ASP.NET 3.5 Enterprise Application Development with Visual Studio® 2008: Problem - Design - Solution

Chapter 8. Notifications

Another key piece of functionality that enterprise applications usually require is the capability to send notifications when specific events occur in the system. The notification is usually an e-mail message that is sent to a user. Some applications define notifications as alerts, which is essentially the same thing. The system is proactively communicating with users to let them know that certain events occurred or certain actions need to be followed up on. For applications that have workflow, notifications are key pieces of functionality that people tend to rely on to let them know they are supposed to do something. It is helpful if the e-mail message has a link back to the application and the specific screen that enables the user to take action. Once users get used to receiving these e-mails they become dependent on them, which is a great selling feature for your application. Mary didn't consider this functionality in our first conversation, but from experience I knew she would eventually ask for it so I brought it up. Luckily, the framework being built in this book has this capability, so it is easy to add this functionality without extending the deadline of the project too much.