How to control task, stock and order alerts

Four kinds of alert have their own switch under What buzzes you, in User menu › Account settings: Task reminders, Low-stock alerts, Notable order alerts and Suggestions. Each one turns that kind of push on or off for your devices, and all four start switched on.

The rest of What buzzes you, quiet hours and your chat default, is in How to set quiet hours and your default chat level. The section as a whole is introduced in What are notifications?.

What do task reminders cover?

Task reminders buzzes you as a task assigned to you nears its due date, and keeps going while it is overdue. Only tasks that are assigned to you, unfinished and have a due date send reminders, so a task you handed to Priya Raman reminds Priya, not you.

The rhythm tightens as the due date gets closer:

• More than a week away: no reminders yet.
• Three to seven days away: one every two days.
• One to three days away: one a day.
• Under a day away: one every four hours.
• The last two hours, and overdue: one an hour.

The push reads Due soon: or Overdue: followed by the task's title, and tapping it opens the task. Your due dates are read in your own time zone, per How to set your time zone.

Where the Agent checks in on late tasks, the hourly Overdue: push stops for tasks up to two weeks late. The Agent asks you about them in its Inbox or a Chat direct message instead, per How to have the Agent check in on late tasks. Due soon: reminders, and tasks more than two weeks late, are unchanged.

Your workspace may use its own word for tasks; Settings › Terminology shows both.

How do you snooze a reminder or finish the task from it?

In the Tideswell iPhone app, a reminder carries two buttons: Snooze 1h and Mark complete. Snooze quiets that task's reminders for an hour, and Mark complete finishes the task without opening the app.

Everywhere else, tap the reminder to open the task and finish it there, per How to edit a task. Finishing the task stops its reminders for good.

What happens if you turn task reminders off?

You get no reminders at all. A reminder is only ever a push, so it does not also arrive in Work › Inbox.

Turn it off only if you work from your task list rather than from nudges. Then check Work › My tasks each morning, as covered in How to see what needs you.

Reminders are sent by the Task due reminders alert in the Alerts list on Brain › Automations, which is on from the start. See How to see what runs in the background.

What do low-stock alerts cover?

Low-stock alerts buzzes you when the Low stock automation finds products whose shippable stock has dropped to 5 or fewer. Several products found at once arrive as one alert, such as 3 products low on stock.

Each product alerts once when it goes low, and again only after it has recovered and dropped again. Turning the switch off silences the push, and the alert still lands in Work › Inbox.

Setting up the automation, and choosing who it tells, is in How to set up the stock and order alerts.

What do notable order alerts cover?

Notable order alerts covers four kinds of push about orders and money:

• Large orders. An order at or above the amount set on the Big orders automation. A single order's alert names the order number, its total and the customer, when the order has one. Several in one check arrive together, such as 2 notable orders.
• Late purchase orders. A purchase order past its expected arrival date (or its ship date, when it has no arrival date) and still waiting on goods, from the Late purchase orders automation. See How to find late orders and plan revisions.
• Overdue supplier bills. A bill past its due date with money still owing, from the Overdue supplier bills automation. See How to check, record and pay supplier bills.
• Register special orders. A push titled Register special order when a register sale becomes a special order, or when that sale is refunded. It goes to people who can record special order payments. See How to turn a register sale into a special order.

The iPhone app calls this switch Order alerts.

What happens if you turn notable order alerts off?

The pushes stop, and the large-order, late purchase order and overdue bill alerts still land in Work › Inbox.

A register special order is told only by push. If you turn this switch off, check Selling › Special orders for new orders from the register, as covered in How to take and track a special order.

What do suggestion alerts cover?

Suggestions buzzes you when a suggested change is waiting for you to approve. The push reads A suggested change is waiting for you, followed by what the change is.

Turning it off silences only the push. The suggestion still waits in Work › Inbox, and in the Agent under History › Updates › Waiting on a decision. Approving one is covered in How to approve, refuse or undo a suggested change.

Set this switch on the web. The iPhone app follows it.

What do these switches not do?

They silence pushes to your devices and nothing else.

Any email an automation sends still sends, and the switches change nothing for anybody else. To stop an alert for the whole workspace, or to change who receives it, change the automation, per How to choose who gets an alert and how often.

What about alerts without a switch?

They follow only your quiet hours. That covers task assignments, comments, approvals (stock count sign-offs included), workflow notifications, and the shipping backlog and stale store data alerts.

Chat follows your quiet hours and your channel levels. Both are covered in How to set quiet hours and your default chat level.

Why has an alert stopped arriving when its switch is on?

Something upstream stopped it. Check these in order:

1. The automation is switched off, or the module it belongs to is off. See How to check whether an automation worked.
2. You are not on its recipient list, or you no longer have the access that makes you eligible. See How to choose who gets an alert and how often.
3. Your quiet hours covered the moment it fired. Quiet hours drop pushes rather than holding them.

For stock, order, bill and suggestion alerts, Work › Inbox settles it. An alert in your Inbox that never buzzed points at your own settings or your device, and one that never reached your Inbox points upstream.

For a missing task reminder, check that the task is assigned to you, unfinished and has a due date within the week. More is in Why you are not being notified.