Email Notifications and Reminders

Customizing notifications and reminders for Veza Access Reviews via email and Slack.

Overview

Notifications inform reviewers and other stakeholders of important events, such as when a review starts, re-assignments occur, and deadlines pass. These notifications can be delivered via email, Slack, or both. Veza includes three types of notifications, which an administrator can customize with templates.

Notifications: Event-based, sent when a review starts or finishes, or on row reassignment.
Reminders: Time-based, sent around the deadline or period of activity when there is remaining work.
Final Reminders: Similar to reminders, highlighting missed deadlines or extended periods of inactivity.

Delivery Methods

Access Review notifications can be delivered through multiple channels:

Email: Traditional email notifications sent to reviewers, managers, and additional recipients (default)
Slack App: Direct message notifications sent to individual reviewers via the Veza Slackbot

You can enable one or both delivery methods based on your team's preferences. When both are enabled, reviewers receive notifications through both channels simultaneously.

Prerequisites for Slack App Notifications

To enable Slack App notifications:

Configure the Slack App integration (see Slack App Notifications)
The feature flag UI_SLACK_APP_INTEGRATION must be enabled for your organization (contact Veza support)
Users must exist in both Veza and Slack with matching email addresses

Configuring Delivery Methods

When creating or editing an Access Review configuration:

Navigate to the Notification Settings section
Under Delivery options, select:
- Email: Send notifications via email
- Slack App: Send direct messages to reviewers via Slackbot
If Slack App is enabled, choose your configured Slack App from the dropdown
Select which events trigger notifications:
- Review started
- Review completed
- Reviewer changed
- Reminder notifications
- Escalation notifications

All configured notification events will be delivered as direct messages to assigned reviewers through the selected delivery methods.

For team channel notifications: Use Slack webhooks in the Veza Actions section to post decision events (approve/reject/complete) to team channels. See Slack Webhook Integration. Both direct messages and channel notifications can be used simultaneously.

First-Time User Experience

When reviewers receive their first Slack notification:

If they haven't connected their Slack account to Veza, the message includes a "Connect" button
Clicking "Connect" redirects them to Veza's login page
After authentication, their Slack and Veza accounts are linked
Subsequent notifications include interactive "View", "Approve", and "Deny" buttons

Operators assign default notification settings when creating a configuration. Reviews created for the configuration will inherit these settings. Operators can later customize notification settings for specific reviews.

For multi-user access reviews, you will typically want to fine-tune reminders to meet your requirements, for example:

Reviewers and review owners, informing them when rows are re-assigned.
Reviewers and their managers, if users are inactive when further action is required.
External stakeholders, on review completion or after a deadline passes.

This document describes notification options for Veza Access Reviews, and how to edit notifications for a configuration or a review.

Configuring notifications & reminders

You can add reminders when creating a configuration by enabling them in the Notifications section of the configuration builder. To enable notifications, specify the recipients and the conditions that will result in an email.

Recipients can be:

Reviewers: Users assigned to rows in the review, including default reviewers and any reassigned reviewers.
Reviewer Managers: Users identified by Veza as the manager of an assigned reviewer, possible after enabling a global identity provider for Veza Access Reviews.
Additional Recipients: Any other stakeholders, provided as a comma-separated list of emails. You can use this option to inform external users about completion status, deadlines, and delays.

Notifications can trigger:

On review start: Upon review creation or after publishing a draft review. Use this option to inform reviewers who are auto-assigned on review creation.
On row reassignment: After a reviewer is assigned to a row by a user operation (API or GUI-initiated). It does not include reviewers assigned at review creation.
On review completion: When the review is marked "Complete".

Reminders can trigger:

Every (number of days) if no changes by reviewers in (number of days): Periodic reminders when reviewers have not acted on their assigned rows.
On (number of days) before review due date: Sent based on an upcoming due date.
On due date: Sent when the review is due.
(Number of days) after due date: Sent when the review deadline has passed.

Final Reminders have the same triggers and use the same template as “Action Needed” reminders. Use them to add escalated reminders, emphasizing missed deadlines or extended periods of inactivity. For example, a reminder might notify the reviewer after a few days of no activity, and a final reminder might notify both the reviewer and their manager if there have been no changes in a week.

Reminders and final reminders are sent at 11 AM PST on the specified date.

Edit notifications and reminders for a configuration

Saving changes to email notifications at the configuration level causes both active reviews and new reviews for that configuration to use the updated settings.

To change the default email notifications for an existing configuration:

Go to Access Reviews > Configurations.
Click the configuration name to view details.
On the Configuration Details page, click Edit.
Scroll down to the Advanced Notifications section.
Configure notification settings using the checkboxes to enable recipients and triggers:
- Review Notifications:
  - Under When, select events that trigger notifications (Review has been started, Review has been completed, Review row has been reassigned)
  - Under Notify, select recipients (Reviewers, Managers, Additional Recipients)
- Reviewer Notifications:
  - Under When, select timing conditions (Review is due, days before a review is due, days after a review is due, or reminders when no changes have been made)
  - Under Notify, select recipients (Reviewers, Managers, Additional Recipients)
Save your changes.

Edit notifications and reminders for a review

Operators and administrators can customize notifications for individual reviews. These settings appear in the reviewer's interface on the review details sidebar.

To edit email notifications for an in-progress review:

Go to Access Reviews > Reviews, or open the review from the Configuration Details page.
Click on the review's name to open the reviewer's interface.
On the Review Details sidebar, find Notifications and Reminders and click Open.
Open notification settings or edit Veza Actions.
Use the Edit Configuration Notifications & Reminders form to add recipients and triggers.
Click Save when finished.