What are notifications?
Three layers decide whether your phone buzzes. The device, your personal settings, and the level you set on a channel.
Tideswell tells you things in two different places, and understanding the split saves most of the confusion.
Your Inbox is the durable record. Every alert lands there whether or not anything buzzed, so nothing is ever lost. See How to see what needs you.
A push notification is the buzz on your phone or laptop. That is optional, per device, and subject to your own settings.
What has to line up for a buzz?
Three layers, all of which have to allow it.
- The device. Notifications are switched on per browser and per device, so turning them on for your laptop does nothing for your phone. See How to turn on notifications.
- Your personal settings, under What buzzes you on your account: quiet hours, your default for channels, and toggles for task reminders, low-stock alerts and notable orders. See How to set quiet hours and your default chat level.
- The level on the specific channel, for chat, which overrides your default. See How to mute or follow a channel.
For automation alerts there is a fourth, upstream of all of these: the automation itself has to be on and you have to be on its recipient list. See How to choose who gets an alert and how often.
When somebody says they are not being notified, walk those in order. It is nearly always the first or the second.
What gets notified?
Chat mentions and replies, task assignments and comments, approvals, workflow notifications, and the automation alerts for stock, orders, stale data and the daily brief.
Each type arrives in your Inbox with its own glyph, so a stock alert and a task comment are distinguishable at a glance.
What is worth knowing before you rely on it?
Quiet hours drop notifications rather than queueing them. A one-off ping sent at 3am is gone, not delivered at seven. A recurring reminder, such as a task nearing its due date, simply fires again later.
That is why the Inbox matters. The push is a convenience and the Inbox is the record, so anything missed overnight is still there in the morning.
Are these settings personal?
Entirely. Nobody else's are affected, and an admin cannot set them for you.
They also only silence pushes to your devices. The Inbox item still arrives, and so does any email the automation was set to send.
That distinction is useful: silencing low-stock buzzes on your phone does not mean you stop being told, only that you find out when you look.
Where to go next
How to turn on notifications first, since nothing buzzes until a device is switched on. How to set quiet hours and your default chat level is where you shape what reaches you.
How to control task, stock and order alerts covers the three categories with their own personal switch.