The Alerts feature is a standard feature in vWork. Alerts enable you to generate and send in-app notifications, emails, and SMS messages to almost anyone when a trigger is activated by a job activity or event in your vWork account.

Following are the questions we are most often asked about the Alerts feature. If you can’t find what you are looking for here, please email support@vworkapp.com.

Questions

Click on a question to take you to its answer. Where we have another support article with more detailed information related to a question we have linked that article in the answer.

What is an alert?
What do alerts cost?
Who can I send alerts to?
What can trigger an alert?
How do I set up an alert?
How do I set up an ETA alert?
Why doesn’t my ETA alert work?
How do I set up an alert for an Asset Contact?
What is the difference between 'Job Start Reminder assigned jobs only' and 'Job Start Reminder all jobs' alert types?
What is the difference between Job Finish Overdue and Job Duration Too Long alert triggers?
How do I enable a customer to postpone a job from an email alert?
What is an in-app alert notification?
How do I attach a report to an alert?
What is an Ad Hoc alert recipient?
What is the Residual Risk Created alert?
What happens when a customer reschedules a job from a link in an alert?
How do I stop receiving an alert that I am subscribed to?
How do I see who has unsubscribed from an alert?
Can I resubscribe a person to an alert after they have unsubscribed?
How do I delete an alert?

You can easily come back to this list of questions by clicking this icon. You'll find it at the end of each of the answers below.

Answers

What is an alert?

Alerts enable you to generate and send in-app notifications, emails, and SMS messages to almost anyone when a trigger is activated by a job activity or event in your vWork account. You can get a good overview of the alerts feature in the article: What are Alerts?

What do alerts cost?

Email Alerts

Email alerts are included as a standard feature of vWork; there is no extra charge for email alerts.

SMS Alerts

SMS alerts can be added to your vWork account as an optional feature. Pricing for SMS alerts is based on volume and the country where you send them from. To enable SMS alerts, or find out more, please email support@vworkapp.com. We’ll get in touch to discuss your requirements.

Who can I send alerts to?

You can send alerts to anyone with a mobile number or an email address, as well as all your workers and dispatchers.

For more detailed information explaining how to send alerts please read the article: How to set up an Alert.

Note: SMS alerts are an optional feature. If you want to add these to your account please email support@vworkapp.com.

What can trigger an alert?

There are many events that relate to jobs, customers, quotes, and health and safety that can trigger an alert. Alert triggers are called Alert Types. The article What can trigger an alert? Describes all the different alert types and what they are used for.

How do I set up an alert?

We have a detailed article that explains everything you need to know to create a new alert in vWork. Please see the article: How to set up an Alert.

How do I set up an ETA alert?

The ETA alert allows you to send an email or SMS to anyone to provide them with your mobile worker's estimated time of arrival. This alert can also include a link so they can track your mobile worker on the map.

For a detailed explanation of how to set up the ETA alert please see the article: How to set up the ETA Alert.

Why doesn’t my ETA alert work?

There are a few reasons why an ETA alert doesn’t work. The article, How to set up the ETA Alert, explains the most common reasons why. See the topic 'Test and troubleshoot the ETA alert'.

If you are still having problems with your ETA alert after reading this, send an email to support@vworkapp.com.

How do I set up an Alert for an Asset Contact?

There may be occasions when you want to send email and SMS alerts to a contact associated with an Asset. This contact may not be the same as a customer contact.

vWork enables you to set up any alert to be sent to an Asset Contact independently of, or in addition to, other alert recipients. The Asset Contact’s name and email address are saved with the Asset and are automatically added to any job where that Asset is linked.

For a detailed instructions to guide you through setting up an alert to send to an Asset Contact, please read the article Send Alerts to an Asset Contact.

What is the difference between 'Job Start Reminder assigned jobs only' and 'Job Start Reminder all jobs' alert types?

