# Table of contents:

• Introduction
• NOTIFICATION
  • TO
    • VIA
  • FROM
  • MSG
    • ACTION
    • SUBSCR
    • CAT
    • BODY
      • NAME
      • TEXT
      • EMAILTEXT
      • TEXTX
        • P
• NotificationData
  • Service
  • CID
  • SpaceHandle
    • ResourceID
  • ComponentHandle
    • ResourceID
  • OwnerCID
  • LastModifiedDate
  • Action
  • HasNewItem
  • ComponentSummary
    • Component
      • ResourceID
    • Items
      • Item
        • ResourceID
  • CircleId

# Introduction

<NOTIFICATION> documents are the basis behind the NOT and IPG commands. Being such, it was introduced with MSNP5.

This article only describes the <NOTIFICATION> element from .NET Alerts 5.0 and below, and not the <Notify> element used in .NET Alerts 6.0 and above.

# NOTIFICATION

This is the root element of the document, and supports four attributes:

• ver: This is always 1. Seems optional, or was removed later.
• id: A 32-bit unsigned integer that is set by the sending party which uniquely identifies this notification.
  NOTE: For IPG commands, this value is used as the Transaction ID if it is a response to a client-sent PAG or PGD command.
• siteid: The .NET Alerts Site ID, not to be confused with the .NET Passport Site ID. Setting this to some values changes the default icon:
  • 0: Use stocks (stack of coins or line-chart) icon.
  • 1: Use calendar (clock) icon.
  • Other values: Use default bell icon or custom icon.
• siteurl: The base URL to the service used in later relative URL attributes.

# TO

This element supports three attributes:

• pid: The recipient's Passport Unique ID. The format for the PUID is 0xHHHHHHHH:0xLLLLLLLL, where H is the hexadecimal representation of the profile's MemberIdHigh variable, and where L is the hexadecimal representation of the profile's MemberIdLow variable.
• name: The recipient's display name or user handle. Optional.
• email: The e-mail address that will receive the e-mail version of this notification.

If this element (<TO>) does not have a (<VIA>) element, it is to be empty.

# VIA

This empty element only supports one attribute:

• agent: What this alert was generated by:
  • email: A e-mail message.
  • messenger: A message from the Official Client.
  • mobile: A text message from a mobile device.

# FROM

NOTE: This element should NOT be added to any <NOTIFICATION> documents.

This optional empty element supports two attributes:

• pid: The sender's Passport Unique ID. Follows the same format as the <TO> element's pid parameter.
• from: The sender's display name or user handle. Optional.

# MSG

This is the primary element of the document, and supports two attributes:

• pri: The notification's priorty, defaulting to the value of 1. May be omitted or empty in some circumstances.
• id: The notification's numeric ID, defaulting to the value of 0.
  NOTE: For IPG commands, this value is used as an status code:
  • 0: The message was received successfully.
  • 1: The message was received successfully.
  • 407: The message failed to send.

# ACTION

This element supports only one attribute:

• url: The main URL that is used when this notification is activated, relative to siteurl.

When opened by a client, the following are added to the URL as query parameters:

• to_pid: The pid attribute from <TO> element.
• notification_id: The id attribute from <NOTIFICATION> element.
• message_id: The id attribute from <MSG> element.
• agent: The client that activated this notification. The Official Client sets this to messenger. Optional.

# SUBSCR

This element supports only one attribute:

• url: The configuration URL that is used when the notification's change option is activated, relative to siteurl.

When opened by a client, the following are added to the URL as query parameters:

• to_pid: The pid attribute from <TO> element.
• notification_id: The id attribute from <NOTIFICATION> element.
• message_id: The id attribute from <MSG> element.
• agent: The client that activated this notification. The Official Client sets this to messenger. Optional.

# CAT

NOTE: This element is obsolete and should NOT be added to any new <NOTIFICATION> documents.

