Notifications keep you and your team aware of what is happening in CoolFocus — a new message in the Inbox, a gift that came in, a task assigned to you. You control what you are notified about, how you are notified, and how often.
Notifications are personal and opt-in. Each person manages their own settings from their profile menu → Your notifications (avatar in the sidebar). Delivery stays off for each event and channel until that person turns it on and saves. Administrators can also view and change another user's system-notification settings from that user's profile, see Managing a user's notification settings below.
The three things you control
What — which events notify you (a new message, a new contribution, a completed task, and more). See Choosing What You're Notified About.
How — which channel each one uses: In-App, SMS, or Email (and mobile push if you use the app). See Notification Channels: In-App, SMS & Email.
How often — right away, or bundled into a daily or weekly digest (email). See Notification Timing & Digests.
Two kinds of notifications
System notifications — built-in events CoolFocus already knows about, organized by area (Inbox, Give, Scheduler, and more). Switch on the channels you want per event.
Custom notifications — your own watch rules. For example: “notify me whenever a contribution over $5,000 comes in.”
Where notifications show up
In-app: the bell icon at the top right, with an unread count. Click it to see recent notifications and jump to the related record.
Email / SMS / mobile push: delivered based on your channel choices.
Managing a user's notification settings
Administrators can open Settings → Security → Users, select a person, and go to the Notifications tab on their profile to view and change that person's system notifications. It shows the same event matrix that person sees under their own Your notifications page, and changes take effect for that user immediately.
This admin view only covers system notifications. A user's custom notifications (their own watch rules) stay under that person's control.
Good to know
Notification settings are personal to each account. A non-administrator only sees and changes their own settings; an administrator can also view and change another user's system-notification settings from that user's profile.
Some events are visible only to admin users (for example certain payment alerts). Being an admin does not turn any channel on automatically — admins opt in the same way everyone else does.
At least one active staff user should turn on New Online Booking (or a similar booking alert) so new online appointments are not missed. SMS and email versions of that alert intentionally omit the client’s name for confidentiality; open the appointment in Scheduler to see full details.
Some client-facing message templates are organization-wide (for example intake and secure message invite wording), not personal preferences. See Customizing Intake & Secure Message Templates.
In this section
Customizing Intake & Secure Message Templates