How to notify someone from a workflow

Notify someone sends a notification to one person, or to everyone in a department. It is the step to use when somebody needs to know rather than needing to do.

When is a notification the right step?

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

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

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

How do you set one up?

Add the step, then choose the recipient, either one person or a department, and write the message.

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 a Notify step with no message or no recipient.

How does it reach people?

As a push notification to a phone or browser.

That means it is subject to each person's own notification settings. A notification landing inside somebody's quiet hours is dropped rather than held until morning, and the step's own panel says so.

Design around that. For something that must be seen regardless of the hour, create a task instead: a task waits in a list, and a push does not.

See What are notifications? for the personal side.

Why did a Notify step fail?

Because the department you chose has nobody active in it, and the run says exactly that.

That is worth checking when you build a workflow against a small team, and worth rechecking when somebody leaves.

What does the run tell you?

A line like "Told 3 people, 2 devices buzzed".

The gap between those numbers is normal rather than a fault. Somebody had notifications off, or was inside their quiet hours, and the run records "no push went out" as an ordinary outcome.

The message is shown as configured, with placeholders unfilled. The notification that went out had the real values; the run records the setup rather than the filled text. 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 makes the workflow break when they are on holiday or 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.

Can it send an email?

The built-in automations offer Also email, per How to choose who gets an alert and how often. A workflow's Notify step sends a push.

When something has to arrive by email, an automation is the better tool. When it has to be seen in Tideswell, create a task, which appears in a list and stays there.