Rachel,
For your 1st item:You could try using a Subscription with a custom report. Let's say you want to be notified when a widget build request has not been completed after two days. In this example, there are 10 widgets and 3 users, Julia, Rachel, and Tom. Julia has 5 widgets remaining, Tom has 5 remaining, and Rachel's are all on time.
To do this, you could use a report that filters widgets by the date notification criteria and a Username field. Then set up a Subscription to send this report daily. If there is nothing in the report or nothing a user can see, the report won't send to that user. If it does, it will be filtered by what that user can see. As a bonus, the user will receive 1 email instead of multiple emails. Here's a quick example:
Custom Report:
Subscription:
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Evan Westbrook
PRIME Developer
Harder Mechanical Contractors Inc.
Portland OR
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