

Reason: This configuration is optimized to drive timely engagement and interaction with your intranet with minimal email notifications. The two settings that are toggled ‘on’ are the two items that most often need a follow up action from the user. By receiving external notifications for replies to your post and posts directed at you, this helps ensure a reply to any questions or responses in a particular thread, allowing for the discussion and sharing of ideas and information to be timely and meaningful.

Sites

Recommendation:
Membership requests: On

Reason: Being notified externally that a membership request to a private site was approved gives the requesting user added visibility that they now have access to information that they requested, which may be critical for them to effectively perform their role within your company.

Content

Recommendation:
Content Notifications: Off
Knowledge content validation: On
Knowledge content expiration: On
Comments on my content: Off
Likes or share on my content: Off
Content submissions: On
Feedback: On

Reason: This configuration ensures visibility to users of action items they need to take with content they manage on the intranet. This ensures that content is validated before or right when it expires so important content does not go missing in your intranet*. This also ensures newly submitted content (if applicable) is reviewed quickly, as well as any feedback provided by your users.

*For more information on content validation and expiration please see our article on Content Governance here. 

Events

Recommendation:
Updates and invites to events: On
RSVP confirmation: Off
New response to events: Off

Reason: This configuration ensures timely responses to events users have been invited to, ensuring early visibility on important events they may need to add to their calendar, while also reducing the number of emails your users will receive for notifications that don’t require any immediate action. 

Site management

Recommendations:
Membership requests: On
Content submissions: On
Subscriptions: Off

Reason: Responsibilities of a Site owner/manager include approving membership requests to Private sites they manage, as well as content submissions, if applicable. Having this setting on allows for these requests to be processed quickly so your users can gain access to information they need to effectively perform their role in your company. 

App management

Recommendation:
Subscriptions: On
Actionable notifications (all public sites): Off
Content feedback (public sites): Off
Content notifications (all public sites): Off

Reason: The main objective with email notifications is to ensure external visibility of the intranet to your users to help steer them back to this new resource. Your Application managers should not need this reinforcement as they will presumptively be in the intranet daily. This configuration ensures they receive an email only for items that are related specifically to them, the Site owners/managers should be the primary handlers of the three items marked ‘Off’.

Browser/SMS

There are no best practice recommendations for these two areas, as browser notifications will need to be specifically configured by each user for their browser. For SMS, we recommend following your company’s policy of sending texts to personal or corporate cell phones. 

Summaries & digests

Recommendation:
Digest email: Weekly
Popular content email: Weekly
Site analytics report email: Monthly
Onboarding email: Weekly

Reason: The Digest & Content emails are a great way to ensure your users don’t miss out on important content being published in your intranet. These are great automated tools that help to reinforce that new content is being added into the intranet, and it is not a static resource. 

Home feed

Recommendation:
Feed filter: Posts I follow
Feed sort: Recent activity

Reason: This allows for your users to see information that is only relevant to them and helps filter out the noise of discussions and activity that isn’t pertinent to them.