Push notifications on your phone

A push notification is the buzz on your phone when a request lands or a deposit clears, without you having Maelo open. They only work in the app, so if you are reading this in a browser, start with getting the app.

The first time you use the app while signed in, your phone asks whether Maelo may send you notifications. Say yes and you are done. If you said no, or you are not sure, open Notifications, Personal Notifications in the app. At the top is a card called This device that tells you exactly where you stand, with an Enable button when there is something to fix.

The same panel holds a table of alerts with a switch per channel. Email is on the left, Push next to it, and SMS is shown but marked Soon because it is not built yet. Flip each one to whatever suits you.

• •New Booking Requests, when clients submit new booking requests. Push is on by default.
• •Flash Bookings, when a client books an instant or flash appointment. Push is on by default.
• •Booking Confirmed, when a customer pays their deposit. Push is off by default, because good news can wait for the next time you open the app.
• •Requests Withdrawn, when a client pulls a request before anything is booked. Push is off by default.
• •Announcements, occasional updates about new Maelo features and improvements. No spam or marketing emails.

Four things reach you whatever your settings say, which is why they have no row in the table. A client cancelling a session, a client moving a session, a sign-in from a device we do not recognise, and one of your calendars losing its connection.

The first two are about work that is booked and paid for, and the cost of missing one is standing in an empty studio. The third is the warning that matters most and would be the first thing an intruder switched off. The fourth means your calendar has quietly stopped syncing, so Maelo could offer a client a slot you are not free for.

Your notification bell is a log, not a channel. Every alert is recorded there whether or not you asked for a push or an email, so turning push off never means losing track of what happened. It means not being interrupted by it.

On a phone the bell is in the top bar next to the page title, so you can check it without opening the menu.

If you are looking at Maelo when a notification arrives, you get a message inside the app rather than a banner over the top of it. That is deliberate. A banner covering the screen you are already reading is noise, not news.

Tapping a notification from your lock screen or notification tray opens the app on the thing it is about, so a new request tap lands on that request rather than on your dashboard.

Go back to the This device card in Personal Notifications and read what it says. It names which step is missing rather than leaving you guessing.

• •Enabled means this phone is registered and working. If alerts still are not arriving, check the per-alert Push switches below it.
• •Blocked in your device Settings means you have to turn Maelo's notifications back on in your phone's own settings. Nothing in the app can override that.
• •Allowed but not registered yet means permission is fine and the last step did not finish. Tap Retry.
• •Registered to a different Maelo account means the phone was set up under another login. Sign out and back in on this device.

On Android, Maelo groups its notifications into Bookings, Payments and Account security, so you can quiet one in your phone's settings without silencing the rest. If all of them have gone quiet at once, check that Maelo is not muted at the phone level.