How to notify someone from a workflow

Notify someone is a step in the Actions group of the step library, on a workflow's canvas in Brain › Workflows. It sends a push notification to one person, or to everyone in a department.

New to workflows? Start at What are workflows?.

When is a notification the right step?

When the information is the whole point and no work follows from it.

"The fabric trial passed its lab test" is a notification to production. "Book the factory slot" is a task with an owner and a date, per How to create tasks and records from a workflow.

The test: if nobody would tick it off, it is a notification.

How do you set one up?

Add the step, join it to the step before it, then fill in its options panel.

1. In Who to tell, choose a person under People, or Everyone in a department under Departments.
2. Write the Message.
3. Publish the workflow.

Put values from the triggering record in the message, so it says which thing happened. See How to use values from the triggering record.

Publishing refuses the step with no message ("Notify: a message is required.") or with nobody chosen ("Notify: choose who to notify.").

What does the person see?

A push notification titled with the name of the record that set the workflow off, with your message as its text.

On a computer, clicking it opens Brain › Workflows. On an iPhone, tapping it opens the Tideswell app.

The push is the whole delivery, so nothing is added to Work › Inbox. When something has to wait in a list until somebody deals with it, create a task instead, per How to create tasks and records from a workflow.

Which of a person's settings apply?

Two. They need push notifications turned on for the phone or browser, per How to turn on notifications. And their quiet hours apply.

A notification that lands inside somebody's quiet hours is skipped, not held until morning, and the step's own panel says so. Quiet hours are covered in How to set quiet hours and your default chat level.

The on and off switches under What buzzes you, such as Low-stock alerts, cover other alerts and leave this step alone. Design around quiet hours: for something that must be seen whatever the hour, create a task.

Why did a Notify step fail?

The run shows the reason in red. There are three:

• "Notify: that department has nobody active to notify." Nobody in the chosen department is an active member.
• "Notify: that member is no longer active in this workspace." The person you chose has left or been deactivated.
• "Notify: the message resolved to nothing." Every value in the message came out empty, so there was nothing to send. See How to use values from the triggering record.

Recheck the first two whenever somebody leaves the team.

What does the run tell you?

The step's card on the Runs tab says how many people it told and how many devices buzzed, for example Told 3 people and 2 devices buzzed.

The gap between those numbers is normal. Somebody had notifications off or was inside their quiet hours, and when no device buzzed at all the card says no push went out (quiet hours, or notifications are off).

The card also lists Sent to (or Sent to everyone in) and the Message. The message is shown as you wrote it, with the placeholders still in braces; the push that went out carried the real values. See How to publish, switch on and read a run.

Who should you notify?

A department rather than a person, in most cases.

Naming one person ties the workflow to them, and it fails when they leave. Naming a department means the right people get it as the team changes, and departments are managed in one place. See How to set up departments.

Name a person when the thing genuinely belongs to a role only they hold.