A function of your portal, in full
The right person hears about every job, message and payment
Every new file, customer message and payment in your portal becomes a notice, and you decide who gets it and by which way: email, the bell in the portal, a sound, a push or Telegram. A waiting customer reaches a person quickly, and nobody on the team is buried in notices that are not theirs.
A file portal is only as fast as the moment somebody notices. A customer uploads a read; a tuner has to hear. The tuner delivers; the customer has to hear. Money arrives; the job can go ahead. The portal turns each of these into a notice and sends it down the ways you allow: an email, the bell at the top of the portal, a short sound in the open browser, a push to a browser or phone, and Telegram. Customer conversations have a further way of their own, the Messages app on the team's phones, which is described with the inbox.
Three sections of Settings, all under Messages and notifications, hold the rules. Email decides how mail leaves the portal, from which address, and who is spared it. Who is told what decides which staff hear about a new job or a new message, which way each kind of notice travels, and whether a monthly report is sent. Sounds gives each kind of event its own note and one volume.
The rules are built so that silence is never an accident. The emails a person must get, a sign-in code, a password reset, a receipt, an invoice, a security notice, go whatever you switch off. A notice held back from email stays on the bell. A push that is not allowed still leaves its notice in the portal.
A shop's day without it
Without it, the shop finds out by looking. Somebody keeps a browser tab open and refreshes it; the rest are told on WhatsApp or by a shout across the workshop. A rush file sits for forty minutes behind the map editor. Or the opposite: every upload emails nine people, the bookkeeper and the owner on holiday included, until nobody reads any of it and the one notice that mattered is lost among the others.
One new job, and every way it can reach a person.
A customer uploads a read. This is the road the notice takes, with the rule that opens or shuts each way.
- Who is toldThe staff who can take the job, or all staff, as you chose. A job that arrives already assigned by your assignment rules always tells the tuner holding it.
- The bellThe notice is on the bell at the top of the portal. A notice held back from any other way still stays here.
- A soundIn every open portal page, the note for jobs, at the one volume you set. Nothing plays when the browser is closed.
- EmailFrom your own address, while notice emails are on, the person's role is not muted and they are under the hourly ceiling. Past the ceiling the notice is not emailed later; it stays on the bell.
- PushTo the browsers and phones that allowed it, even with the portal closed, through your own OneSignal account, when the kind is ticked and its push switch is on.
- TelegramWhere the kind can use it and its switch is on. Customer conversations have a further way of their own, the Messages app on the team's phones, described with the inbox.
Each way has a switch for each kind of notice, on the notification channels page. Only the ways a kind can really use are offered.
Away from the screen
The portal is closed, and the tuner still hears.
With push connected, a notice reaches the phones that allowed it while the portal is shut. Opened, the portal's bell holds everything that arrived, whichever ways were switched off.
- JJobNew request: Golf 2.0 TDI, Stage 1now
- PPaymentA customer bought credits8 min
- MMessageA customer wrote on a job you hold25 min
- PPeopleA new customer registered1 h
- Push through your own accountYou make an app in your own OneSignal account and paste its app ID and key. Without both, nothing is sent and the portal's log says why.
- Only the kinds worth a buzzTick the kinds sent as push and only those go. It is a second gate beside the push switches on the notification channels page: a push goes only when both allow it.
- The bell keeps what the phone missedA push that is not allowed still leaves its notice in the portal, and so does an email past the ceiling or one muted for a role.
- Not the Messages appPush here is separate from the Messages app on the team's phones, which belongs to the inbox and rings about customer conversations by itself.
What goes out whatever you switch off.
Quietening a portal must never cost somebody a way in or a document they are owed. An email takes this road before it leaves.
- Is it one a person must get?A sign-in code, a password reset, a receipt, an invoice, a security notice: it goes, whatever the switches, the muted roles and the count say.
- Are notice emails on?Off, every other notice email stops, and the same notices still arrive on the bell, on Telegram and by push.
- Is the role muted, or the person?People in the roles you tick never get notice emails, and one person can turn their own off in their own settings.
- Is the hour full?Each address has a ceiling on notice emails in one hour, thirty as the portal comes. The next hour starts a fresh count.
- It is sentThrough your own mail server, the server the portal runs on, or your Brevo account, from the name and address your customers know.
What you find on it
Settings → Messages and notifications → Email. This section decides how email leaves the portal: through your own mail server, through the server the portal runs on, or through your Brevo account, with the server details that go with the choice. It also holds the sender name and address your customers see, the main switch for notice emails, a ceiling on emails to one person in an hour, the roles that get no notice emails, and whether internal alerts are emailed to staff.
