Introduction to Notifications

Notifications tell the right people when something they care about changes, so nobody has to refresh a page or ask in a thread to find out that a task was assigned or a file was approved. BackOps decides who hears about each change from what they are involved in, and each person decides how they want to hear.

Why Notifications Matter

On a live event, the cost of missing a change is a wrong load-in time or an unreviewed rider. Checking every task, file, and collaborator by hand does not scale past a small show. Notifications move the work of noticing from people to the system, and keep the history so you can catch up after time away.

How Notifications Work

Three ideas explain nearly everything.

Something happens. An event is created, a task is assigned, a file gets a new version. The kinds of activity that can notify are listed in what triggers a notification.

You are following it. BackOps subscribes you to items based on your involvement, such as the tasks you own or review and the events you belong to. You can follow other items yourself, and mute or unfollow any of them. See following and muting.

It reaches you the way you chose. Notifications appear in the in-app inbox and can also be emailed to you. You choose channels and notification types in your settings, covered in managing your notification preferences. You are not notified about changes you make yourself. Two kinds of notification ignore your preferences: custom notifications set up in an event type's effects, and required billing notices such as a trial ending or an upcoming renewal.

flowchart LR
    A["Activity"] --> S{"Following?"}
    S -->|"Yes"| P{"Preferences allow?"}
    P -->|"In-app"| I["Notification inbox"]
    P -->|"Email"| M["Email"]
    A -.->|"Filtered"| R["Receivers"]

The diagram leaves out receivers' filters. A receiver is an address that gets an organization's or event's notifications even though it is not a person; see notification receivers.

Separate from notifications, BackOps also keeps an activity history per record. It is described in activity history.