Product Status Messages¶
Product Status Messages (/do/admin/productmessages) lets administrators customize the two pre-filled Outlook email bodies offered on a product's monitoring page (e.g. /do/monitoring/summary/GENFO/06) — Products Delay and Products Resumed — used to notify recipients that a product's dissemination is delayed, or that it has resumed.
The two messages¶
| Message | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Products Delay | Pre-fills the email opened from the Products Delay button, used when a product's dissemination is running late. |
| Products Resumed | Pre-fills the email opened from the Products Resumed button, used once dissemination has caught up. |
Each is stored in the database (so it survives upgrades and can be customized per site without a code change) and, when left empty or unchanged from the built-in default, falls back to that default text automatically. Use Reset current variant to restore the currently displayed Ungrouped or Grouped body to its built-in default, then click Save Messages to persist the reset.
Grouped vs. Ungrouped variants¶
Each of the two messages above actually has two variants, selected automatically depending on the page the notification is sent from:
- Ungrouped — used on a regular, single-cycle product page (e.g.
/do/monitoring/summary/GENFO/06). Supports the{{CYCLE}}placeholder (a single cycle/time, e.g.06). - Grouped — used instead on a product's merged, all-cycles page (
/do/monitoring/summary/{product}, no cycle in the URL) — i.e. a product with "Group all cycles/times into one page" enabled. Supports{{CYCLES}}(every cycle currently shown, e.g.00-03,06-07,12) instead of a single{{CYCLE}}.
The admin page shows an Ungrouped/Grouped toggle above each message's text area to switch between the two bodies being edited; both are saved together when you click Save Messages. Reset current variant restores the displayed body to its built-in default; click Save Messages to persist it. Placeholder buttons turn green when their placeholder is present in the currently displayed template, and update as you edit the text. An inline warning lists any unrecognized {{...}} placeholders; these remain unchanged in the generated message.
Placeholders¶
| Placeholder | Replaced with |
|---|---|
{{PRODUCT}} | The product currently being viewed (e.g. GENFO). |
{{PRODUCTS}} | For the Grouped messages: the product of the page on the monitoring pages, or the list of all the selected products on the Delay Notification page. {{PRODUCT}} still works in grouped messages and gives the same value. |
{{CYCLE}} | The single cycle/time currently being viewed (e.g. 06). Empty on a grouped page, which has no single cycle. |
{{CYCLES}} | Every cycle/time currently shown (e.g. 00-03,06-07,12 on a grouped page). On a regular, single-cycle page this is the same single value as {{CYCLE}}. |
{{DESCRIPTION}} | The description(s) configured under Product Descriptions for the current product — plain text when all shown types resolve to the same description, or a bullet list (- TYPE: description, one line per type) when they differ. Empty if none has been configured. |
{{AFFECTED}} | Used by the Delay Notification page (Grouped delay message): replaced with the products and cycles selected as Definite or Possible, then the reason, expected delay, ETA and note. When absent, that block is inserted after the first paragraph. Removed from the messages sent from the monitoring pages. |
{{REASON}} | The reason entered in the Delay Notification form, or the reason saved with a notice when composing its resolution. |
{{ETA}} | The notice's ETA, followed by UTC when set. |
{{EXPECTED_DELAY}} | The expected delay selected for the notice. |
{{NOTE}} | The note entered for the notice. |
The {{DESCRIPTION}} placeholder is included in all four built-in message bodies. The last four placeholders are available in the Grouped Products Delay and Products Resumed messages. They are replaced with the current notice's values (or the saved values when composing a resolution) and are empty in regular monitoring-page emails. In the Grouped Products Delay template, a value placed with its own placeholder is omitted from the automatically inserted affected block, while the other details remain there. If none is used, {{AFFECTED}} continues to include all of those details as before.
Markdown Messages¶
The messages are written in Markdown by default (switch "Write the messages in Markdown" in the Message Format card). While editing, a live preview is shown next to the editor. Line breaks are kept as typed, so the default templates need no special syntax; use - for bullet lists, **bold**, [text](https://url) for links and blank lines between paragraphs.
- Send directly sends the message as formatted HTML from the Master Server.
- Send with Outlook (and the product page email buttons) opens Outlook with a plain-text approximation of the message (paragraphs, lists, links as
text (url)), because Outlook links cannot carry HTML. - On the Delay Notification page, Preview shows the formatted message and a button at the bottom switches to the plain-text view to check what Outlook will receive.
- The built-in default messages are written in Markdown (bold labels, bullet lists for the reason, delay and ETA, a clickable status-page link). When the switch is off, the uncustomized defaults are automatically converted to plain text, so no Markdown symbols appear.
- Disable the switch to send the messages as plain text exactly as written. A notice keeps the format it was created with for its updates and resolutions.
Cycle List Formatting¶
By default, the {{CYCLES}} placeholder compacts a long list of cycles into ranges for readability, e.g.:
Uncheck "Automatically compact grouped cycle lists in the {{CYCLES}} placeholder" (in the Cycle List Formatting card) to always show the complete, uncompacted list instead.
Products Delay Message¶
Used in two places:
- Ungrouped variant: the Products Delay button of a single product/cycle page.
- Grouped variant: the same button on an all-cycles page, and the body of the notice on the Delay Notification page, which always starts from this variant because a notice covers several products and cycles.
Use the Insert at cursor buttons above the editor to add a placeholder where the cursor is (or over the selected text). Only the placeholders valid for the displayed variant are offered, and each placeholder can be used several times.
Example of a Grouped message:
Dear colleagues,
The dissemination of ECMWF {{PRODUCTS}} products for the {{CYCLES}}Z cycles will be delayed.
Product descriptions:
{{DESCRIPTION}}
{{AFFECTED}}
Kind regards,
ECMWF Duty Manager
The built-in Ungrouped and Grouped Products Delay messages introduce {{DESCRIPTION}} with Product descriptions: on a new line. When different descriptions are configured for the types shown, the placeholder expands to one - TYPE: description bullet per type; when they are the same, it appears once as plain text.
On the Delay Notification page, {{AFFECTED}} is replaced with the Definite and Possible lists, followed by the reason, expected delay, ETA and note, except for details placed with their own individual placeholders above. Use it once: a second use repeats the list. If it is missing, the list is inserted after the first paragraph. When the message is used from a monitoring page, {{AFFECTED}} is simply removed.
Products with different cycles¶
If the selected products do not share the same cycles, {{PRODUCTS}} names the cycles of each product, for example GENFO (00,12Z) and GWAVE (06,18Z), and the wording "for the {{CYCLES}}Z cycles" becomes "for their respective cycles". Only that exact wording is rewritten: if you phrase the sentence differently, {{CYCLES}} shows the combined list of cycles instead. Cycle lists follow the Cycle List Formatting option below.
Products Resumed Message¶
- Ungrouped variant: the Products Resumed button of a single product/cycle page.
- Grouped variant: the same button on an all-cycles page, and the pre-filled text of Inform resolution (in Sent notices of the Delay Notification page), for the cells being resolved.
{{PRODUCTS}}, {{CYCLES}} and {{DESCRIPTION}} work as in the delay message. {{AFFECTED}} is not available here.
Notification Addresses¶
The Notification Addresses card sets the From / To address (default operators@ecmwf.int) and the distribution list that is always in Bcc (default op_delay_ecmwf@lists.ecmwf.int). They are used by the Products Delay / Products Resumed buttons of the monitoring pages and by the Delay Notification page. Leave a field empty to restore its default.