Alerts notify you when information that interests you is added or updated on the portal site and associated content sources. You can define your areas of interest and identify how and when you want to be told about something new or updated that you may want to investigate. You can add an alert to track new matches to a search query, changes to content in an area, or a new site added to the Site Directory.

An alert can be added to track these types of items:

• Search queries
• Documents and listings
• Areas
• News listings
• Sites added to the Site Directory
• SharePoint lists and libraries
• List items
• Portal site users
• Backward-compatible document library folders

Alerts are important tools for portal site users. As information from diverse sources is pulled together, sifting through so much content can be a time-consuming task. Alerts provide a proactive solution to staying informed. Alerts in Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003 build on the concept of subscriptions in Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server 2001, extending and refining the feature to make it even more powerful.

The portal site sends alert results whenever changes are made to the content that you added an alert for. You can view alert results on the portal site or receive them in e-mail messages. You can specify how frequently you want to receive alert results by e-mail and receive them immediately, as a daily summary, or as a weekly summary. When you no longer need to follow changes for the item, you can delete your alerts at any time.

You can manage your alerts and alert results from My Alerts, a page available from My Site. In addition, by using Microsoft Office Outlook 2003, you can view all alerts and alert results from all alert providers, including alerts from Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services.

Related Topics

Add an alert

View and manage My Alerts

Delete an alert

Manage alerts settings for all users