Setting Specific Alerts
Specific alerts play a sound or display a message whenever selected people in your contact list become Active. This feature can be useful if you want to know immediately when someone becomes Active. For example, you might need to ask someone an important question as soon as possible. Creating a specific alert eliminates the need to continually check that person's online status.
Note Before removing a name from your contact list, you should first remove any specific alerts associated with that name. If you continue to receive specific alerts for names that you have removed from your contact list, select "Stop alerting me about this person" when the alert message appears on your screen. If the alert is a sound that does not include a message box, you must add the person's name to your contact list, remove the alert associated with that person, and then remove the person from your contact list again.
Creating Specific Alerts
Follow these steps to create specific alerts for selected people in your contact list:
- Select a name in your contact list.
- Choose People - Alert Me When.
- In the "Alert Me When Selected Person Becomes Available" dialog box, select one or both of the following two options:
- Comes online
- Becomes Active after being in Away or Do Not Disturb status
- Select a notification method. You can select multiple methods.
- Displaying a message box: This method displays a message box on your computer screen. If you would like to customize the message that appears, select "Display the following reminder message to me in the message box" and enter your message.
- Playing a sound: This method plays a sound on your computer's speakers or headphones. You can customize the sound by clicking Browse and selecting a sound file. The sound file must be in the AU format. If you select "Play the same sound when this person sends me instant messages" you can associate specific sounds with certain people in your contact list.
- If you want to be alerted every time the selected person's status changes, select "Always alert me on this person." If you do not select this check box, the alert appears only once.
- Click OK.
Removing and Editing Specific Alerts
You can remove alerts that you have associated with specific names in your contact list in one of the following three ways:
- If you have chosen to display a message for the alert, you can remove the alert by selecting "Stop alerting me about this person" in the message box that appears when the person's status changes.
- To clear specific alerts for a single person, select a name in your contact list and Choose People - Alert Me When. The "Alert Me When Selected Person Becomes Available" dialog box appears. Clear the "Comes online" and "Becomes Active after being in Away or Do Not Disturb status" options, and click OK.
Tip To edit the specific alert, change the alert settings instead of clearing all the options in the dialog box.
- You can remove all specific alerts associated with the names in your contact list in two ways:
- Choose People - Clear All Specific Alerts. Click Yes when the confirmation message appears.
- Choose Options - Preferences, select the Alerts tab, and then click Clear All Specific Alerts. Click Yes when the confirmation message appears.