There are two Job Start Reminder alerts that you use to remind you when a job is about to start:

The Job Start Reminder (assigned jobs only) alert type only sends an alert for jobs that have a worker and start time assigned and that have been accepted by the worker. A job is 'accepted' by a worker either on their mobile device or automatically when workers don't have the Accept and Decline Jobs option enabled for them in vWork's General Settings.
The Job Start Reminder (all jobs) sends an alert for all jobs with a scheduled start time. This includes assigned jobs, jobs that have a status of 'Pending' or 'Draft', and jobs that have a scheduled start time ('unassigned') but haven't yet been assigned to a worker.

For both of these alerts, you specify how far in advance of the job starting you want the alert sent in the alert settings.

What is the difference between Job Finish Overdue and Job Duration Too Long alert triggers?

Both the Job Finish Overdue and Job Duration Too Long alert triggers send an alert when a job has exceeded the time it is expected to take - this is defined by the time saved in the Duration field in the Job Editor. The difference between these two alert triggers relates to if the job has a status of Completed - this is when the final step on the job has been acknowledged as completed in vWork

the Job Finish Overdue alert is sent when a job hasn't yet been completed but has exceeded the expected job duration.
the Job Duration Too Long alert is sent after a job is completed and it exceeded the expected job duration.

For both of these alerts, you specify how much time must pass after the expected end of the job before the alert is triggered when you set up the alert.

How do I enable a customer to postpone a job from an email alert?

vWork has several email alerts that can include a link to enable a customer to postpone a job, and request a new preferred start time. This alert link works with the Job Assigned, Job Accepted, and Job Start Reminder alert types. The article, Enable customers to postpone jobs from an email alert, explains how this works and how you set it up.

What is an in-app alert notification?

You can set an alert so that it alerts dispatchers as an in-app notification in the vWork web app. When the alert is triggered it pops up in the top right-hand corner of the web app.

Like all other in-app notifications in vWork, the dispatcher can confirm they have read it by selecting the checkmark, or they can ignore it to read later by selecting the cross. If they choose to ignore the alert the Alerts menu item displays a red dot with a number. The number represents the number of in-app notifications the dispatcher has ignored.

The dispatcher can go to Alerts>My Alerts to read ignored in-app notifications and review others that they have read.

How do I attach a report to an alert?

You can attach any of the standard reports, or a custom report to an email alert in the settings for the alert. If you want to attach a custom report make sure you create the report before you add it in the alert settings. You can find out how to attach a report to an alert in the article: How to set up an Alert.

What is an Ad Hoc Alert Recipient?

An Ad Hoc Alert Recipient is an optional feature in vWork that enables you to add a person to an email alert and/or SMS alert in the job editor for a job. This is useful when you want to send an alert to a person, such as a site supervisor, who is not the customer contact.

An Ad Hoc Alert Recipient is different from a custom email address or custom mobile number that you may have added to the settings for an alert, as it is specific to the job and not the alert. You add the Ad Hoc Alert Recipient's contact information when you create or edit the job. With custom email and SMS alert recipients, the details for the recipients are known and saved in the alert settings.

To find out how to add ad hoc alert recipients to a job, please read the article: Ad Hoc Alert Recipients.

You can find out how to include Ad Hoc recipients in an alert in the article: How to set up an Alert.

What is the Residual Risk Created alert?

The Residual Risk Created alert is a Health & Safety alert for use specifically with the Health & Safety Hazards feature. Its purpose is to notify selected parties when the residual risk of a hazard that has had control measures implemented meets or exceeds a specified threshold.

You can find out more about the Residual Risk Created alert in the article: Health & Safety Hazard alert: Residual Risk Created.

What happens when a customer reschedules a job from a link in an alert?

Some alerts can enable a customer to reschedule a job using a supplied link in the alert message. When a customer requests a new start time through an alert they click a link that takes them to a portal page. From here they can reschedule the job or make a request for a preferred time slot. The job is then removed from the mobile worker's device and placed in the schedule on the workbench in the requested time slot.

How do I stop receiving an alert that I am subscribed to?

Every email alert has a link in the message that you can click to unsubscribe.

You can unsubscribe from an SMS Alert by sending a reply SMS with the word STOP. There may a charge from your mobile provider for this.

The article, Manage Alert subscriptions, provides more information about this.

How do I see who has unsubscribed from an alert?

You can see who has unsubscribed from an alert in Alerts > Setup.