Meridian sends notification emails to the Watchlist whenever certain actions occur for a specific faculty/candidate, such as a workflow status changing or a message being added. Learn more about the Watchlist.

Depending on how many faculty/candidates you work on, the number of emails coming from Meridian could be quite large. 

This article helps you manage those emails using your email program's built-in filters/rules functionality, which can automatically redirect those emails into specific folders, clearing up your main Inbox.

NOTE: while there are many email applications available, this article uses Microsoft Outlook as the example, since that is the University-supported email software.

If you want to read the general instructions directly from Microsoft, here are links for the Windows and Mac versions of Outlook:

• Windows instructions
• Mac (Apple) instructions

Below are those instructions customized with Meridian examples.

The basic idea is to set up a filter/rule that identifies a certain kind of email message, which then moves those messages to a folder you created. To do this, right-click on a message you want moved, click Create Rule, and configure that rule based on aspects of that message. You can filter on many different parts of the email message, including the email subject or body.

For example, setting up a filter/rule that simply moves all Meridian messages into a Meridian folder would involve:

1. Creating a folder called "Meridian"
2. Creating a filter/rule that searched for:
   
   1. the word "Meridian:" in the Subject line
   2. the term "noreply@umich.edu" in the From/Sender field

(Make sure to remove any of Outlook's other preloaded other conditions, such as the To part.)

Then select what you want the filter to do (moving the emails into a folder is the typical behavior, but you could do other things like flag them, categorize them, or delete them).

This might take some trial and error, but the trick is to find the messages you want, without finding the ones you don't want. (In the example above, if you made a rule that only searched for Meridian in the Subject line, you might also filter out emails from your colleagues, instead of only those sent from the software.)

You can then build on this to get more specific. A more sophisticated situation could be: an MSS user wants a folder that only contains Credentialing-related status transition notifications (so that they know which candidate workflows need reviewing).

To do this, they would:

1. Create a folder named something like "Meridian: Credentialing Workflows Needing Review"
2. Create a filter/rule that searched for:
   
   1. the words "has transitioned CREDENTIALING FOR CANDIDATE" or "has transitioned CREDENTIALING FOR DEPARTMENT"in the Body field
      
   2. the words "to 'Awaiting Review'" in the Body field
   3. the term "noreply@umich.edu" in the From/Sender field

(Make sure to remove any of Outlook's other preloaded other conditions, such as the Subject or To parts.)

This filter would transfer all the Credentialing for Department and Credentialing for Candidate workflows that need reviewing into the folder you set up.

Other examples of rules you could write:

• Someone leaves a message within the Appointing section
  
  • Search the Body field for: "has added a message to APPOINTING"
• You have a Promotion workflow sent back to you for revisions:
  
  • Search the Subject line for "updated a Promotion workflow"
  • Search the Body field for: "transitioned" and "Revisions Requested"

Get creative!  There are many ways you can use email filters/rules to customize how you want to manage your Meridian Watchlist notifications.