Modifying SharePoint User Alerts

In the process of responding to Nate's question about how to view SharePoint user alerts yesterday, I was appalled to discover another alerts-related question that had been posted over a month ago which had somehow gone unnoticed and, consequently, unanswered.  I immediately offered my apologies, then went on to hazard a guess as to the answer, promising to investigate today and either confirm or deny whether my guess was correct.  Well, let's just say that it would behoove me in the future to verify my hunches before I open my virtual mouth, but what can I say?  I was rattled to discover that unanswered question, and wanted to respond immediately.

Jennifer asked:

I set up an alert for a document folder in which I added about 10 people to the distribution.  I realized after I set up the alert that I needed to modify the frequency setting from "immediately" to "daily summary".   I know how to modify the alert for myself, but how do you modify the alert for the 10 people for which I originally set up the alert as well?  I don't want to have to contact them individually and walk them through modifying their alerts manually.

Somewhat ironically, it was due to having investigated alerts functionality just yesterday that emboldened me to even hazard a guess as to the answer, and my answer was that I thought the process was the same to modify the settings for other users as it was for oneself.  My thinking was that this was likely to be the case due to the fact that I was able to add a new recipient to an already existing alert (with the same existing settings) merely by adding their name to the Send Alert To field.  As a result, it seemed a not unreasonable assumption that modifications made to that same alert would propagate to all users.

Not so, as I was to discover.

Turns out that, much to my chagrin and, I suspect, to Jennifer's as well, the only interaction with existing alerts that SharePoint out of the box allows for users (other than oneself) is to provide the ability to delete and recreate the alerts.  Furthermore, the original alert needs to be manually deleted for every user on the distribution list (10 users in Jennifer's case) before creating the new, revised version, else those users will receive multiple alerts.  To delete existing alerts, first follow the path to view User Alerts that I described yesterday and, once you select a given users' alerts, you'll see the Delete Selected Alerts option appear above the list of their alerts:

Needless to say, activating the checkbox for a given alert and clicking the Delete Selected Alerts hyperlink will (after an "are you sure?" prompt) remove the selected alert.  Once you've deleted the alert for each individual recipient, you're in the clear to recreate the alert with your revised settings in place.  You can either create a new alert from your My Settings/My Alerts area or via the Alert Me option associated with an individual document.

Finally, I'm duty-bound to mention that there is an easier way to manage alerts than the one provided out of the box, and it's called the Bamboo Alerts Administrator.  Coincidentally, I mentioned this very product yesterday, and today I found myself using it in the course of my investigations.

I may very well devote tomorrow's entry to the Alerts Administrator now that it's come up twice in two days but, for now, I'll just say with the Alerts Administrator you can entirely dispense with the out of the box need to delete and recreate your alerts by way of modifying the alert.  The Alerts Administrator will give you, at a glance, a listing of all the existing alerts on a given site, their current settings, and who's currently subscribed to those alerts:

Did you notice the edit icon associated with each instance of an alert?  If you need to modify the alert frequency associated with a specific document or event (as was Jennifer's need), with the Alerts Administrator, it's as simple as clicking that edit icon and then resetting the frequency to suit your needs.  With the Alerts Administrator, such modifications still need to be performed for each individual recipient but, unlike the out of the box experience, you're able to see all of the alerts for a site in a single view, and you no longer need to delete those alerts and start from scratch.

Sound like this functionality might ease your pain?  If so, then by all means, I humbly encourage you to read more about the Bamboo Alerts Administrator.