How do cover emails and notifications work?

This article explains how to manage cover notifications for staff, including when to send email alerts about cover assignments and cancellations. It details the options for notifying individual staff or sending bulk emails, as well as the interaction between email notifications and requests for agreement on cover arrangements.

You can manage cover without notifying your staff too soon, by choosing whether to notify the covering staff at the point of arranging the cover, or later on.

How do we choose when to send the email?

When assigning cover, you'll see a tick box where you can choose to send an email notification. This box will be ticked by default, but you can untick it if you don't want to send the email.

If this box is ticked, the staff member who is assigned to cover the event will be sent an email to let them know.

If this box is ticked and the cover requirement is cancelled, they'll receive a follow-up email letting them know they are no longer required to cover.

Top Tip: This email won't be sent if the covered event was in the past and has already happened before the cover is cancelled.

Can we send emails in bulk?

You can also choose to notify all your staff in bulk, by clicking the Print and send cover slips button and selecting Email today's cover arrangements.

How does this work with requesting agreement?

When assigning cover, you also choose whether to request agreement to the the cover arrangement from the staff member. You can see more information on cover requests here: What happens when I tick 'Request agreement'?

• If both boxes are unticked, no email will be sent.
• If Request agreement is ticked but Send email notification is unticked, the staff member will receive the cover request, but not an email.
• If Request agreement is unticked but Send email notification is ticked, the staff member will receive an email.
• If both boxes are ticked, the staff member will receive the cover request. If they accept the request, they'll then receive the email.  If they reject the request, they won't receive the email. 

Please note that staff may still be emailed when cover is cancelled.