Customizing the Message Text for Alerts
For Windows sharepoint Services, you can customize the contents of the alert messages. Keep in mind that while you can alter the contents of the message, there is still no mechanism for identifying and extracting exact text changes within a document or list item. You can, however, customize the text in the message and re-order, add, and remove fields from the message.
Note You must be an administrator on the local server computer to edit the XML templates for Windows SharePoint Services.
The message text for immediate, daily, and weekly alerts is based on content in a series of XML templates on the server computer. To customize the message text, you must edit the XML templates that contain the message text. The templates are stored on the front-end Web server at \\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\60\Template\LCID\XML, where LCID is the locale ID. The templates that contain message text for alerts are described in the following table.
Template name
Description
Text and fields may include
notifsitehdr.xml
The header text used for each e-mail alert
Header information (such as site URL), message title information (such as Daily or Weekly Summary), and item information.
notiflisthdr.xml
The list header text
Summary information for daily or weekly changes to a list.
notifitem.xml
The event information
Body text for e-mail messages, including the text and placeholders "item in list has been changed by name at time."
notifsiteftr.xml
The footer text used for each e-mail alert
Footer information, including the string "Click here to manage alert settings."
Caution Editing any of the XML templates for Windows SharePoint Services can break the templates and, consequently, break the mechanism for sending alerts. Be sure to edit only the message text in the template and keep a backup copy of the original templates in case you need to revert to the originals. For more information about customizing XML templates, see the Windows SharePoint Services Software Development Kit.
You can edit the XML templates to include any of the following tags:
Tag
Description
SiteUrl
The full URL to the site.
SiteName
The name of the site.
SiteLanguage
The locale ID (LCID) for the language used in the site. For example, 1033 for U.S. English.
AlertFrequency
Immediate (0), Daily (1), or Weekly (2).
ListUrl
The full URL to the list.
ListName
The name of the list.
ItemUrl
The full URL to the item.
ItemName
The name of the item.
EventType
ItemAdded (1), Item Modified (2), Item Deleted (4), DiscussionAdded (16), Discussion Modified (32), Discussion Deleted (64), Discussion Closed (128), Discussion Activated (256).
ModifiedBy
The name of the user who modified an item.
TimeLastModified
The time the item was last modified.
MySubsUrl
The full URL to the My Alerts on this Site page in Site Settings.
Note In the XML templates, you use numerical values instead of text to specify frequency and event types. So, if you want to set the AlertFrequency to weekly, you would use the value 2 in the template, rather than typing "weekly."
You can use any XML editing tool, such as Notepad, to edit the templates. Keep in mind that any changes you make to this message text are used for all alert messages sent to all users of your server. If you are in a server farm environment, you must edit the templates on each server in the server farm, or copy the edited templates to each server in the server farm. You must be an administrator of the local server computer to edit the XML templates for Windows SharePoint Services.