Who is told what
Settings → Messages and notifications → Who is told what. Here you choose which staff hear about a new job and about a new message on a job, open the page that switches each way on or off for each kind of notice, connect push through your own OneSignal account, narrow push to certain kinds, and switch on the monthly report for administrators.
Sounds
Settings → Messages and notifications → Sounds. One main switch, one volume and five kinds of sound: jobs, payments, people, problems and support chats. Each kind has a note of its own, so a tuner knows a payment from a fault without looking up. The sounds play in open portal pages only.
How it works
- Open Settings, then Messages and notifications, then Email. Choose how email is sent; for your own mail server, fill in the server, port, security, user name and password your provider gives you. The setup wizard fills them for the well-known providers and tries them before anything is kept.
- Set the address and the name your emails come from, on the same domain as the mail server, and send yourself a test.
- Open Who is told what. Leave new jobs with the staff who can take them and new messages with the people on the job, unless the team is very small.
- Leave every way on at first. When one kind of notice annoys, open the notification channels page and switch off that one way for that one kind.
- Open Sounds and set the volume for the room the portal lives in. Switch off the kinds nobody acts on; keep the one for problems.
- If the team is often away from the screen, connect push: make an app in your own OneSignal account, paste its app ID and key under Browser push notices, and tick the kinds worth a buzz.
- After a week, ask the team what they ignore. Mute email for the roles that live in the portal, lower the hourly ceiling, or narrow push, one rule at a time.
Who it is for
- The ownerHears the money come in and the faults go wrong without reading every step of every job, and gets the month's figures by email on the 1st.
- Your tunersIs told about the jobs they can take and the customers they are working for, by a sound at the desk and a push when the browser is closed, and is spared the emails when the tuner role is muted.
- Your teamAdmins get the internal alerts and the monthly report; anyone whose role is muted keeps the bell and loses only the emails.
- Your customersGets an email from an address they recognise when the file is ready, and always gets a sign-in code, a receipt or an invoice.
Every setting, explained
Settings → Messages and notifications → Email. This section decides how email leaves the portal: through your own mail server, through the server the portal runs on, or through your Brevo account, with the server details that go with the choice. It also holds the sender name and address your customers see, the main switch for notice emails, a ceiling on emails to one person in an hour, the roles that get no notice emails, and whether internal alerts are emailed to staff.
Most emails to one person an hour
A ceiling on the notice emails sent to each address within one hour. A notice past the ceiling is not emailed later; it stays on the bell in the portal, and the next hour starts a fresh count. Receipts, invoices, sign-in codes, password resets and security notices go whatever the count. Zero means no ceiling.
Notice emails
The main switch of the portal's email. On, people are emailed every notice whose way includes email: a new job, a delivered file, a message, a payment. Off, those stop, while the notices still arrive on the bell, on Telegram and by push. The emails a person must get still go when it is off: a password reset, a sign-in code, a receipt, an invoice, a security notice. The hourly ceiling, the muted roles and the system alerts count only while it is on.
System alert emails to staff
Some notices are about the portal itself, such as a file that could not be locked again for its tool. They always show in the portal and on Telegram; this adds an email to every administrator. The hourly ceiling applies to them. A customer waiting for approval is emailed to staff whatever this says.
Mail server security
The kind of secure connection your mail server expects. The wrong choice is the usual reason a test email never arrives.
- TLS The usual choice today, on the standard port. If your provider says STARTTLS, pick this.
- SSL The older way, on its own port; common with the mail of a web host such as cPanel or Plesk.
- None No secure connection. Only for a server inside your own network that refuses both; the mail then travels unprotected.
Emails come from
The sender address on every email the portal sends: notices, invoices, sign-in codes. Replies go to this address, in your normal mailbox; the portal does not read them. It should sit on the same domain as the mail server you connected, or many providers refuse to send.
Sender name
The name inboxes show beside that address. It appears on the email that carries an invoice, not on the invoice itself, which takes its details from the invoice settings.
Mail server
The address of your provider's outgoing mail server, such as smtp.yourdomain.com. The setup wizard fills it in for Gmail and Google Workspace, Microsoft, Zoho, SendGrid, Mailgun, Postmark and Amazon SES, and tries it with the other details before anything is kept. It is ignored while email goes through this server or Brevo.
How email is sent
The way every notice, invoice and sign-in code leaves the portal. The choice decides which of the mail settings under it matter, and shows or hides them to match.
- Your mail server (SMTP) Mail from your own domain through the provider you already have: Gmail, Microsoft, Zoho, your web host and others. The way inboxes trust most.
- This server The portal sends from the server it runs on. Nothing to set up; fine for a start or a test.
