🔔 Notifications: A Message For The Right People On The Right Pages

Notifications are short messages with a button that show on the pages you pick, for the people you pick, between two dates. A new lesson is up, a live call starts tonight, a new product is out: say it once, to the right people, where they will see it. They are messages on your pages, not emails.

Where to find it:

Open Chats on the desk's menu bar. On the Notifications card press Add a notification. Once you have some, the card says how many are live and the button reads Manage notifications.

Adding a notification:

1. Press + Add a notification.
2. Type a title, up to 90 characters, for example "New: November templates are up".
3. Write the text, one or two short sentences, up to 300 characters.
4. Fill in Button text and Button link. The button only appears when both are filled in. A link to another site opens in a new tab.
5. Choose the pages under Show on these pages, and any to leave out under Never on.
6. Pick Who sees it, and a product if it asks for one.
7. Set From and Until if it should only run for a while.
8. Press Save notifications.

Every setting:

• On: ticked by default. Untick it to pause a notification without losing it.
• Show on these pages: one page a line, read the same way as a chat's pages. A line starting with / matches that path on any of your sites, /* covers a page and everything under it, and * means every page. A notification with nothing here shows nowhere.
• Never on: pages to leave out. It wins over Show on these pages.
• Who sees it: Everybody, Signed-in members only, Visitors who are not signed in, People who own a product, or People who do not own a product yet.
• The product (own / do not own): needed for the last two choices. They only reach people the desk knows for certain; somebody it cannot be sure about sees neither.
• From and Until: both optional. A notification shows from the first moment of the first day to the last moment of the last.
• Delete: tick it and save to remove the notification.

A live preview beside each notification shows the title, the text and the button as you type. You can keep up to 40.

On your pages:

One notification shows at a time: the first one that matches and has not been seen. With a chat on the page it sits above the chat button; without one it shows on its own. Each person sees it once per browser, until they close it or press its button.

Good values:

• Title: what is new, in under eight words.
• Text: one sentence of why it matters to this person.
• Button text: the action, such as See the templates or Join the call.
• Who sees it: the narrowest group that should know. Everybody is rarely right.
• From and Until: always set an end date for anything about a date, so it never lingers.

How a notification and a chat share the page:

With a chat on the page, the notification sits above the chat button with a small count. Opening the chat from a notification is counted on Reports under How people started, so you can see whether your notifications start conversations.

Editing and removing:

Change any field and press Save notifications. Untick On to pause one and keep it for later. Tick Delete and save to remove it for good.

A real example:

Sam adds two notifications. New: November templates are up shows on /members/* to People who own a product, Studio Membership, for two weeks, with a See the templates button. Live call tonight at 7pm shows on * to Signed-in members only, on the day of the call, with a Join the call button and Never on /checkout/*.

Tips:

• Keep the title short and the button clear; people decide in a second.
• Use People who do not own a product yet to tell visitors about something new without bothering those who have it.
• Testing? Open the page in a private window, because once you close a notification your browser remembers.
• See Chats: A Sales Chat And A Members Helper On Your Pages for how page lines work.