Why are contacts not receiving email notifications for answers they have subscribed to?

Environment:

Answer Update Notifications, Customer Portal
Oracle B2C Service, All supported versions

Issue:

We have enabled answer notifications.  However, contacts are not receiving the email notification when we update our answers.

Resolution:

Below is a list of configuration details to check to confirm answer notifications are set up correctly.

1. Confirm related configuration settings are enabled
   1. ANS_NOTIF_ENABLED: If enabled, Customer Portal visitors can request an email notification when a specific answer is updated, if the knowledge base engineer indicates that the update warrants notification. Default is enabled (Yes).
   2. ANS_NOTIF_PROD_CAT_ENABLED: If enabled, the dbstatus utility will process product and category notifications subscribed to in the Customer Portal pages. When dbstatus runs, customers who have signed up to be notified about changes to answers with particular product/category combinations will receive a notification email. Default is disabled (No).
2. Confirm the contact is subscribed to the answer
   1. To confirm a subscription, open the answer within the administration console and select the Details tab.  The standard answer workspace includes an Answer Subscriber report.  
   2. If using Knowledge Advanced, to confirm if a contact is subscribed to an answer, go to Authoring -> Users tab -> Find Web User -> Click on it -> Click on Subscriptions. This will show every article the user is subscribed to. A custom report can be created to see users and their subscriptions by following Answer ID 12612: Knowledge Advanced report for User Subscriptions
3. When editing an answer, confirm the Notify Subscribers field is set to a sending value
   1. Answer Notifications will only be sent if the "Notify Subscribers" field is set to something other than "No Change" or "Do Not Notify".  
      
      Values that will not trigger a notification include "No Change" (default) and "Do Not Notify".  Sending values include:  This Hour, End of Today, End of this Week, End of this Month. 
      
      Notifications will not be sent unless the agent who is updating the answer explicitly sets the field to another value such as "This Hour" or "End of Today." This field is also found on the Details tab of the standard answer workspace.
   2. If using Knowledge Advanced, when editing an article through Authoring, in the Publishing Options section there is a checkbox that states "Suppress subscription notifications". Make sure this option is not selected when publishing an article.
4. Confirm the notification message template is enabled
   1. In order for end-users to receive the notification email, the Answer Update Notification message must be enabled in the site. To notify people that their subscription has expired, the Answer Update Notification Expired message must be enabled.
      
      Go to Configuration > Site Configuration > Message Templates > select the interface > select Contact Emails > Answer >> confirm the Answer Update Notification is enabled for sending.  If you site is configured for subscriptions to expire, you may also want to confirm the Answer Update Notification Expired message is enabled.
5. Confirm the notification subscription is not expired
   1. If the ANS_NOTIF_DURATION configuration setting is set between 1 to 730, answer notifications will expire in the date range specified (i.e. 90 days).  Use the standard Answer Notifications report (ID 231) to confirm if a contact's subscription needs renewal or is still valid.  Notifications will not send once a subscription has expired.  **Please note that a value of zero is no longer allowed on versions 21C and later.**
      
      Contacts can renew their subscriptions from Account Overview > Manage your notifications > Answer Notifications (or Product/Category Answer Notifications).

Should you need further assistance beyond what is outlined above, please feel free to submit a service request via Ask Technical Support.  Our Technical Support team will be happy to investigate.  Please let us know you referenced this answer so content can be reviewed accordingly.