Running the company
Notifications and the bell
← All documentation · Running the company
Web and mobile6 min readUpdated
The bell in the header carries a personal feed of the things that need somebody (a declined card, a reply, a new lead, an accepted quote, an open visit) with an unread count, and who receives each one follows the roles and locations you already set.
Everything the bell announces already happened somewhere nobody was watching: a card declined overnight, a customer texted at 7am, a lead landed from the website form, a quote was accepted from a phone in a car park. Each of those also sends an email, and email is where news goes to be buried.
The bell is the in-app half of that: a feed of the things that need a person, with a count of what you have not read. It is in the header of the web app and on the app bar of the mobile app, and it needs no setting up.
What raises one
| Notification | Raised when |
|---|---|
| Payment failed | A customer's card payment does not go through |
| Subscription problem | The card on your own BlastoClean subscription is declined |
| New text or email | A customer writes to you |
| New voicemail | A caller leaves a voicemail on your number (Pro and Business). Owners and managers also get an email |
| New quote request | Somebody asks for a quote through your intake form or widget |
| Quote accepted | A customer accepts a quote |
| Quote declined | A customer declines a quote |
| Extra work approved or declined | A customer answers the approval link for extra work. It also says when approved work could not be added to its visit |
| Visit still open | A visit has ended but is not marked completed |
| Visit canceled | A visit is canceled. Owners and managers hear by email and in the bell, and that alert starts on. |
| Slot still open | An offered time was not taken |
| Visit moved earlier | A customer took an open time |
| Approve an earlier visit | A customer asked, and you approve the move before it happens |
| Reschedule requested | A customer asks to move a visit |
| Visit confirmed | A customer confirms a visit from their confirmation page |
| New service request | A client raises a request or an issue in their portal |
| Document expiring | A compliance document is close to its renewal date |
| New staff announcement | An owner or manager posts a staff announcement (Pro and Business) |
| Time-off request needs review | A team member asks for time off (Pro and Business) |
| Your time-off request has a decision | A manager approves or declines your time-off request |
| Visit offer available | A teammate offers a visit they are assigned to (Pro and Business) |
| Visit offer needs manager review | An offered visit starts within 24 hours |
| Visit offer awaiting approval | A teammate claims an offered visit |
| Visit replacement approved, or Visit offer declined | A manager decides on a claimed visit |
| A coworker asked you to take a visit | A teammate asks you, or anyone available, to take a visit (Pro and Business) |
| Shift swap waiting on approval | A coworker accepts a shift swap that needs approval from an owner or manager |
| Shift swap approved, not approved, canceled or expired | A swap is decided, withdrawn, overtaken by a schedule change or runs past its cutoff |
Who receives each one
Who ought to hear about something is decided when it happens, from the roles and permissions you have already set, so what you see is only ever your own. Seeing a payment fail is not the same as being able to do anything about it:
- A failed payment goes to the people who can take payments.
- A new lead goes to the people who write quotes.
- A customer's reply goes to the people who look after customers.
- An accepted or declined quote goes to owners, managers and whoever wrote the quote.
- Extra work approved or declined goes to whoever added it and the people who write quotes at that location, in the bell. Clicking one about work on a visit opens that visit.
- An open visit goes to owners, managers and the crew assigned to it.
- A canceled visit goes to owners and managers. The assigned cleaner is not on that list, and the customer is not told again from it.
- A slot still open goes to owners and managers, by the bell and by email.
- A visit moved earlier, and a request to approve an earlier visit, go to owners, managers and the crew on that visit.
- A confirmed visit goes to owners, managers and the crew assigned to it.
- An expiring document goes to owners and managers.
- A new staff announcement goes to the people it is for.
- A time-off request goes to owners and managers of that location. The decision goes to the person who asked.
- A visit offer goes to owners, managers and the teammates who can take it. An offer for a visit starting within 24 hours goes to owners and managers only. A claim, approval or decline goes to owners, managers and the people involved.
- A shift swap request goes to the coworker asked or, for Anyone available, to every Crew member and Estimator at that location who is free then and has no approved time off. Once a coworker accepts, it goes to owners and managers of that location when the swap needs their approval. Under Automatic between people on the same team, a swap between members of one saved team is approved on accept, so owners and managers are not asked. Its outcome goes to the people on the swap. When one owner or manager approves or declines, the other owners and managers who were asked get the approved or not approved notice too.
See Team roles and permissions for what each role can do.
A confirmed visit shows in the bell only, with no email, and only when the customer says yes on their own confirmation page. Confirming a visit yourself from the app raises nothing. Staff time-off and visit offer notices also show in the bell only. Shift swap notices do too, except that owners and managers also get an email with a single-use approve link when a swap needs them, never for a swap they are part of. Announcement emails go only to people who turn them on in Staff notification preferences.
If your company runs more than one location, a notification about one branch's work only reaches people working in that branch. Company-wide news, billing and compliance, reaches everybody entitled to it.
Reading, and marking read
Opening the panel does not clear it. A notice is marked read when you click it, which also takes you to the exact thing it is about: the failed payment, the quote, the conversation. Mark all as read is there when you want the broom.
The count keeps itself current while you have the app open. The bell and email notices are separate from phone push notifications.
In native builds configured for push, Settings → Notification settings shows this phone's permission, the notification categories available to your role and quiet hours. Phone permission and server configuration are both required. A preview or a source change does not prove push delivery on a device; see Native version availability.
The same event never says itself twice
You will not get the same notice twice, even if a payment comes through more than once or the check runs again.
Closing out a visit
A visit that ended hours ago and still says scheduled is unfinished paperwork: completing it is what asks for the review (its invoice already exists by then), and a calendar full of stale open visits quietly makes the reports wrong. The person it was assigned to and the office are nudged once per visit, not once every quarter of an hour. See Work orders and visit photos for closing one out.
Old notifications
The feed is a to-do surface, not an archive. Notices older than 60 days are removed. Nothing is lost by that: the record they point at (the payment, the quote, the message) stays where it is, and the activity trail is the archive.
Customer replies also live in the customer inbox, which is where you answer them.