Set and manage notification alerts on SharePoint discussion boards, lists, & libraries

In both modern and classic SharePoint experiences, you can navigate to any discussion board, list, or library and set a custom alert just for you (or for others if you’re an admin) to get emails on new items, modifications, and more. All of the setup and management guidance below is classic, but modern is almost exactly the same except for how you initially access the “Alert me” options.

Set up a new alert

First, navigate to the list or library. Once there, you’ll see “Files/Items” and “Library/List” at the top. In the example below, we’re setting an alert on a document library so our options are “Files” and “Library.” Click the second option for the library, then “Alert Me.”

Select “Set alert on this library/list”

In the first part of the dialog, choose the Subject line of the email notifications (Alert Title), who should get it (just you if non-admin), and how they should get it. Your administrators may not have text messaging set up, so that may not be an available option.

Finally, choose what you care about (new items, modifications, deletions), the context/criteria for notifications, and how frequently you want emails (immediately, daily, or weekly). I find the daily option is great for discussion boards so users aren’t overwhelmed with back and forth discussion and can instead read a digest and catch up in a single email.

Click OK.

When ribbon menu isn’t there (classic)

Sometimes when you’re on a page with multiple web parts, you won’t see the Files/Library or Items/List menu options. This is because you need to “select” the relevant web part on the page by clicking in “white space” on the web part. The ribbon menu should then appear. And unless settings were changed by your site owner, you can sometimes click the title of the web part to go to just that app where you’ll see the menu as well.

Modify existing alert (end-user)

From the email notifications you receive, you can just click “Modify my alert settings” to see all alerts you have on that particular site, and be able to delete them or edit the settings.

You can also get there the same way we started. Ribbon menu –> List/Library –> Alert Me –> Manage my alerts

Manage all user alerts (admin)

Go to site settings

Under “Site administration” select “User alerts”

Choose for whom you’re modifying/deleting the alert(s) and click Update

You’ll now see all alerts that user has set up on that site (or alerts someone set up on their behalf). From here, you can delete any unwanted alerts, or report back to the user or interested party on frequency and topics/lists with alerts.

Generate and send reports, files or lists regularly with Microsoft Flow’s “recurrence” trigger

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Automatically create and send reports, files and lists on a regular schedule using Microsoft Flow’s recurrence trigger. Whether hourly, daily, weekly or monthly you can deliver the most current and relevant data from SharePoint or OneDrive to interested parties via email without lifting a finger. Combine this with calculated columns in SharePoint and conditions for some awesome possibilities:

Alerts Calendar Relevance Routine
Report costs or expenditures above a certain amount Current month’s birthdays and/or workiversaries to your secretary Send expenses per department or individual to that department or individual Budget and salary or payroll figures weekly
Notify when an open ticket is idle for a week or incomplete Upcoming events per location Share evaluation status with supervisors for just their employees Recently closed deals and contracts
Survey responses or reviews under 3 stars Upcoming deadlines per department Client info and updates to proper salespeople based on location or product Distribute new hires’ contact/location info to the organization in weekly batches

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Alerts/notifications for SharePoint site newsfeed webpart posts & replies

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One of the greatest business value features of a site newsfeed webpart would obviously be to know when people are participating, asking questions, etc. This way moderators or other interested parties could go in and respond in a timely manner. And while there’s no straightforward way to get these notifications from the webpart itself, there’s a workaround. Follow these steps once you have a newsfeed webpart on your site (by default, most team sites have them already).
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