Notifications

opendesk tells you about the things that need you: a ticket assigned to you, a mention in a note, a customer’s reply, a missed SLA target. Notifications arrive live, so the bell updates without refreshing. They can also reach you by email, on your phone through the iPhone app and on your computer through the desktop app. You choose which, per type, in your notification settings.

1. The bell, at the top of the app. A dot means you have unread notifications. Click it to open the list.
2. All and Unread: show everything, or only what you have not read yet.
3. Mark all read: clear the unread markers at once.
4. Unread: a dot on each notification you have not opened.
5. A notification: what happened, the ticket’s number and subject, and when. Click it to open the ticket and mark it read.

Read your notifications

1. Click the bell

   The panel lists your latest notifications, newest first.

2. Open one

   Clicking a notification opens its ticket, or the settings page it is about, and marks it read.

3. Clear the rest

   Switch to Unread to see what is left, or click Mark all read.

Opening a ticket also marks its notifications read, wherever you opened it from. The settings icon beside Mark all read opens your notification settings.

What you are notified about

Notification	When
Assigned	A teammate, Ollie or the API assigns a ticket to you.
Mentioned	A teammate mentions you with @ in a note.
Customer replied	A customer replies on a ticket assigned to you.
SLA breached	A ticket assigned to you misses a first response or resolution target. See SLA policies.
Asked for a person	A customer in a chat asked for a person instead of Ollie. It goes to the ticket’s assignee, else the leads and members of its team, else everyone in the workspace except viewers.
Joined your team	An admin joined a team you lead, to see its private tickets. See Teams and roles.

Only what you can see

A mention of someone who cannot see the ticket, because it belongs to a private team they are not on, notifies nobody. When a ticket later moves out of your sight, its older notifications keep only who acted, without the ticket.

Workspace notices for owners and admins

Notification	When
AI balance low	The AI balance is running low. Cloud only.
AI balance used up	The AI balance is used up, so Ollie is paused until a top-up. Cloud only.
Auto-recharge failed	An auto-recharge payment failed, and auto-recharge turned itself off. Cloud only.
AI agent cap reached	The AI agent reached this month’s spending cap and left conversations to the team.
AI key failed	The workspace’s own AI provider key was rejected or ran out of funds. At most once an hour.

These link to the settings page they are about. See Billing and AI features.

Choose what reaches you

The bell always shows everything. Everything else is up to you: go to Settings, Notifications, under Account.

1. Email schedule: when notification emails are sent. See Email schedule.
2. Where emails go: your sign-in address. Send me a test email sends a sample now, so you can check it arrives and is not filtered as spam.
3. Pause: stop email, phone and desktop notifications for a while. See Pause notifications.

Email schedule

Schedule	What you get
Right away	One email a few minutes after a notification, unless you have read it in the app by then. Several notifications in those minutes come together in one email. While more keeps coming, the emails space out (see How emails are paced). This is the default.
Hourly digest	One email at the top of the hour with everything you have not read yet.
Daily digest	One email a day at the hour you choose, in your time zone, with everything you have not read yet.
Off	No notification emails.

The schedule and the pause are yours, across every workspace you are in. Each workspace sends its own emails.

How emails are paced

A busy afternoon should not mean an email for every reply. With Right away, opendesk waits a few minutes after the first notification, then sends one email. If more arrives, it waits longer before the next one and gathers everything new into it:

On opendesk Cloud
First email	About 5 minutes after something happens
While more keeps coming	The next email waits 15 minutes, then 30, then an hour between emails
After a quiet spell	Two quiet hours and the next email goes out after 5 minutes again
Urgent ones	A mention, a missed SLA target, a handoff to a person and the AI and billing alerts can cut the wait short, at most every 10 minutes and 6 times a day
Limits	At most 4 emails an hour and 24 a day, digests included
While you are in the app	Nothing is emailed while you are using opendesk in that workspace; it waits until you have been away for 5 minutes, and what you read meanwhile is left out

So instead of twelve emails in an hour you get a few, each saying what piled up: “Maya Chen mentioned you #1095 and 4 more”.