- Brevo For a shop that already sends its mail with Brevo: one key, pasted in the password field, instead of server details.
Mail server password
The password for that user name, or your Brevo API key when email goes through Brevo. It is kept as a secret, shown as dots once saved, and never written on a page or in an email. Only an owner or admin can replace it.
Mail server port
The port the portal connects to on that server: usually 587, or 465 for SSL. On the SSL port the portal connects the SSL way whatever the security choice says.
Mail server user name
Who the portal says it is when it signs in to your mail server. For most providers it is the full email address of the mailbox; a few give a fixed user name, and the setup wizard says which.
Roles that get no notice emails
People in the roles you tick, customers, tuners or admins, get their notices in the portal, on Telegram and by push as before, and never by email. What a person must get, such as a sign-in code or an invoice, is still sent. One person, as opposed to a role, can turn their own email notices off in their own settings.
Who is told what
8 settingsSettings → Messages and notifications → Who is told what. Here you choose which staff hear about a new job and about a new message on a job, open the page that switches each way on or off for each kind of notice, connect push through your own OneSignal account, narrow push to certain kinds, and switch on the monthly report for administrators.
Who hears about a new message
The staff told when a customer writes on a job. The person who wrote is never told about their own message, and anybody who may work the job can still open it and step in.
- The people on the job The assigned tuner, the customer, anyone already in the conversation and, only while nobody has taken the job, the staff who could.
- All staff Everybody on staff, on every message.
Monthly report by email
On the first morning of the month, every administrator gets one email about the month that has just ended: jobs received, jobs finished, money taken through credit purchases and new customers, each set against the month before, with the number of customers in all. The same report is left on the bell. Jobs paid in other ways count as jobs, not as money. Tuners and dealers do not get it.
Who hears about a new job
The staff told when a customer sends a new request. It decides who is interrupted, not who can see: the queue still shows every open job to everyone who may work it. A job that arrives already assigned by your assignment rules always tells the tuner holding it.
- Staff who can take it The tuners and others whose role may claim a job, and nobody else.
- All staff Every member of staff who can be notified.
Which way each notice is sent
Opens the notification channels page: every kind of notice the portal sends, grouped, with who receives it and a switch for each way it can travel, email, the portal, push or Telegram. Only the ways a kind can really use are offered. The page links to each notice's template, so the road and the words sit side by side.
Notices sent by push
The kinds of notice sent as push. With nothing ticked, every kind is sent; once any are ticked, only those go. It is a second gate beside the push switches on the notification channels page: a push goes only when both allow it. Email, the bell and Telegram are untouched.
OneSignal app ID
The ID of your app in the OneSignal dashboard, put on every push the portal sends. It is not a secret; the key beside it is. It shows only while Browser push notices is on.
Browser push notices
Sends notices as push to the browsers and phones that allowed them, even when the portal is closed, through a OneSignal account you hold. It needs the app ID and the key under it; without both, nothing is sent and the portal's log says why. It is separate from the Messages app on the team's phones, which belongs to the inbox and rings about customer conversations by itself.
OneSignal key
The REST API key of that app, which proves to OneSignal that the portal may send for it. It is the app's key, not a user key. It is kept as a secret and shown as dots once saved.
Sounds
7 settingsSettings → Messages and notifications → Sounds. One main switch, one volume and five kinds of sound: jobs, payments, people, problems and support chats. Each kind has a note of its own, so a tuner knows a payment from a fault without looking up. The sounds play in open portal pages only.
Notification sounds
Plays a short sound in every open portal page when a notice arrives, for each kind left on under it. Off, it silences every kind at once. A customer with their page open hears the kinds that apply to them, such as a message. Nothing plays when the browser is closed; that is the job of push, or of the Messages app described with the inbox.
Sound for jobs
The sound about work: a job arrives, moves to another step or is finished. A customer's message on the job is not this kind; that is Sound for people.
Sound for payments
The sound when money comes in: credits bought, a file paid for. Its note differs from the job note, so you can tell the two apart without looking.
Sound for people
The note for a person: a customer writes, replies or mentions you, or somebody signs up. Off, those notices still arrive on the bell and as a pop-up, without the sound.
Sound for problems
A falling note, unlike any other in the portal, when a notice says something failed, was rejected or declined, expired or went overdue: a delivery that did not go, a payment the bank refused, a file sent back. The pop-up and the bell name the job or the payment and open it.
Sound for support chats
A quick rising triple when a chat needs a person now: a customer asks for help, the assistant hands a conversation to your team, or a reminder says a customer has waited too long. The assistant's own answers make no sound.
