Key concepts
Notification
A message delivered to a user or system to communicate information.
Notifications are generated as a result of an event, a direct system action, or a notice. They’re formatted using a template and delivered through a communication channel using a provider.
Examples may include a monitoring system signaling a service is unavailable, an application signaling that a user action failed, a system signaling that a background job has completed, or an external system signaling a change that requires evaluation.
Direct Notification
A specific type of notification sent immediately to a specific user through a communication channel as the result of a system action. Direct notifications don’t require a subscription and aren’t related to configured topics.
Examples may include password reset requests, account verification messages, or security confirmation messages.
Event-driven Notifications
A specific type of notification sent when an event is raised and evaluated against topics and subscriptions. These notifications are controlled by filters and schedules and not subscribed to by default.
Examples may include service outages, failed deployments, or threshold breaches.
Notice
A system-defined informational notification intended to communicate important information not tied to an operational event. Notices aren’t editable by either an admin or user. They’re defined by Progress and exist as read-only entries.
Users may either subscribe to notices or receive them because they’re considered mandatory and “force subscribed.” They’re centrally managed and there is no escalation workflow associated with their use.
Examples may include license expiration reminders, planned maintenance, announcements or service interruptions, and general, feature, or policy announcements.
Event
Something that has occurred which can result in one or more notifications. Events contain structured data describing what happened but don’t send messages directly. They’re submitted to the system through a trigger, evaluated against topics, and provide data determined by applicable filters, rules, and templates.
Examples may include when a service becomes unavailable, an operation fails, or a scheduled task completes.
Trigger
The act of submitting an event into the notification system. Triggers initiate evaluation of relevant topics, data processing, and event-driven notification flow.
Examples may include a monitored resource becoming unavailable, a configuration change failing to apply, a load-balanced service exceeding a defined threshold, or a compliance scan detecting a policy violation.
Topic Type
The foundation of one or more topics that defines the structure and meaning of a specific kind of event. Topic types define whether configuration fields are required or optional, which fields can be filtered, and what data is available for template use.
Examples may include a monitored resource status change, a configuration application failure, a performance threshold breach, or a compliance audit result.
Topic
A specific notification scenario based on a topic type. Topics are evaluated when an event is triggered and subsequently determine when notifications should be generated. Any given topic may include optional filters, or associated templates, and can be in either an enabled or disabled state.
Examples may include all monitored resource status changes, performance threshold breaches affecting critical services, or only monitored resource status changes for Windows-based systems.
Subscription
A link from a user to a topic which indicates interest in receiving notifications. Subscriptions are always associated with a topic or notice, use filters and rules to control delivery and send notifications through configured user channels.
Examples may include enabled or disabled state, optional filters, or schedules.
Schedule
Schedules control when notifications are allowed to be delivered. They can be applied to user or organizational channels. In addition to time-of-day and day-of-week controls, schedules can also include severity-based conditions.
Examples may include delivering notifications during defined business hours, only on weekdays, suppressing notifications outside of an on-call schedule, or always allowing critical notifications.
A schedule honors the time zone detected when it was configured. For example, if your computer’s time zone is U.S. Eastern Standard Time, the schedule will be configured for that time zone.
Organizational Channel
The method by which notifications are delivered to multiple users, group, team, etc. using a provider.
Examples may include Email or SMS.
User Channel
A channel configured by and used to deliver notifications to a specific user.
Examples may include an email address or phone number.
Provider
A configured service managed by administrators responsible for delivering notifications for a specific provider type.
Examples may include an SMTP server or an SMS gateway.
Provider Type
The foundation of any given provider configuration. The provider type is used to create providers. It standardizes and defines their required configuration fields, authentication methods, and supported message formats.
Examples may include an Email or SMS service.
Template
Templates define the content and format of a notification message. They typically include a subject or title, message body, and scope, and they can make use of dynamic placeholders to be populated when a notification is generated by an event or notice.
Filters
A specific condition which, along with other configuration settings and criteria, determine if a notification will be sent. Filters can be helpful when attempting to reduce unnecessary notifications.
Examples may include only sending notifications if events occur in a production environment, or when a threshold is exceeded.