Notifications keep you on top of what matters – new leads, overdue tasks, payment alerts, and system updates. But too many notifications can be just as bad as none at all. Exoserva gives you granular control over what you receive, how you receive it, and when. This guide walks you through setting up your notification preferences and using the Notifications page to stay organized.
Estimated time: 5-10 minutes
Before You Begin
- An active Exoserva account (any role)
- A verified email address on your account
- A mobile phone number if you want SMS notifications
Step 1: Navigate to Notification Settings
From the left sidebar, click Settings. The Settings page opens with a sidebar listing sections grouped into four categories: Organization, Operations, Personal, and System. Under the Personal category, click the Notifications item (marked with a bell icon). The main content area loads the Notification Preferences panel with three sections: Preferences, Event Types, and Scheduling. This page controls your notification delivery preferences – what gets sent to you, through which channels, and when. This is separate from the Notifications dropdown (the bell icon in the top navigation bar), which we will cover in a later step.
Tip: You can quickly find the Notifications section by pressing Ctrl+K (or Cmd+K on Mac) to focus the settings search bar at the top of the sidebar, then typing “notifications.” The section list filters in real time as you type.
Warning: Notification preferences are saved per user. If you are configuring notifications for your team, each team member must set their own preferences from their own account.
Step 2: Choose Your Delivery Channels
In the Preferences section, you will see the heading Channels with five checkboxes arranged in a two-column grid: Desktop (browser push notifications), Sound (audio alert when a notification arrives), Email (delivers to the email address on your account), SMS (text messages to your registered phone number), and Badge (shows an unread count badge on the bell icon in the header). Check or uncheck each channel to match your preferred delivery method. A checked checkbox shows a filled primary-colored square with a checkmark; an unchecked one appears as an empty grey square. Changes are tracked automatically and you must click the Save button at the bottom of the page to persist them.
Step 3: Configure Event Type Preferences
Below the Channels section, you will find the Event Types section. This section shows six checkboxes in a two-column grid, one for each notification category: Jobs (new job assignments, status changes, completions), Payments (payment received, invoice overdue, failed charges), Leads (new customer inquiries, Thumbtack leads, form submissions), System (platform updates, maintenance windows, security alerts), Reminders (upcoming appointments, task deadlines, follow-up prompts), and Alerts (budget thresholds, SLA breaches, emergency notifications). Each checkbox independently controls whether that type of notification is delivered to you through your enabled channels. For example, you might enable Jobs and Payments but disable System notifications if you prefer not to receive platform update alerts.
Step 4: Set Quiet Hours and Delivery Frequency
Scroll down to the Scheduling section. You will see two subsections: Quiet Hours and Frequency.
For Quiet Hours, check the Enable Quiet Hours checkbox. When enabled, two time-picker inputs appear inline: a From field (defaults to 22:00) and a To field (defaults to 07:00). Set the time range during which Exoserva will hold non-critical notifications and deliver them when quiet hours end. The time pickers use your browser’s native time input format.
For Frequency, choose one of three buttons: Instant (notifications delivered immediately as events occur – this is the default), Hourly (notifications batched and delivered once per hour), or Daily (notifications compiled into a single daily digest). The currently selected frequency button appears highlighted in primary color with a shadow glow; the others show as grey outlined buttons. A description below explains the selected mode.
Step 5: View the Notification Bell Dropdown
Now let us look at where your notifications actually show up in the interface. In the top navigation bar (the header), look for the bell icon button on the right side. If you have unread notifications, a circular badge appears on the top-right corner of the bell showing your unread count (up to “99+” for large numbers). The badge color is primary blue for normal notifications and danger red with a pulse animation for urgent notifications. A small dot at the bottom-right of the bell indicates your real-time connection status: green means live updates are active, pulsing amber means connecting, and grey means updates are paused.
Click the bell icon to open a dropdown panel. The dropdown header shows “Notifications” with a “Live” indicator (a pulsing green dot) when connected in real time. If you have unread notifications, a “Mark all read” link appears in the header. Below the header, each notification appears as a clickable row with a type icon (color-coded: blue for info, green for success, amber for warning, red for error), a title, a message preview (up to two lines), a timestamp, and an unread indicator dot.
Step 6: View All Notifications
At the bottom of the notification bell dropdown, click “View all notifications” to navigate to the full Notifications page. If you have more unread notifications than the dropdown shows (which displays up to five items), the link includes a count like “(3 more)” to indicate additional unread items. The full Notifications page provides a searchable, filterable list of all your notifications with the ability to bulk-manage them. You can mark individual notifications as read by clicking them, or use bulk actions to mark multiple notifications as read, archive resolved notifications, or delete items you no longer need.
What’s Next?
Now that you’ve completed this guide, check out:
Need help? Post in the Tech Support category or contact support@exoserva.com.