How to turn on notifications

Notifications are switched on per device, in the Notifications section of your account page. Turning them on for your laptop does nothing for your phone: each browser and each device is its own decision.

How do you switch them on?

Open your account page and press Turn on notifications in the Notifications section. Your browser asks for permission, and you allow it.

Then send a test notification, which confirms with a message saying it should pop up in a moment. Do this: it takes two seconds and is the difference between having notifications and believing you do.

Turn them off again for that device from the same place.

How do you get them on an iPhone?

Add Tideswell to your home screen first, following the on-screen instructions, and then turn notifications on.

That order is required rather than a suggestion. Safari only allows notifications once the app is on the home screen, which is why the instructions appear before the button does anything useful.

Once on, tapping a notification takes you straight to the thing it is about: the chat message, the task, the alert.

Why is the button not working?

Four causes, in the order they come up.

Notifications are blocked for Tideswell in your browser's settings. The message says so and tells you to allow them there and reload the page. A block you set once, possibly months ago, is remembered and cannot be undone from inside the page.

The browser is too old. You are told to try a current version of Chrome, Safari, Edge or Firefox.

On iPhone, the app is not on the home screen yet. See above.

The network is blocking the push service, which shows up as the button giving up after about twenty seconds. Office and guest networks are the usual culprits; try another network.

Do you have to do this on every device?

Yes, and it is worth doing on the ones you actually work from.

Most people want their phone for anything urgent and their work laptop for everything else. A device you never turn on simply stays quiet.

What happens when you tap a notification?

It opens the thing it is about. A chat notification opens the channel, a task notification opens the task, and an automation alert opens the relevant screen.

One thing to expect: a notification about a message inside a thread opens the channel rather than the exact thread.

Is there a history of pushes?

No. A push is a moment, and there is no list of past ones.

The Inbox is the record instead. Anything that was ever notified is there, read or unread, which is why a missed push is never a lost message. See How to see what needs you.

What next?

Shape what actually reaches you, rather than accepting everything. Quiet hours and a sensible chat default do most of the work, and both are in How to set quiet hours and your default chat level.

If notifications are on and still not arriving, see Why you are not being notified.