Desktop Notifications

What they are

A desktop notification is the small popup your operating system shows outside the browser — the same kind of alert you get from a mail or chat app. Yaplet can send you one when a visitor writes and you are working in another window, so you don't have to keep a dashboard tab in view all day.

They are switched off until you turn them on, and they are set per browser: turning them on in Chrome on your office computer does nothing for the browser on your laptop at home.

Desktop notifications only cover visitor messages waiting for a reply. The bell in the sidebar — subscription updates, platform announcements, messages from your admins — stays inside the dashboard and never becomes a desktop popup.

Turning them on

There are two places to do it, and both do the same thing.

The card in the Inbox

The first time you open the Inbox in a browser that has never been asked, a card appears above the conversation list: Get notified when a visitor writes.

Turn on — your browser asks for permission; allow it and you're done.
Not now — the card goes away for a week. After three dismissals it stops appearing on its own.
Don't ask again — the card never comes back in this browser.

The switch in Settings

Open the account menu at the bottom of the left-hand menu, choose Settings, and use Browser notifications on this device. This is always available, including after you dismissed the card for good.

Once the switch is on, a Send test button appears next to it. It sends a real notification to this browser so you can confirm it arrives before you rely on it.

Turn it on from the button, not from your browser's own settings screen. Browsers treat a request that follows a deliberate click far more kindly, and some refuse one that doesn't.

What arrives

A notification carries the visitor's name as its title and the message itself as the text, shortened if it is very long. Clicking it brings the dashboard window you already have to the front and opens that conversation — or opens a new one if the dashboard isn't running.

If the same visitor sends several lines in a row, you get one popup that keeps updating to the newest line, rather than a stack of them.

Who gets a notification for a given conversation follows exactly the same rules as the phone app — your Online/Offline status, who the conversation is assigned to, and which brands you have access to. Those rules are written out in full on the mobile Notifications page, and brand access itself is set on the Organizations page.

Offline means silence. If your status is Offline you receive no notifications at all, on any device, no matter what you allowed in the browser. This is the first thing to check when someone says notifications stopped.

When nothing appears — on purpose

No popup is shown while any Yaplet window is visible on your screen. You are already looking at the dashboard; it announces the message there with its own toast and sound instead. So "I had the tab open and got no popup" is the system working, not a fault.

The Send test button is the one exception — it always shows, because otherwise the button could never prove anything.

The notification volume slider in Settings controls the in-app sound the dashboard plays, not the desktop popup. The popup uses whatever sound your operating system assigns to notifications.

The permission belongs to the browser and the address

Two things decide whether a notification can reach you: the browser you are sitting at, and the web address you signed in on. Yaplet's dashboard runs on more than one address, and each one is treated separately by the browser — so if you sometimes work from a different Yaplet address, switch notifications on there too. Each browser sends you to the address it was switched on at, which is what keeps a click landing in the tab you already have open.

If your browser is blocking them

If the hint under the switch reads Blocked by your browser, the permission was refused at some point and Yaplet cannot ask again — browsers only allow one ask per address.

Click the icon at the left of the address bar (a lock, a slider, or an "i", depending on the browser)
Find Notifications and set it to Allow
Reload the dashboard and turn the switch back on

If it reads Not available in this browser, that browser cannot do desktop notifications at all. The usual case is Safari on an iPhone or iPad in a normal tab — use the Yaplet mobile app there instead.

Shared computers

Signing out through the account menu also unlinks that browser, so the next person to sign in on it does not receive your conversations. Turning the switch off does the same thing without signing out.

Closing the browser is not signing out. On a computer several people use, sign out properly at the end of your shift — otherwise the machine keeps receiving notifications for your conversations.

Limits worth knowing

Limit	What it means
30 browsers per person	Each browser you switch notifications on in counts as one. Well beyond normal use — you would have to collect browsers and computers to reach it.
180 days of inactivity	A browser that hasn't opened the dashboard for half a year is dropped from the list. Opening the dashboard there again puts it back with no prompt, because the permission is still in place.

User Settings

The switch, the Send test button, and the notification volume slider all live in the settings modal.

Mobile Notifications

The same rules on your phone — who gets notified for which conversation, and what to check when notifications stop.

Organizations

Brand access decides which conversations can notify you at all.