Inbox & Notifications
Ascent uses two complementary systems to keep you informed: the Inbox for items that need your action, and Notifications for informational alerts. Both surface in the top bar and refresh in real time.
Overview
The Inbox and notification system together let you:
- See actionable items (assignments, approvals, SLA breaches, expirations) in one place via the Inbox.
- Receive informational alerts (status changes, replies, mentions) via the Notifications bell.
- Track unread counts with badges in the top bar that update live.
- Filter inbox items by category and status, and snooze, archive, or delete them.
- Control which notifications you receive — and whether they also arrive by email — with per-type preferences.
Inbox vs. Notifications
The two systems serve different purposes:
| Inbox | Notifications | |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose | Items that require you to do something | Informational alerts (things you may want to know) |
| Top-bar icon | Inbox icon (badge tinted with your primary color) | Bell icon (badge tinted red) |
| Page | Inbox (/inbox) | Notifications (/notifications) |
| Examples | Ticket assigned to you, approval needed, SLA at-risk, contract/domain/certificate expiring | Ticket status changed, ticket reply, invoice paid, you were mentioned |
Not every notification has a matching inbox item — only events that need action create an inbox item. When you act on an item (for example, a ticket is closed or an invoice is paid), Ascent automatically clears the related inbox items and notifications so you don't have to dismiss them by hand.
Top-bar badges
Both indicators live at the right of the top bar on every page:
- The Inbox icon shows your number of unread inbox items. Clicking it opens the Inbox page.
- The Bell icon shows your number of unread notifications. Clicking it opens the notification panel (described below), with a link to View all notifications at the bottom. When you also have unread inbox items, the panel header shows an N in inbox shortcut (where N is your unread inbox count) to the Inbox page.
Counts greater than 99 display as 99+. Badges update automatically in real time as new items arrive — no page refresh needed. The bell and inbox icons announce their unread count to screen readers (for example, "Notifications, 3 unread").
The notification panel
Opening the bell gives you a compact management surface for your latest notifications without leaving the page:
- Read-state filter — toggle between All and Unread at the top of the panel. The list reloads to match.
- Bulk actions — Mark all read clears every unread notification, and the trash button clears all notifications (permanently deletes them). Both update the bell badge immediately.
- Catch me up — when you have unread notifications, the Catch me up button opens an at-a-glance summary of what you missed: the total unread count, a breakdown by category (tickets, invoices, mentions, and so on), how long the oldest unread has been waiting, and a preview of the most recent items — with a one-click Mark all read. Use Back to return to the list. It's handy when you return to Ascent after being away and don't want to scroll the whole list.
- Per-notification actions — each row shows an unread dot; hover (or keyboard-focus) an unread row to reveal a Mark as read check button. Clicking a notification with a linked record marks it read and navigates there.
- Loading and empty states — the panel shows a brief loading placeholder while fetching and a friendly "You're all caught up!" / "No notifications yet" message when there is nothing to show.
The panel is keyboard-navigable and screen-reader friendly; all controls have descriptive labels.
The Inbox
Navigate to Inbox in the Main section of the sidebar (/inbox).
The page header shows how many items are unread and how many require action (for example, "3 unread items, 1 require action"), or "All caught up!" when nothing is pending.
Filtering
Filter inbox items two ways:
- Category buttons across the top: All, Assigned, Mentioned, Watching, Approval, and System. Each category button shows a count badge.
- Status dropdown on the right: Active, Unread, Read, Archived, or Snoozed. The default view (Active) shows unread and read items together.
Use the refresh icon to reload the list manually.
Item fields
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Title | Short summary of the item |
| Body | Optional detail line beneath the title |
| Category | One of Assigned, Mentioned, Watching, Approval, or System |
| Priority | LOW, NORMAL, HIGH, or URGENT — items show an Urgent or High badge when applicable |
| Action needed | Badge shown when the item requires action |
| Actor | Avatar of the user who triggered the item (where applicable) |
| Time | When the item was created, shown as relative time |
Clicking an item marks it read and takes you to the linked record (for example, the ticket, quote, or approval page).
