# Using External Notifications (QMS)

Organizations often need to send emails to internal and external recipients for various processes in QMS. Using _Quality External Notifications_, you can define distribution groups, notification templates, send emails and share documents. This addresses several scenarios that your organization may encounter:

  * When an _Audit_ report is completed, that report often needs to be sent to an external recipient, such as the supplier contact, as well as persons associated with the _Audit_ or supplier.
  * In _Complaint_ and _Medtech Complaint_ processes, customers often need to send correspondence letters and forms to the complainant or the reporter associated with the complaint at various times during the event lifecycle.
  * If a serious issue is encountered, such as a critical deviation, and an _Issue Escalation_ process is initiated, upper management external to Vault may need to be notified of the serious event.
  * In _Field Corrective Action_ processes, external parties may need to be notified of _Product Action_ developments.

## Tracked Emails

When using _Quality External Notifications_ with _Complaint_ or _Medtech Complaint_ records, Vault notifies the sender of the email if the email was not successfully delivered to the recipient's email address. After sending the notification email, Vault stores relevant reportable information in _Email_ and _Quality Event Sent Notification_ object records.

## Document Packages

_Quality External Notifications_ are capable of sending links to view pre-packaged Vault documents in a special external viewer. For example, in an _Audit_ process, audit reports often need to be sent to external contacts such as suppliers. After sending the notification email, Vault stores a link to the externally-viewable documents in a text field on the applicable object record.

## External Notification Recipients

Depending on your Vault's configuration, the system may either automatically populate distribution groups for an external notification when the applicable record reaches a certain lifecycle state, allow you to populate them via the _Create Distribution Group Memberships_ user action, or allow you to manually populate distribution groups.

If a person record includes parentheses or an email address in the name, emails will not reach the external notification recipient associated with the affected person record. Ensure that you do not create any person records with parentheses or an email address in the name if you plan to use _Quality External Notifications_.

## How to Send an External Notification

In some cases, Vault sends _Quality External Notifications_ automatically, for example, as part of an entry action. In cases where your process does not send these notifications automatically, you may need to perform the action manually:

1. Navigate to the applicable record detail page in **Business Admin** or from a custom object tab.
2. Expand the _Notification Recipients_ section and verify that the distribution groups contain the correct _Person_ records. You may need to perform the **Create Distribution Group Memberships** action to populate the distribution groups. The availability and label of this action may differ depending on your Vault's configuration.
3. If you need to change the contacts, click **Manage Recipients**, then select the appropriate contacts in each distribution group box. The contacts in these boxes correspond to _Person_ object records in your Vault. Click **Save** when finished. Some distribution groups may not be editable.
4. Perform the **Send External Notification** action. The label of this action may differ depending on your Vault's configuration.
5. In the dialog, choose an appropriate template from the **Select Notification Template** drop-down.
6. Make any necessary changes to the **Additional Recipients** and **Users associated to the following roles** fields. These fields may not be editable, depending on your Vault's configuration.
7. Click **Send**.

<div class="note-border alert-info">
  <div class="alert alert-info" role="alert">
    <div><i class="far fa-info-circle"></i></div>
    <div class="alert-text">
      <p><strong>Note</strong>: If you specify a <em>Reply To</em> email address on a <em>Complaint</em> or <em>Quality Event</em> record to direct replies to external notifications to the appropriate person, some email clients may ignore it. In these cases, notification recipients may need to replace the auto-populated reply-to email address with the correct address when responding to external notifications.</p>
    </div>
  </div>
</div>



## Related Permissions

To view the _Notification Recipients_ section and _Manage Recipients_, users require a security profile or role which grants the _Read_ and _Edit_ permissions on the following objects:

  * _Audit-Ext Notif Recipient_
  * _Issue Escalation-Ext Notif Recipient_
  * _Quality Event-Ext Notif Recipient_
  * _Complaint-Ext Notif Recipient_
  * _Product Action-Ext Notif Recipient_

In order to manage recipients on objects with external notifications enabled, users require _Read_ permissions on the _Person_ object.

In order to view the _Sent Notifications_ section on _Audit_ records, users require _Read_ permissions on the following objects:

  * _Audit Sent Notification_
  * _Issue Escalation Sent Notification_
  * _Quality Event Sent Notification_
  * _Complaint Sent Notification_
  * _Product Action-Ext Notif Recipient_