Email Subscriptions in Azure DevOps

Introduction

Using email subscriptions in Azure DevOps for projects helps team members, managers, and others stay updated on building pipeline progress. This system automatically sends notifications to subscribers when a build pipeline finishes, making it easier for teams to know what's happening. It makes things clearer, helps decisions happen faster, and encourages everyone to take responsibility for their work.

Use Cases

1. Team Collaboration: Email subscriptions make it easy for team members to talk to each other, so everyone knows how the project's building is going and if there are any problems.
2. Management Oversight: Project stakeholders can see how the project is going without having to look at Azure DevOps all the time.
3. Notification Customization: People who subscribe can choose what kinds of messages they want to get, like if the pipeline was executed successfully or not.

Step-by-step process to create an email subscription

Prerequisite

The user must be a member of the Project Administrators group.

Step 1. Log in to your Azure DevOps organization. Go to Project Settings -> Notifications as shown below.

Step 2. Click on the "New Subscription" button to initiate the subscription creation process.

Step 3. Choose the trigger that will initiate the email notification. In this case, select "A build completes" as the trigger and click Next.

Step 4. A new window will open, here we need to configure subscription settings. In the Description mention the name of the subscription: " Export Pipeline Daily Status", In the Deliver to section select a custom address from the drop-down and mention the list of email addresses in the Address field. Now we need to define filter criteria. Set filter as Definition Name = "Pipeline Name" so that only for this build pipeline subscriber will be notified.

Step 5. Below is a sample screenshot from an email received by the subscriber.

Conclusion

Setting up email subscriptions in Azure DevOps for your project is a simple but effective method to improve teamwork and communication in software development. It automatically tells important people when a build is done, helping teams work better together and be more open about what they're doing. By using the instructions provided, teams can easily customize their email alerts to fit their project, making sure everyone knows what's happening right away. This not only makes things run smoother but also makes the team stronger, leading to better software in the end. Please feel free to reach out in case of any concerns.