Item actions
Each item has a menu (the ⋯ button) with these actions:
| Action | What it does |
|---|---|
| Mark as read / Mark as unread | Toggles the item's read state |
| Archive | Removes the item from the active list (still visible under the Archived status filter) |
| Snooze 1 hour / Snooze 4 hours / Snooze until tomorrow | Hides the item from the active list until the chosen time; snoozed items are visible under the Snoozed filter, which shows the snooze-until time |
| Delete | Permanently removes the item |
Bulk actions are available in the page header:
- Mark all read marks every item as read.
- Archive read archives all already-read items.
- Snooze all snoozes every active item (unread and read) until a chosen time — 1 hour, 4 hours, or until tomorrow. Snoozed items leave the active list and automatically resurface as unread when their time passes (visible meanwhile under the Snoozed filter). Handy for clearing your inbox during heads-down focus time.
The Notifications page
The bell dropdown's View all notifications link opens the Notifications page (/notifications).
Filtering
Use the filter dropdown to narrow the list: All Notifications, Unread Only, Tickets, Invoices, Alerts, Mentions, Clients, Calendar, or System. Unread notifications carry a New badge and a highlighted background.
Most real notifications fall into the Tickets, Invoices, Alerts (domain, certificate, warranty, and license expirations), Mentions, or System buckets. The Clients and Calendar filter options exist in the dropdown but currently have no notification types mapped to them, so they typically return no results.
Notification actions
- Click a notification (or its View button) to mark it read and jump to the linked record.
- The per-row menu offers Mark as read and Delete.
- The page header has Mark all read and Clear all (which deletes every notification).
A Notification Preferences card at the bottom links to Manage Preferences in your profile.
Notification history & delivery status
The History button in the Notifications page header opens your Notification
history (/notifications/history) — a read-only record of your notifications
that also shows, for each one, how each channel delivered it.
Every notification lists per-channel badges:
- In-app — always shown as sent (the notification reached your bell).
- Email — sent when the email went out, failed if it couldn't be
queued, or skipped with the reason it wasn't sent. Common skip reasons
include your master Email Notifications toggle being off
(
master-toggle-off), your organization not having email set up (email-not-configured), your quiet-hours window (quiet-hours), or the email being held for your next digest (digest-buffered— it's deferred, not dropped). - Push — recorded when you've turned on
Browser Push Notifications on
at least one device: sent when the desktop notification was pushed,
failed if every subscribed device rejected it, or skipped with the
reason — for example your quiet-hours window (
quiet-hours) or no currently-subscribed device (no-live-subscription). Push status is only tracked when you've opted a browser in; if you've never enabled push, no push row appears.
This is the place to check when you expected an email about a notification and it never arrived — the badge tells you whether it was sent, failed, or intentionally held, and why.
You can search the history by text (title or body) and filter it by notification type and date range. The history is private to you — you only ever see your own notifications.
Delivery status is recorded for notifications raised by day-to-day actions (assignments, replies, status changes, invoices, and so on). Some background bulk alerts (for example large expiration sweeps) still send but are not yet itemized in this per-channel history.
How notifications reach you
A single notification can arrive through several channels, each configured in a different place:
| Channel | What it is | Where it's configured |
|---|---|---|
| In-app | The bell panel and Notifications page — always available | Per-type In-App switch (your profile) |
| An email per event (or a batched digest) | Per-type Email switch + master toggle, quiet hours, and digest (your profile) | |
| Browser push | Desktop notifications on a device, even when the tab is closed | Browser Push toggle, per browser (your profile) |
| Slack / Microsoft Teams | Selected types mirrored to a shared team channel | Settings → Integrations → Chat & Webhooks (Owner/Admin) |
| Outbound webhook | Selected types POSTed to a URL you control | Settings → Integrations → Chat & Webhooks (Owner/Admin) |
Whether a given notification actually reaches you by in-app and email is decided in this order:
- Your organization's policy. An Owner or Admin can set org-wide defaults and mark a type Enforced — an enforced type is locked to the org's setting and overrides your own choice (see Notification Policy). Enforced types show a lock and Set by admin in your preferences.
- Your own per-type preference. For any type that isn't enforced, your In-App and Email switches decide.
