The Notification Center is a feature that provides users with updates on community activity. Users can receive notifications via email or in-app for events such as mentions, replies, and new posts. etc.
For events that currently trigger email notifications, Notifications will also be displayed near real-time in the in-app notification center. Users can view and access their notifications from the top-right corner of the screen and can either engage with or mark them as read.
Notification types supported in the notification center:
Mentions
Replies
New topic in a subscribed Category/Group
Approval joining groups
Invitations to groups
Private messages
Right answer
The notification status can be one of the following:
Unread: New notifications are marked as unread. They change to read status when clicked/opened, or when "Mark all as read" is clicked.
New: The New section shows all recent unread notifications.
Seen: Notifications are marked as seen when the notification bell icon is clicked. This also clears the read counter in red color for New notifications. The seen status doesn't indicate that the notification itself was clicked or opened.
Who has access to the Notification Center:
All users that are logged into the community have access
Key Points:
The Notification Center in In-app is available for all the logged in community users and cannot be disabled.This feature aligns with common UX patterns and user expectations, as notification centers are prevalent in many software tools.
The email notification functionality will remain intact; in-app notifications will be an additional channel for receiving updates.
Email notification and in-app notifications are two separate channels of notification read/unread state of the notification item of either of these channels will not be in sync.
All notifications are displayed in chronological order with the recent one on top of the list.
When clicking an item in the notification center list, the user is redirected to the respective page.
When clicking on the mark all as read. All the notifications displayed are marked as read.
Notifications are shown from the past 30 days.
Comparing Email and In-app notifications.
Features
Email Notification
In-App
System Notification
System Activity ( user registration, activation , moderation..etc)
Yes
No
Customization
Turn ON/ OFF types of notification from profile settings page
Yes
No ( Future release )
Modify Phrases text
Yes
Yes
Notification Types
Mentions
Yes
Yes
New Replies
Yes
Yes
Notification for a new topic in a subscribed category/product
Yes
Yes
Notification for approval joining groups
Yes
Yes
Invitations to groups
Yes
Yes
Private messages
Yes
Yes
Right answer
Yes
Yes
Customization
The texts used in the notification center can be modified using the phrases customization option available in the control and destination. Below are the phrases and default value used
Module : Forum
Key
Default value
Variables
notification.center.information.notifications
Notifications
notification.center.information.noActivity
You don’t have any activity yet.
notification.center.information.comeBack
Please come back later.
notification.center.markAllRead
Mark all as read
notification.center.information.new
NEW
notification.center.information.recent
RECENT
notification.center.information.theEnd
You've reached the end of all notifications from the past 30 days.
notification.center.information.markAsRead
Mark as read
notification.center.information.markAsUnread
Mark as unread
notification.center.messages.mention
<span>{username}</span> mentioned you in <span class="notification-center__item__description__link">{title}</span>
username- name of User who mentioned you
title- topic where you were mentioned
notification.center.messages.newReply
<span>{username}</span> replied to <span class="notification-center__item__description__link">{title}</span>
username- name of User who left new reply
title- topic where new reply was left
notification.center.messages.newTopic
<span>{username}</span> posted a new topic <span class="notification-center__item__description__link">{title}</span> in the category <span>{categoryName}</span>
username- name of User who posted a new topic
title- title of newly posted topic
categoryName- title of Category where topic was posted
notification.center.messages.newProductUpdate
<span>{username}</span> posted a new product update <span class="notification-center__item__description__link">{title}</span>
username- name of User who posted a new product update
title- title of newly posted product update
notification.center.messages.topicAnswered
A comment in <span class="notification-center__item__description__link">{title}</span> has been marked as the best answer
title- title of the topic where best answer was marked
notification.center.messages.privateMessage
<span class="notification-center__item__description__link">{username}</span> sent you a private message
username- name of User who sent you a private message
notification.center.messages.groupInvitation
<span>{username}</span> has invited you to join the group <span class="notification-center__item__description__link">{title}</span>
username- name of User who invited you to the group
title- title of the group where you were invited
notification.center.messages.groupJoinApproval
Your request to join the group <span class="notification-center__item__description__link">{title}</span> has been approved
title- title of the group where your join request was approved
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@deepan Thanks for this. It helps clear things up quite a bit.
Multiple items above lead me to understand this as saying, when a user opts-out from email notifications for an activity (ex. new topic), they will still see In-app notifications for that activity. (Please correct me if I’m wrong)
And one additional question: Can you please clarify a bit more about these settings for the In-App NC?
Reply settings for System Email Notifications
Does the In-App NC leverage this setting at all?
