How to Create Email Alerts for a SharePoint Group

If RSS isn’t your thing, you can opt to receive email notifications when SharePoint apps change by creating an alert. Alerts are a great way to keep track of the changes your teammates make to documents and items.

You need the Create Alerts permission to create alerts. This permission is granted usually with the out-of-the-box configuration of the Site Members SharePoint group.

To create an alert to an app, follow these steps:

1. Browse to the app where you want to subscribe to an alert and then click the Alert Me drop-down button in the Share & Track section of the Library tab of the Ribbon (for a library-based app) or the List tab of the Ribbon (for a list-based app). If you don’t see the Alert Me button, chances are your administrator has not configured outgoing email settings. If outgoing email settings are not configured in Central Administration, then the Alert Me button simply will not appear to users. If you are using SharePoint Online, however, then outgoing email has already been configured by Microsoft and you are good to go.
2. Choose Set Alert on this Library from the drop-down list. The New Alert window appears. You can subscribe to an alert for an item or document by selecting the item or document and choosing Alert Me on the Items tab of the Ribbon.
3. In the Alert Title text box, enter a name for the alert. Make the name something meaningful to you in your inbox, such as Documents Modified Today – Budget Team Site. Otherwise, you have no meaningful way to tell one alert from another.
4. In the Send Alerts To text box, enter the names of people in addition to you who should receive the alert. That’s right, you can subscribe other people to an alert! You must have the Manage Alerts permission, which is granted by default to Site Owners. Organizations and site owners may want to subscribe multiple users to an alert to make sure they get important updates, as well as encourage them to contribute to a discussion board, blog, or wiki. Users can still opt out by modifying settings in their Alert settings.
5. In the Delivery Method section, select whether to receive alerts via email or text message to your cellular phone. Text messaging requires that your SharePoint administrator configures this service through a third party, so you may not be able to send alerts to your phone.
6. In the Change Type section, select the option that matches the type of notifications you want to receive — All Changes, New Items Are Added, Existing Items Are Modified, or Items Are Deleted. If you’re responsible for managing an app, you should receive an alert any time items are deleted.
7. In the Send Alerts for These Changes section, choose when to receive alerts. The options you see here vary based on the kind of app you’re working with. For example, a Tasks app allows you to receive an alert when a task is marked Complete or any time a high-priority task changes.
8. In the When to Send Alerts section, choose the frequency of your alert delivery. You can receive them immediately, once a day, or once a week. Daily summaries are nice; otherwise, you will likely get too many emails.
9. Click OK to create your alert.

Check out this example of configuring an alert.

Any time users say they need a workflow to receive notification, try an alert first. You’d be surprised at how often alerts provide the options that are needed.

If your app has a personal or public view that includes a filter, you can subscribe to changes to just that view. For example, say you want to be notified via text message when an item in an Issue Tracking app has its priority set to High. You would create a view that filters the app for high-priority issues. Select the filtered view in the Send Alerts for These Changes section when you create your alert, and you will receive alerts when items meet the filter criteria.

You must have an email address configured in your SharePoint profile in order to receive alerts. If your SharePoint server is located in your network, that’s usually not an issue. However, Office 365 may not be integrated with your network and email information. In those situations, your administrator can either manually configure your email address or grant you permission to do so.

You can manage all your alerts from a single page instead of navigating to each list. To manage all the alerts you have on a given site and modify or delete them, follow these steps:

1. Browse to an app where you currently subscribe to an alert.
2. On the List tab of the Ribbon, in the Share & Track section, choose Alert Me → Manage My Alerts.
3. Select the proper alert name link. The Manage My Alerts on this Site page appears with all the options you viewed when you first created the alert. Change the settings as desired. Didn’t set the alert to begin with? You can still read through the settings and change the choices (see the preceding steps list). Your changes don't affect the Alert settings for others if the alert was created for multiple users at the same time.
4. Click OK to modify the alert with your new settings or Delete to delete the alert. Deleting an alert that was created for you doesn't delete the alert from other users who are in the group the alert was created for.

If you're the site administrator, you can manage the alerts of everyone on the site by clicking the User Alerts link on the Site Administration section of the Site Settings page.