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A notification channel is a communication stream used as a means to organize notifications by topic or audience. Users and groups can subscribe to a channel to receive the notifications that interest them.
You can think of a notification channel as being like a television channel. Producers put messages on a channel, like producers at television stations air programs. Subscribers receive the messages, like television viewers watch the programs. Unlike a television program, a message sent on a channel will wait for you to read it; you do not need to be actively reading the channel to avoid missing a message.
Each channel has the following attributes:
ID – This numeric value is used in various tables to identify the channel. Each channel must have a unique ID, but there is no requirement for the IDs to be consecutive or to start with a particular value.
Name – This is the text displayed to the user in the user interface. Each channel must have a unique name.
Description – This is text which further describes the channel.
Subscription Flag – This flag identifies whether users can adjust their subscription status on the channel. If “Yes”, users can see the channel in the “Channel Subscriptions” form and change their subscription status. If “No”, a user’s subscription to the channel is managed by other means (for example, group membership).
Producers – This is a list of users who are authorized to send notifications on the channel.
Default Recipient List – This is a list of users and groups who will receive notifications sent to the channel, regardless of channel subscriptions or notification-specific recipients.
Reviewers – This is a list of users who are responsible for approving notifications sent to the channel.
Subscribing to a notification channel causes all notifications sent on the channel to be delivered to the subscriber, regardless of the list of users or groups specified as recipients of the notification.
Subscriptions are divided into two categories:
Subscribers – Users can subscribe to any channel where the Subscription Flag is set to “Yes”.
Default Recipients – Each channel has a list of users and groups that receive all channel notifications.
Users can manage their subscriptions to channels where the Subscription Flag is Yes using the Channel Subscriptions form. On the Main Menu, click the Channel Subscriptions link in the Notification box:
This displays the list of channels that allow the user to manage their subscriptions:
Click the Subscribe button for a channel to subscribe to a channel for which you are not already subscribed. Click the Unsubscribe button to cancel your subscription to the channel.