On a self-hosted server the defaults are looser, and the admin can change every number. See Notification emails in the configuration reference.

Notification emails go only to a confirmed address. If yours is not confirmed yet, the page says so and links to Settings, Profile, where you can send the confirmation link again.

Per type and channel

1. In the app: always on. Every notification lands under the bell.
2. Email, Phone and Desktop app: a switch per type. Turn a type off on one channel and it still shows everywhere else you left on.

These choices are per workspace: a busy workspace can email you everything while a quiet one only reaches your phone. Types you never changed follow the defaults.

Notification	Email	Phone	Desktop app
Assigned to you, mentions, customer replies, SLA breaches, handoffs to a person	On	On	On
Team changes	Off	Off	On
AI and billing notices (owners and admins)	On	Off	On

• Phone is the opendesk iPhone app. Each phone can also mute types of its own, in the app’s settings, so a work phone and a personal phone can differ.
• Desktop app applies only in the opendesk desktop app, while its window is in the background. When the window is in front, notifications show in the app as usual.
• With the email schedule Off, the email switches are greyed out but keep their place, so choosing a schedule again brings back the same choices.

Pause notifications

Click Pause and choose For 1 hour, Until tomorrow morning (9:00 in your time zone) or For 1 week. While paused:

• No email, phone or desktop notification reaches you, from any workspace.
• The bell still updates, so you can catch up whenever you like.
• Nothing is sent later: what arrived during the pause stays in the app.

The page shows when the pause ends. Click Resume to end it early, or Change to pick another length.

Notification emails

Notification emails are short: who did what, the ticket’s number and subject, and a short excerpt of a mention or a customer’s reply. They never include whole messages or attachments. The links open the ticket in the right workspace, even if you were looking at another one.

• One or several. A single notification gets its own email. When several are waiting, they come together in one email: a line saying what happened since when (“Since 14:52: 4 assigned, 2 replies”), then Needs you now for mentions, missed targets and handoffs, then Tickets, then Workspace.
• Folded together. Several replies on one ticket are one line (“Dana Lee replied twice”), with the newest excerpt. When someone assigns you three tickets or more at once, that is one line too (“Maya Chen assigned you 4 tickets”).
• Grouped per ticket. Emails about the same ticket thread together in your mail app.
• Only what you have not read. Right before an email goes out, each notification is checked again. One you have read in the app, or whose ticket you have opened, is left out. So is anything from while you were paused or after you turned that email off.
• Only what you can still see. A notification about a ticket that was deleted, or that moved to a private team you are not on, is left out. Leaving a workspace stops its emails.

Unsubscribe from an email

Every notification email has an Unsubscribe link at the bottom.

1. Click Unsubscribe in the email

   A page opens and asks first. Nothing changes until you confirm, so a mail filter that opens links on its own does not unsubscribe you.

   

2. Confirm

   Click Unsubscribe. Every notification email from that workspace stops. Your notifications still show in the app, and on your phone and desktop if you have those on.

3. Change your mind any time

   Open Settings, Notifications and click Turn email back on. The email choices you had before unsubscribing come back as they were. Turning any single email switch on also ends the unsubscribe.

Mail apps that show their own unsubscribe button, like Gmail and Apple Mail, do the same in one click.

Why am I not getting emails?

When something stops your notifications, the top of Settings, Notifications says what it is, with a button to undo it:

• Notification emails from this workspace are off: you used an unsubscribe link. Turn email back on restores your earlier choices.
• Notifications are paused: Resume now ends the pause.
• Notification emails are off: your email schedule is Off. Turn email back on switches it to Right away.

The same reason shows as a line at the top of the bell’s list, linking to the settings page.

In the desktop app, the page also tells you when your computer blocks opendesk’s notifications, or offers Allow notifications if it has not asked yet.

On your computer and phone

• The desktop app shows system notifications when its window is not in front, for the types with Desktop app on, and an unread badge on the dock or taskbar.
• The iPhone app receives push notifications for the types with Phone on, with an unread badge on its icon. On a self-hosted server, push depends on its setup.

Reading a notification in the app clears it on your phones too, and their badges update.

Related

• Inbox and tickets
• Notifications API