Email Notifications and Site Membership

Email Service 

Silva provides a messaging service that can send email between Authors and Chief Editors. This is integrated into the publishing workflow. When activated, the request for approval and approval actions can also send an email with comments. The Email Service needs to be configured in the ZMI:

  1. Switch to the Zope Management Interface using the manage… link at the top of the Silva Management Screen.
  2. Click on the Services Tab.
  3. Click on the link for service_messages (Silva Message Service).
  4. Fill in the details and click Change Settings.

Fig. 2. Email Service activation area of the Zope Management Interface.

There are several criteria that must be fulfilled before the email messaging will work:

  1. The Email Message Service must be configured, with a host, port, from address, and the “Actually send email” option must be checked.
  2. There must be at least one Chief Editor assigned higher in the content tree.
  3. Both the Chief Editor and Author must have email addresses entered. They can check their user settings to make sure there is an email address.
  4. The network connection to the mail host must be working.

Membership Service - pending requests for roles

If the Membership Service and the Email Service are activated, Authors can request a higher role, triggering an email of the request to the Chief Editor.

To activate the Membership Service, switch to the ZMI (Zope Management Interface) using the manage… link at the end of the Silva breadcrumb trail at top of the Silva Management Screen.

  1. Click on the Services Tab.
  2. Click on the link under Name called (service_members (Silva Membership Service).
  3. To allow membership requests click the yes checkbox.
  4. Click Change Settings.

Fig. 1. Membership Service activation area of the Zope Management Interface.

Requests are listed in the “Pending requests for roles” table in the Access screen.

To process a request:

  • Place a check in the user’s checkbox.
  • Click the appropriate button.

The user will be informed by email if the Email Service is active, otherwise they will just be granted access.

LDAP and Groups

If Silva has been connected to LDAP, group membership information can be configured to be retrieved from an LDAP server. This allows the reuse of groups defined centrally on such a server, and can scale to many users and large groups. See Groups management for more information.