Sound volume
One level, from 0 to 100, for every notification sound. It scales all kinds alike and applies to everyone signed in, in their own browser. The lowest level makes the sounds silent; it does not switch them off.
How shops use it
Email that looks like the shop, not like a machine
A remap shop with its own domain and a mailbox at its web host
Customers were leaving "your file is ready" in spam because it came from an address they did not know. The owner picks Your mail server, lets the setup wizard try the host's details, and sets the sender to the files address on the shop's domain with the shop's name beside it. A test email lands in the inbox.
Customers recognise the sender, replies reach the shop's normal mailbox, and deliveries stop going unread.
Three tuners, and each hears only their own work
A file service with three tuners and an owner who does not tune
Every upload and every message used to reach everybody by email and bell. The owner leaves new jobs with the staff who can take them and messages with the people on the job, mutes notice emails for the tuner role, and keeps the payment and problem sounds on the workshop screen.
A tuner is interrupted only for work that is his; the owner hears money and faults and nothing else.
A workshop where nobody sits at a screen
A two-person shop that tunes on the dyno most of the day
New jobs waited until somebody walked past the laptop. The owner makes an app in his own OneSignal account, pastes its app ID and key under Browser push notices and ticks two kinds: new jobs and payments. Both tuners allow notices in the browser on their phones. On the workshop screen, the volume goes to the top and the problem sound stays on.
A new file buzzes two phones within seconds, the small steps of each job stay quiet, and a failed delivery is heard across the workshop.
A dealer who uploads forty files before lunch
A master whose biggest dealer sends files in batches
Each batch meant forty emails to the tuner, then forty more as the files were delivered. The master lowers the ceiling on emails to one person an hour and narrows push to new jobs and payments. The notices past the ceiling stay on the bell.
The tuner's inbox stays readable, and no notice is lost: every one is on the bell.
Where it helps, and its limits
Where it helps most
- When "your file is ready" has to arrive from an address your customers know, on your own domain.
- When the team has grown past two and everybody is being told everything.
- When tuners are at the car or the dyno, not at a desk, and a new job must reach a phone by push.
- When the portal sits open on a workshop screen and a sound is how a job gets noticed.
- When a failed delivery in the evening must be seen before the customer rings in the morning.
- When the owner wants last month's figures without opening a report.
What it does not do
- A notice held back by the hourly ceiling is not emailed later; it stays on the bell in the portal.
- Sounds need an open portal page. For a closed browser, use push, Telegram or the Messages app of the inbox.
- Push to browsers needs your own OneSignal account, and sending from your own domain needs your own mailbox; the portal connects to them and does not provide them.
- The sound volume and the kinds of sound are set for the whole portal, not for each person.
Which package
- In every plan, Start included.
- Who is told what
- In every plan, Start included.
- Sounds
- In every plan, Start included.
Prices in euros, a month, before tax, billed on the 1st. Every price ›
Questions shops ask
- Can the portal send email from my own domain?
- Yes. Choose Your mail server, enter the details your email provider gives you and set the sender address on that domain. The setup wizard fills the details for the well-known providers and tries them before they are kept.
- If I switch notice emails off, can customers still sign in and reset passwords?
- Yes. Sign-in codes, password resets, receipts, invoices and security notices are never stopped by that switch, by the hourly ceiling or by a muted role.
- How do I stop the emails to my tuners without stopping them for customers?
- Leave Notice emails on and tick the tuner role under Roles that get no notice emails. The tuners keep the bell, Telegram and push.
- Gmail says the password is wrong, but it is right. Why?
- Google wants an app password, made in your Google account under Security, not the one you sign in with. Microsoft may need an administrator to allow the mailbox to send this way.
- Are emails held back by the hourly ceiling sent later?
- No. A notice past the ceiling is kept on the bell in the portal only, and the next hour starts a fresh count. The ceiling is counted for each email address separately.
- I ticked no kinds under Notices sent by push. Does that mean no push?
- The opposite: nothing ticked means every kind is pushed. To stop push entirely, switch off Browser push notices.
- What is the difference between push and the Messages app?
- Push through OneSignal carries the portal's notices to browsers and phones, and needs your own OneSignal account. The Messages app on the team's phones rings about customer conversations by itself; it is set up with the inbox.
- If only the people on a job are told about a message, can nobody else step in?
- Anybody who may work the job can. The queue shows every open job; the setting changes who is interrupted, not who can see. While a job is unclaimed, the staff who could take it are told as well.
- Can each member of staff have their own sound volume?
- The level is the portal's. Each person can turn their own computer or browser down, and each kind of sound has its own switch for the whole portal.
- Which package do I need?
- Email, the notification rules, push and the sounds come with every package.
Every function of the portal, each on its own page. All functions
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