Notifications for declined requests and verifications

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bobs
Posts: 11
Joined: Fri Dec 30, 2022 8:57 pm

Notifications for declined requests and verifications

Post by bobs »

It seems that if a request or verification is accepted by the manager, then the employee receives a notification.

But if the request or verification is denied, then no notification is made.

The logic of this escapes me, so perhaps I'm not understanding something. Is there a way to automatically generate a notification in this situation, other than requiring the manager to manually send a message?
mikeb
Posts: 708
Joined: Thu Jul 27, 2006 11:58 am

Re: Notifications for declined requests and verifications

Post by mikeb »

TimeTrex definitely sends a notification to the employee when a request is authorized or declined. Please make sure the employee has all notification types enabled in their preferences.
Screenshot_20230105_155035.png
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bobs
Posts: 11
Joined: Fri Dec 30, 2022 8:57 pm

Re: Notifications for declined requests and verifications

Post by bobs »

I made a series of requests, some accepted and some denied. Same with verifications.

In all cases, the acceptances generate a notification (both email and on the website), and declines generate no notification (neither email nor website).

The employee's notification page displays only the accepted items.

I have confirmed that the employee has all notifications enabled as shown in the screenshot.
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mikeb
Posts: 708
Joined: Thu Jul 27, 2006 11:58 am

Re: Notifications for declined requests and verifications

Post by mikeb »

Please follow the instructions below to provide additional diagnostic information. Be sure to create a new request and decline it while diagnostic logging is enabled.
viewtopic.php?t=89
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bobs
Posts: 11
Joined: Fri Dec 30, 2022 8:57 pm

Re: Notifications for declined requests and verifications

Post by bobs »

Done. Thanks for your help.
mikeb
Posts: 708
Joined: Thu Jul 27, 2006 11:58 am

Re: Notifications for declined requests and verifications

Post by mikeb »

According to the log the employee has all notifications turned off, therefore no notification is sent.
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bobs
Posts: 11
Joined: Fri Dec 30, 2022 8:57 pm

Re: Notifications for declined requests and verifications

Post by bobs »

I don't understand how that could be since the employee has no trouble receiving notifications from accepted requests.

I double checked the notification settings for that employee, and they were as shown in my screenshot, every notification enabled.

As a sanity check, I just created a new employee with the default notifications (all enabled) and found the same results. Accepted requests create notifications in the application and by email, declined invitations do not do either.

Any suggestions to further diagnose? I'm comfortable with PHP debugging.
mikeb
Posts: 708
Joined: Thu Jul 27, 2006 11:58 am

Re: Notifications for declined requests and verifications

Post by mikeb »

You are correct, that doesn't make sense if the employee receives the authorized notifications. We will investigate this further and see what we can come up with. Keep an eye on the release notes for the next version to see if we found anything.
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bobs
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Joined: Fri Dec 30, 2022 8:57 pm

Re: Notifications for declined requests and verifications

Post by bobs »

Mystery solved, mostly.

After changing the employee's permission group from Regular Employee (Manual Punch) to Administrator, two additional disabled notification preferences were displayed for that employee:
  • Request Authorizations: Based on experimentation -- Required to receive declined (but not accepted) request notifications. Requires permissions:
    • Requests Authorize
    • Authorization Enabled
    • Authorization View
    • <Possibly others>
  • Timesheet Authorizations: Based on experimentation -- Required to receive declined (but not accepted) timesheet verifications. Requires permissions:
    • Punch -> view subordinates
    • <Possibly others>
These are in addition to the following notification preferences which were visible to members of either permission group:
  • Requests: Based on experimentation -- Required to receive accepted request notifications.
  • Timesheet Verifications: Based on experimentation -- Required to receive accepted timesheet verifications.
All of the above notification preferences are enabled by default at Company | New Hire Defaults | Notifications.

I found that if a request or timesheet verification of a Regular Employee (Manual Punch) user is declined, then the respective notification preference is changed to off.

This is due to the code just below classes/modules/notification/NotificationFactory.class.php line 646:
//Notification is enabled, but user no longer has permissions that are linked too it, so disable the notification moving forward.

So, it seems there are two issues:
  • The Request/Timesheet Authorization notification preferences should be displayed for all users who can receive Request/Timesheet authorizations.
  • Those two notification preferences should be the ones required to receive notification of requests/verifications which are accepted as well as those which are declined.
Perhaps I'm misinterpreting the intended meaning of each of these notification preferences as they don't seem to be documented in the Administrator's Guide. I'm just going by what the name of each notification preference connotes to me, a TimeTrex noob.
mikeb
Posts: 708
Joined: Thu Jul 27, 2006 11:58 am

Re: Notifications for declined requests and verifications

Post by mikeb »

Sounds like you are on the right path, I will pass this information along to the developers, it should be resolved in the next release.
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