Each operator chooses their own notifications, separately for each project they work in.
Where to find them
Open Settings → Notifications and look under What to notify me about. If you work in several projects, pick one in Settings for. Then choose Always, On shift or Never for each of the five rows. Every change is saved at once.
A project you join starts on the Default preset. If you had changed the earlier notification switches, your choices were carried over to each of your projects.
The five rows
- My chats: a customer writes in a chat assigned to you, including one you were added to. Default: Always.
- Assigned to me: a chat is assigned or transferred to you, you're added to one, or an escalation is assigned to you automatically. Default: On shift.
- Needs an operator: a chat is escalated, or the AI isn't answering it, and nobody has taken it yet; you're notified at once and again each time the customer writes. Default: On shift.
- Other operators' chats: a customer writes in a teammate's chat, or an escalation is assigned to a teammate automatically. Default: Never.
- AI chats: a customer writes in a chat the AI is answering. Default: Never.
Always, On shift and Never
Always reaches you at any time, even when you're set to Offline. Never turns the row off. What On shift means depends on the row:
- My chats and Assigned to me follow your own shifts: those in this project, or those in your other projects if you have none here, or any time if you have no shifts at all.
- Needs an operator, Other operators' chats and AI chats follow the project: during your shifts there, or only while you're set to Online if you have none there. In a project with no shifts, your shifts in other projects decide, or any time if you have none.
Your status under Availability, lower on the same page, counts too: Online counts as on shift even outside your shifts, Offline as off shift, and Away still counts as on shift during a shift.
An escalation that Chatonio assigns to you automatically always reaches you as Escalated to you, unless Assigned to me is Never. With Never, chats and escalations are still assigned to you, just silently, and teammates hear of such an escalation only through Other operators' chats, which is Never by default. To stay out of automatic assignment, set yourself Away or Offline instead.
Presets
Preset sets all five rows of the selected project at once: Default uses the defaults above, Supervisor sets every row to On shift, and Full sets every row to Always. When your rows match none of them, it shows Custom.
The shift warning
If the project has no shifts, or you have none in it, a warning under Preset explains what On shift means there. It shows while a row it applies to is set to On shift. In a project with no shifts, escalations are assigned automatically only to people set to Online. The Set up shifts link opens the project's schedules, where you can add your own.
What never notifies
Only customer messages trigger message notifications. Your colleagues' replies and internal notes, messages in team chats (the Team tab) and the AI's replies never do. Nor does a customer message in the conversation you're looking at.
Browser, iPhone and desktop app
The same settings apply in the browser and the iPhone and iPad app, with Push on this device turned on, and in the desktop app for macOS, Windows and Linux, with Desktop notifications allowed. One exception: an escalation assigned to a teammate automatically (the Other operators' chats row) comes only as push, so the desktop app doesn't show it.
The desktop app alerts you only while it's running, even when minimized. On Windows and Linux, closing its window quits it; on a Mac, it keeps running until you quit it.
Older app versions still show the previous switches under Settings → Notifications: the desktop app before 1.3.0, and the iPhone and iPad app until it is updated. A change made there applies to all your projects, and older desktop versions also decide some alerts themselves. To choose per project, use Chatonio in a browser or in the latest version of the app.