This optional empty element only supports one attribute:

• id: The category ID of this notification.

# BODY

This is the main body of the document, and supports three attributes:

• lang: The decimal LCID that this notification document is meant to display in. Optional, but should be set.
• lcid: The decimal LCID that this notification document is meant to display in. Optional, but is exclusive with lang.
• icon: The custom 32x32 PNG icon URL, relative to siteurl. Optional.
  NOTE: Client Version 6.0 (MSNP9) and above support 48x32 icons and will attempt to automatically use them if your icon URL includes the substring _32x32, if it does, the client will replace the substring of _32x32 with the value of _48x32.
  If you do not have a 48x32 icon when this happens, the client will fallback to the original 32x32 icon specified.

The default element that this parents is <TEXT>. It may also contain other types of data. One such data type is the <NotificationData> sub-document.

This element (including the <BODY> and </BODY>) are restricted in size to 1024 bytes.

# NAME

NOTE: This element should NOT be added to any <NOTIFICATION> documents.

This optional element contains the friendly name of the recipient.

# TEXT

This optional element contains the text data of the notification.

# EMAILTEXT

This optional element contains the text data of the notification that is sent to the e-mail address specified as the <TO> element's email attribute.

# TEXTX

This optional element contains the extended text data of the notification, supported by MSNP9 and higher.

The <TEXT> element is required for this to be parsed by the Official Client.

The inner document of this is required to be XML encoded.

# P

A paragraph, required for <TEXTX> elements to parse correctly.

This element supports one attribute:

• align: The extended notification's text alignment:
  • left
  • center
  • right

This element may contain any of the following elements:

• P: Nested paragraph, also supporting the align element.
• B: Bold text.
• I: Italic text.
• BR: This empty element denotes a line-break.

# NotificationData

This element may instead be contained in the <BODY> element entirely, replacing all of it's children. This sub-document is XML encoded if set as the inner data of the <BODY> element.

This element supports two attributes:

• xmlns:xsd: is always set to http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema
• xmlns:xsi: is always set to http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance

# Service

Contains only ABCHInternal. Unknown if there are other values supported.

This element is exclusive to notifications generated by the Address Book Service.

# CID

Contains only the Common ID of the user associated with this notification.

This element is exclusive to notifications generated by the Address Book Service.

# SpaceHandle

This element only has one child named ResourceID.

This element and it's children are exclusive to notifications generated by the blog service.

# ResourceID

Contains the blog service's ID for this user.

# ComponentHandle

This element only has one child named ResourceID.

This element and it's children are exclusive to notifications generated by the blog service.

# ResourceID

Contains the blog service's ID for the main component.

# OwnerCID

This element only contains a signed 64-bit integer for the Common ID. Added since MSNP13.

This element and it's children are exclusive to notifications generated by the blog service.

# LastModifiedDate

Contains a ISO 8601-compatible timestamp with 7 millisecond digits.

This element is omitted in notifications generated by the persistent group service.

# Action

Only observed to contain Add. Unknown if there are other values supported.

This element is exclusive to notifications generated by the blog service.

# HasNewItem

Contains either true or false.

# ComponentSummary

This element has two children named <Component> and <Items>.

This element and it's children are exclusive to notifications generated by the blog service.

# Component

This element has one child named ResourceID and supports one attribute:

• xsi:type: The type of this <Component>:
  • List: A list.
  • Folder: A photo collection.
  • MessageContainer: A text message container.

# ResourceID

Contains the blog service's ID for this <Component>.

# Items

This element supports multiple <Item> child elements.

# Item

This element has one child named ResourceID and supports one attribute:

• xsi:type: The type of this <Component>:
  • ListEntry: An entry on a list.
  • Photo: A photo.
  • Message: A text message.

# ResourceID

Contains the blog service's ID for this <Item>.

# CircleId

Contains the GUID of the persistent group.

This element is exclusive to notifications generated by the persistent group service.