One problem with updating alert template for Sharepoint list

In this post I would like to describe one problem with Sharepoint alerts. Alerting is OTB Sharepoint feature which can be used for subscribing on the events from list or document library. Supported event types are:

• All changes
• New items are added
• Existing items are modified
• Items are deleted

Each list has single associated alert template. Programmatically you can read and set this alert template using SPList.AlertTemplate property. Each list created using OTB list template (e.g. Custom list) has associated OTB alert template. Alert templates are located in 14/Template/Xml/AlertTemplates.xml file. E.g. for Custom list there is “SPAlertTemplateType.GenericList” alert template. Alert templates contain subject and body which will be sent to end user.

You can modify existing alert templates or create new one. Most of the articles which I found say that you should not make changes in original AlertTemplates.xml (this is quite reasonable because it may be overriden by next Sharepoint update). Instead create a copy of this file, modify it (add new alert template with unique name or update existing template) and call updatealerttemplates stsadm command:

   1: stsadm -o updatealerttemplates -url http://example.com -f MyAlerttemplates.xml

However it is not the only way to create alerts templates. You can also create alert templates in configuration database. I will write separate post about it.

But let’s return to the original topic: suppose that you created new custom list. After creation it will have SPAlertTemplateType.GenericList alert template associated. Then users subscribe to events from this list or you subscribe them by yourself (it is possible to specify different users in the OTB alerts subscribe page). After that you change alert template, e.g. programmatically:

   1: list.AlertTemplate = alertTemplate;

   2: list.Update();

or using 3rd party component via UI. You may expect that users who subscribed to the list previously will receive emails created with updated alert template. But this is not the case. Previously subscribed users will receive emails created with old alert template, but those users who will subscribe after modification of alert template – will receive new emails.

It may cause many problems and a lot of debugging efforts. E.g. if you created custom alert handler (inheritor of IAlertNotifyHandler interface), attach it to some alert template (here is the good example of how to do it: How To: Customizing alert emails using IAlertNotifyHandler. It also uses example with file, not with config database), then associate alert template with list – but it is not fired anyway. One of the reason is that users were subscribed before alert template was changed for this list.

One way to avoid it is to set alert template for all subscribers when list alert template was changed. Here is code for this (didn’t test it by myself, but it should work):

   1: list.AlertTemplate = at;

   2: list.Update();

   3:  

   4: foreach (SPAlert alert in list.ParentWeb.Alerts)

   5: {

   6:     if (alert.ListID == list.ID)

   7:     {

   8:         alert.AlertTemplate = list.AlertTemplate;

   9:         alert.Update();

  10:     }

  11: }

or re-subscribe users manually. Hope this information will be useful for you if you will face with similar problem.