Duplicate Email Notifcations

[SofiaFa]

Hi there, 

One of our users is getting duplicate email notifications on any project she is on. All of her notification settings are normal, and she shouldn't be getting duplicates. Please see the attached for reference.

Any idea on why this is happening?

Thank you!

[RowvillBh1]

Hi @SofiaFa ,

There could be multiple reasons for this. You may have to look into each of these - 

• Global notifications vs. project-specific notifications: There may be project-level or team-level notifications set up that override or duplicate global settings.
• Group Membership: If the user is part of multiple groups or teams that receive notifications for the same action, she may receive one notification per group/team.
• Shared Inboxes: Confirm she’s not receiving emails both individually and as part of a shared mailbox or distribution list.
• Role Assignment: If the user is assigned to a project in more than one role (e.g., both as a team member and as an approver), she may get notifications for each role.

-Rowvill

[skyehansen]

I think you could go back and ask a few more questions, like how long she's been getting these emails vs how long she's been in the system total. If she's been in there for a while, and is only just now getting these emails, you may be able to track the starting point to some related incident, like some sort of configuration to her user profile (addition to a team, for example). I'd also be asking who else it's happening to. (is it just her or Lexi as well?)

It's difficult to tell from the screenshots, but it kind of looks like they have two different distribution lists. Is the one at 10:07 only being sent to two people? And the one at 10:08 being sent to 9 people?

Lastly, Workfront has a tendency to place a link at the bottom of the majority of their emails, that says "Stop emails of this type" -- if you get this person to forward both those emails to you, you can click on both the links and see which type of notification is sending each email. If it's the same notification "type", and if this is consistently happening to a number of users, it might be worth submitting a case to Support to see if there's something going on that they can check on their side. 

[BrookeSt1]

We see this too and I think it's a result of users replying within Outlook (or your email service) where they received the initial notification.  If you stay in Outlook and reply to the notification email, instead of clicking the "Comment" button in that notification to jump into Workfront, the reply email "To:" field shows the email link back into workfront (something long like "XXX.my.workfront.com+776dbbab1514d056e0530a093a0af615+NOTE_6891ed690002550104560554dd663068@intake1.my.workfront.com"), but also shows regular emails addresses for everyone that is on the thread. So when people reply via Outlook or email platform they receive two emails: one from Workfront's thread notification, and the other coming straight from Outlook.

The only way to solve it is ask users to click into Workfront using the "Comment" button to jump into Workfront.  However most of us are programmed with email to just answer quickly there if you don't need to dig into the project for information.

[skyehansen]

that's interesting. I haven't seen that but also wondering if it's the difference between reply vs reply-all. Do you know which ones your users are doing, or are you saying it def happens with reply as well?

[BrookeSt1]

Most likely users hit Reply All. We have so many email chains that need to include everyone that Reply All tends to be the default for most people in our department. From what I can tell from the OP screenshots, it appears that Reply All was used so, in their example, Ashley, Linda, Justin, Patrick, Chelsea, Lexi all received emails directly to their email from the reply, and then a second notification from the way Workfront provides notices on thread comments. One email is defintely the Workfront notification, while the other is more like an Outlook reply. And in the examples I see on our instance, when someones email signature gets included in a comment, then it's a telling sign they used Outlook to reply versus commenting within Workfront directly. 

I suspect that just using Reply on a Workfront notification email would only yield 1 email out to the thread recipients because it only goes to the generated Workfront intake email address. Which then keeps the reply within Workfront and the one thread notification email goes out to all thread members. I'd be curious if others see these double emails as well (maybe we're doing something wrong or different and there is a way to stop the double emails without changing their Outlook Reply All behavior!).

[kautuk_sahni]

@SofiaFa just checking in! Were you able to get this resolved? If one of the replies above helped—whether it completely solved the issue or simply pointed you in the right direction—marking it as accepted can make it much easier for others with the same question to find a solution. And if you found a different way to fix it, sharing your approach would be a great contribution to the community. Your follow-up not only helps close the loop but also ensures others benefit from your experience. Thanks so much for being part of the conversation!

[SofiaFa · Accepted solution]

YES SORRY! This is solved, it was because the user had turned on notifications to come in whenever someone commented on a thread they were in. 

Thank you everyone!