Atlas Alerts Bar (Atlas 4.3+)

We're happy to announce that a much-requested feature is coming to Atlas in version 4.3; Alerts!

Alerts are shown in a bar just below the Global Navigation menu and also in a new Alerts button in the top right of the Atlas Header.

Alerts are the ideal way to push out short important messages to your users. As this is part of the global navigation they will appear no matter where a user is within Atlas.

Alerts can be sent to all users, or targeted to specific users or groups. You can also control whether the alert appears in the message bar, the "Bell" icon notifications area, or both, and set the dates for the alert to be displayed.

If a user clicks on the new "bell" icon in the top right, they can see the last 10 alerts they were shown, including those which have been dismissed from the bar. On mobile devices the Alerts bell can be found on the right of the toolbar pinned to the bottom of the page.

In this article:

• Add an Alert
• Manage Created Alerts
• Manage Alert Styles

Add an Alert

Please note before you start that to add an alert you need to be an Owner of the Atlas Configuration workspace. This is a change from other configuration lists which might only require you to be a Member to add/edit the content.

1. Go to the Altas Configuration site then open Add It, or simply open Add It from anywhere and select the Atlas Configuration workspace.
2. Choose Alerts under the "Content" heading:
   
   
   
3. Next fill in the metadata form to define your alert:
   
   
   • The Alert Name will not be shown in the alert itself but is used for managing the alerts in the list
   • The Message will be the main text shown on the alert
   • The Severity determines the icon to be shown on the left of the alert
   • The Start Date and End Date determine the time period when the alert will be shown to users. It is recommended to set a sensible end date
   • The Alert Type determines if the alert appears only in the bar, only in the "bell" icon, or both. Usually it is recommended to set both.
4. Next, expand the Optional metadata:
   
   
   • You can set a Link to be shown in the alert,
   • Whether the link opens in a new tab,
   • Whether the alert is Active,
   • Enter users or groups for Content Targeting - only those specified will see the alert.
5. If you see the Security section next, this section can be ignored for alerts since editors cannot create them anyway.
6. When you're happy with the alert, click Submit at the bottom to create it:
   

Manage Created Alerts

To manage alerts that have been created you will need to be an Owner of the Atlas Configuration workspace. Navigate to it, then click "Alerts" in the left-hand menu.

From here you can edit or delete the alerts just like you would for any SharePoint list item.

Manage Alert Styles

To manage the alert styles you need to be a SharePoint Administrator able to access the Atlas Tenant Properties. If you need more information on this please see here: Manage Tenant Properties for Atlas

From the tenant properties, find the property Atlas.Alerts.Styles either by scrolling or using the search bar. Select the property then click Edit at the top of the list.

A panel will appear on the right hand side which shows the current configuration for this property. You will notice that it includes a number of configuration options such as colours, icons and whether to use autoplay if there are multiple alerts active.

{"messageBarBackgroundColor": "#A5E2E0","messageBarTextColor": "#323130","messageBarIconColor": "#418d91","severityConfig": [{"severity": "High","icon": "ErrorBadge"},{"severity": "Normal","icon": "Warning"},{"severity": "Info","icon": "Info"},{"severity": "Critical","icon": "ATPLogo"}],"bellAlertColor": "#F10BBD","bellIcon": "Ringer","timeMessageBar": "5","autoPlay": "Off"}

To modify the configuration you should replace the relevant value in the configuration text. For the colours, this uses a hex code which you can simply change for the colour you prefer. For the icons, the values refer to icon names from the Fluent UI Icons library. You can browse the library to find the icons you want here: https://www.flicon.io/

The below image illustrates a purple message bar with a white font and a white warning icon:

The below has a red message bar, navy font and warning icon and the bell alert is red. 

Remember to consider accessibility when making these changes

Finally, autoplay can be set to Off or On, and the timer defines the number of seconds before autoplay scrolls to the next alert, so just enter a number here.