From this question during the beta, it seems that’s only specific to emails:
If no, does it notify of all replies on a topic? Or does it only notify on the first new reply since the user last visited or viewed the topic?
Edit: Looking at my own NC, it seems that it’s every reply.
As others read this, I wanted to drop a few ideas here to consider voting for:
I notice that there’s not a phrase related to events. Does that mean new events do not generate notifications for those following the events calendar?
@deepan Thanks for this. It helps clear things up quite a bit.
Multiple items above lead me to understand this as saying, when a user opts-out from email notifications for an activity (ex. new topic), they will still see In-app notifications for that activity. (Please correct me if I’m wrong)
And one additional question: Can you please clarify a bit more about these settings for the In-App NC?
Reply settings for System Email Notifications
Does the In-App NC leverage this setting at all?
From this question during the beta, it seems that’s only specific to emails:
If no, does it notify of all replies on a topic? Or does it only notify on the first new reply since the user last visited or viewed the topic?
Edit: Looking at my own NC, it seems that it’s every reply.
Thanks @DannyPancratz . Currently the notification settings to opt in/out for a specify type of notification activity is only valid for email based notification and does not apply for In-app NC. Thanks for suggestions and we are reviewing this feature request to enable such settings also to in-app based on feedback.
As others read this, I wanted to drop a few ideas here to consider voting for:
Thanks bringing these Ideas
Based on what I’m seeing in my Notification Center, this is incomplete or out-of-date due to additional developments:
Notification types supported in the notification center:
Mentions
Replies
New topic in a subscribed Category/Group
Approval joining groups
Invitations to groups
Private messages
I’m seeing multiple notifications about marked answers:
screenshot from my NC on my community
Based on what I’m seeing in my Notification Center, this is incomplete or out-of-date due to additional developments:
Notification types supported in the notification center:
Mentions
Replies
New topic in a subscribed Category/Group
Approval joining groups
Invitations to groups
Private messages
I’m seeing multiple notifications about marked answers:
screenshot from my NC on my community
Thanks, Yes we have pushed this notification type. I will update in the docs
EDIT: Found this! It was hover text, if you want to mark certain notification as a unread.
What is this, where is this button/link?
notification.center.information.markAsUnread
Mark as unread
I remember when this was just an Idea and a design concept! It’s great to see it finally come to life, even if a bit premature and buggy at first. But it’s still good to see that I’ve got an in-app tool for this now!
For me, the one thing that’d be nice to have is a way of having “urgent” stuff prioritised to the top of my list - such as private messages - so that they don’t get lost in a sea of notifications if someone jams up the forum with spam.
But otherwise, I’m liking what I’m seeing so far!
I hope it's okay to share feedback from our community here. Please let me know if it would be better to submit this as an idea.
Synchronization of notification counts between email and in-app notifications: Dheepak G already said: "Currently, we do not plan to synchronize the counts. However, we appreciate your input and will consider this for future improvements to the Notification Center." We still hope and wish for this to be implemented.
First reply since the last visit I sincerely hope that you will adjust the Notification Center so that not every reply within a topic triggers a notification, but only the first reply since the last visit to that topic (just as with e-mail notifications). An example:
For those last two replies, no email notification is sent, we believe the Notification Center should function the same way. For our superusers, this results in an overload of notifications in the Notification Center.
Notifications in notificationcentre automatically marked as read Additionally, would it be possible for notifications to be automatically marked as read once the topic has been visited. Will this be a possibility in the future?
First reply since the last visit I sincerely hope that you will adjust the Notification Center so that not every reply within a topic triggers a notification, but only the first reply since the last visit to that topic (just as with e-mail notifications).
I disagree with this somewhat. My ideal is to allow the same setting as with email notifications if/when user settings are added for the notification center.
Email Notification settings for Replies
Or the ideal, IMO, is probably closer to what you see on social platforms like Linkedin, a notification that rolls up the many to let you know that many people have replied. That signals to me that a conversation is happening and I should go check it out, while avoiding the many notifications in the the NC.
Example from Linkedin
I agree with your suggestions, @DannyPancratz; the key is to inform users of important activities without causing overload.
Or the ideal, IMO, is probably closer to what you see on social platforms like Linkedin, a notification that rolls up the many to let you know that many people have replied. That signals to me that a conversation is happening and I should go check it out, while avoiding the many notifications in the the NC.
Example from Linkedin
Please vote:
Is the notification center only available within the mega menu? Or can it be added somewhere else on the homepage?
Hi @ryanne.perry - the notification center is indeed part of the mega menu. It’s not available as a standalone widget.
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