Notifications

The switches

Choose Settings in the left-hand rail, then Notifications. The settings are yours alone; each member of the team chooses their own. Five switches cover the things the other side can do, all on to begin with:

• Someone you asked replies: a message on a request, with or without files attached.
• Someone you asked uploads a file: a document added to a request on its own. Photos sent from a phone count.
• Someone you asked submits an answer: a request marked finished, or a form or table answer, sent for review. Saved drafts do not count.
• Someone you asked marks a request complete: it leaves their list.
• A bidder asks a question: in a data room, where each question becomes a request in the Questions section.

Someone you asked is whoever is answering: a customer, a tenant, a new starter or a relative. Turn off the ones you do not want to hear about. Nothing you do yourself ever notifies you.

Being mentioned

Write @ and a colleague’s name in an internal note on a request, and they are told, the same way as any other update. A full name always works; a first name works when only one person on the team has it. It is the sixth switch, A colleague mentions me, on to begin with, and a mention always reaches you whatever Only my request packs says.

Only your own request packs

Below the switches, Only my request packs narrows the five actions above to the request packs you own. It is off to begin with, so a new organisation hears about everything until someone chooses to narrow it. Who owns them is set under Managed by on the Details tab of the business or person they are for.

As it happens, or once a day

Under the switches, How often chooses how the emails arrive. One email per person, covering everything since the last one.

• As it happens: at most one email a minute, so a busy afternoon does not become a busy inbox.
• One daily summary: a single email at the Summary time you pick, between 06:00 and 20:00 London time, covering everything since yesterday’s. This is what a new account starts on, at 08:00.

One update is described in full, with the business or person it belongs to and a button that opens the request. Several are counted rather than listed, and See the updates opens Request packs. Say somebody uploads three files at 09:12 and replies at 09:14.

• As it happens, you get one email at about 09:13 saying there are three new updates, and one at about 09:15 about the reply.
• On a daily summary set for 08:00, you get one email at 08:00 tomorrow saying there are four.

After a day away

Request packs, the first page in the rail, has a Needs my attention column, so the packs with something waiting on you stand out. The Activity page, at /activity in the app, lists every request, reply, upload, download and link, newest first, whoever it involved, and narrows by Who it’s for, by Kind (replies and files, requests and packs, links and reminders, team and settings) or by Who. It fills whether or not email is going out.

Without email set up

If the server has no email configured, nothing is emailed and the foot of the Notifications section says why. The Activity page still fills, and so does the People answering tab on the Team page. Setting email up takes about ten minutes and is covered in Email setup.

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