Task Specific Auto-Alerts Before Due Date

We've had some questions lately about how to create an alert before a due date on a specific task.

Business Case Example:  You have a due date in the task to register for a conference of 3/31 but the registrar needs 3 business days with your submission.  Being the awesome PM you are, you want to create an auto-alert for your trusty resource to remind them they need to get all of those documents in the mail before 3/28.  

This is how it's done:

Step 1:  Open the task edit page and click on the tools icon highlighted in the top right.

Step 2:  Click on the Auto-Alerts to access the alert management page.

Step 3:  Select "Role" from the Entity Type to notify the resource on the task.  Select "Item Overdue" and then select the number of days before overdue as a negative number ex. " -3 days".  Lastly make sure this applies only to "Active" projects.

You can then customize what type of alert you'd like it to be:

Now that specific task will notify the resource via online, email and IM (if applicable) when the task will become overdue in 3 days.