beginnernotification
Digest and Summary Rollup
Collect events throughout the day or week, then send a single consolidated summary instead of individual notifications. Reduce noise while keeping stakeholders informed.
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Visual Flow
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When to Use This Pattern
Use digest rollups when:
- Stakeholders receive too many individual notifications and are tuning them out
- Events are frequent but individually not urgent (new templates, daily metrics, weekly activity)
- Leaders want a summary view rather than real-time detail
- You want to reduce email volume without sacrificing visibility
How It Works
| Phase | What Happens |
|---|---|
| Collect | Throughout the day/week, events are logged to a queue |
| Trigger | At a scheduled time, the digest workflow fires |
| Aggregate | Query all events since the last digest |
| Format | Build a structured summary (HTML email, PDF, Teams card) |
| Deliver | Send the digest to subscribers |
| Clean up | Mark events as "digested" or archive them |
Implementation Guide
Step 1: Design the Event Queue
Every notification-worthy event writes to a shared queue:
| Field | Example |
|---|---|
| event_type | "new_template" |
| summary | "Invoice Processing template published" |
| detail_url | Link to the full item |
| priority | low / medium / high |
| timestamp | 2025-03-15T14:22:33Z |
| digested | false |
Step 2: Schedule the Digest
| Frequency | Best For | Timing |
|---|---|---|
| Daily | Operational teams | 8:00 AM (before workday starts) |
| Weekly | Leadership, stakeholders | Monday 8:00 AM |
| Real-time for urgent | High-priority only | Immediate via Multi-Channel Notification |
Step 3: Build the Summary Template
Design an email or Teams card template:
📊 Weekly Gallery Summary — Mar 10–16, 2025
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
📈 Quick Stats
• 5 new templates published
• 12 templates updated
• 847 total downloads this week (↑18% vs last week)
• 3 new patterns added to the library
🆕 New Templates
• Invoice Processing (Workflows) — Auto-approve invoices under $1K
• SAP Vendor Onboarding (RPA) — Full vendor setup with ECS Core
• Emergency Response Plan (PM) — Crisis management framework
📝 Recently Updated
• Employee Onboarding — Added IT provisioning section
• Contract Management — Updated approval workflow
🔥 Most Downloaded This Week
1. Expense Report (143 downloads)
2. Leave Request (98 downloads)
3. Purchase Order Request (87 downloads)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
View all templates: https://gallery.nintex.com
Step 4: Group and Sort Events
Organise events logically in the digest:
- High-priority items first — anything flagged as important
- Group by category — new items, updates, metrics, warnings
- Include counts — "5 new templates" is more scannable than listing all 5
- Link to details — each item should have a "View" link for deep-dives
- Include comparisons — "↑18% vs last week" adds context
Step 5: Handle Empty Digests
If nothing happened since the last digest:
| Option | When |
|---|---|
| Send a "nothing new" note | Good for accountability (proves the system is working) |
| Skip the digest entirely | Better for reducing noise — nobody missed anything |
| Send a reduced summary | Just show the stats (downloads, views) without the event list |
Tips & Best Practices
Tip
The best digests are scannable in under 30 seconds. Use clear headings, bullet points, and numbers. Save detailed information for the linked pages.
- Let users choose frequency. Some people want daily digests, others weekly. Offer a self-service preference.
- Include an unsubscribe link. Nobody should be forced to receive digests they don't want. This also keeps your open rates honest.
- A/B test formatting. Try different layouts and measure open rates and click-through rates. What format gets people to actually read it?
- Combine with a dashboard. The digest is a notification; the dashboard is the full picture. Link from the digest to a PowerBI or web dashboard for interactive exploration.