- The built-in default. If neither you nor an admin has changed a type, you receive both an in-app notification and an email (notifications are opt-out).
For email specifically, two more of your own settings can defer or hold a message: Quiet Hours pauses non-urgent emails during a daily window, and the Email Digest batches non-urgent emails into one scheduled rollup. Both leave in-app, push, and Slack/Teams delivery untouched, and both let genuinely urgent alerts (security alerts and on-call escalation pages) through immediately. You can always confirm what happened to any message — sent, failed, or intentionally held, and why — in Notification history & delivery status.
Configure the per-user channels (in-app, email, quiet hours, digest, browser push) in Profile settings; the shared channels in Slack, Teams & webhooks; and the org policy in Organization settings.
Notification preferences
You control notifications per user from your profile's notification settings (see Profile settings). There is no separate notification-settings page in the sidebar — preferences are managed in your profile.
Preferences are opt-out: by default you receive both an in-app notification and an email for every type. You only change a setting when you want to turn something off.
Master email toggle
The Email Notifications switch is a master control. When it is off, you receive no notification emails at all, regardless of the per-type settings below it. (Your in-app notifications are unaffected.) When it is off, the per-type Email switches are disabled.
Urgent alert cues
So genuinely urgent items don't get lost in the noise, high- and urgent-priority inbox items that arrive in real time raise a distinct pop-up toast — red for Urgent (for example an SLA breach) and amber for High — that stays on screen longer than a routine toast. Normal- and low-priority items don't raise a toast at all; they only update the badge count, so this adds attention without adding noise.
The Urgent alert sound switch adds an optional short chime when an urgent item arrives. It's off by default (browsers only allow sound after you opt in), and the setting is saved on the current browser rather than your account, so turn it on anywhere you want the audible cue. Toggling it on plays a quick preview of the chime.
Per-type switches
Notification types are grouped into collapsible categories. For each type you get two switches:
- In-App — whether the notification appears in the app (bell / Notifications page).
- Email — whether you also receive it by email (only honored when the master Email Notifications toggle is on, and only if your organization has email configured).
The categories and their types are:
| Category | Notification types |
|---|---|
| Tickets | Ticket Created, Ticket Assigned, Ticket Unassigned, Ticket Reply, Ticket Mention, Status Changed, Priority Changed, Ticket Resolved, Ticket Reopened, Ticket Merged, Ticket Split |
| Invoices | Invoice Created, Invoice Sent, Invoice Paid, Invoice Overdue, Invoice Refunded, Invoice Disputed |
| Quotes | Quote Created, Quote Sent, Quote Accepted, Quote Rejected |
| Contracts & Expirations | Contract Created, Contract Expiring, Contract Expired, Domain Expiring, Certificate Expiring, Warranty Expiring, License Expiring |
| Projects & Tasks | Project Created, Project Assigned, Project Completed, Project Over Budget, Project Over Amount Budget, Task Assigned, Task Completed |
| Time Off | Time Off Requested, Time Off Approved, Time Off Denied, Approval Reminder, Time Off Starting Soon |
| On-Call | On-Call Shift Starting, Shift Swap Requested, Shift Swap Accepted, Shift Swap Declined, Shift Swap Cancelled |
| Checklists | Item Assigned, Item Due Soon, Checklist Completed |
| Security | Security Alerts (high-risk audit events — mass deletions, permission-change bursts, repeated failed sign-ins, and audit-log integrity failures) |
| Other | Mentions, System Alerts |
Changes save automatically a moment after you toggle a switch.
Email delivery diagnostic
If your notification emails can't be delivered, a banner appears on the preferences card explaining the specific blocker — for example, your Email Notifications toggle is off, your organization hasn't finished SMTP or Microsoft 365 setup, or your account has no email address on file. When everything is configured correctly, no banner is shown.
Tips
- If your inbox feels noisy, start with the Category buttons to focus on Assigned or Approval items, then snooze lower-priority items rather than deleting them.
- Leave informational notifications in-app and turn off their Email switches to cut inbox noise without losing the in-app history.
- Use the master Email Notifications toggle for a quick all-off when you don't want any notification emails for a period.