Learning Hub · Policies
Push Notifications
What does this policy do?
A push is the short alert that lands on a person's phone or computer, even when the app is closed. It is not an email, and it is not the bell inside the app. This policy decides which pushes your business sends. There is one master switch and four switches by kind: New Messages, Booking Updates, Reminders and Pupdates. It covers everyone your business pushes to — your clients, your team and you. A push that names no business is checked against the business the person belongs to, so it also governs a community direct message or a support reply to one of your people. Switching a push off here stops only the push: the matching email still goes, and the bell inside the app never reads this policy, so where a bell item is written it is still written.
How it works
The master switch
Off, and your business sends no push at all — to anyone, of any kind, on the web app and on the phone apps. Clicking it saves straight away. The four switches below it are greyed out until it is on again.
New Messages
A message in Messages, a direct message, a reply from support, or an enquirer writing back to a website enquiry. Any push that does not say what kind it is counts as a message too — a walker-cover move, a team member's time-off handover reminder, the retainer review and an enquiry from your directory listing all come under this switch, and under each person's own Messages setting.
Booking Updates
One push today: "Jo just booked", sent to you and your admins when someone books for themselves — a client, or a team member booking their own pet. A booking you enter for a client sends none. No push goes out for a confirmation or a cancellation, and a walker's "just got busier" alert has its own kind, outside this switch.
Reminders
Vaccination reminders to a client — the scheduled run and the one you send from a pet's record — and an ETA sent from the chat. Booking reminders go by email only, and a payment reminder push counts as an invoice push, so neither is under this switch.
Pupdates
Off by default. Nothing sends a push of this kind yet, so the switch changes nothing today.
Pushes the four switches do not cover
Payments, tips and invoices, a new client registering, new email in your business mailbox, and anything else with its own kind are not stopped by the four switches — only by the master switch. Each person's own settings still apply to them, and a new-email push also needs your New-email alert switch, in your E-Mail settings, to be on.
A switch per person
Load User Status lists every active member of your business — admins, team and clients — with how many web devices each has registered. The switch beside a name stops every push to that person, of any kind and from any business they belong to, until you switch it back. The count is web devices only: someone with just the phone app shows "No device" and still receives pushes.
What each person controls
A client or team member chooses their own categories in their own settings: Booking Updates, Check-in & Check-out, Pupdates, Invoicing & Payments, Messages, Announcements and Park Activity. A category they switch off is skipped whatever this policy says. New email has no category, so none of these silences it — though a person who chooses "Only in MyPetMail" keeps mail pushes off the MyPetSitter phone app.
How a person switches push on
A banner at the top of the dashboard — yours, your team's and your clients' — offers it, and the browser asks for permission. On an iPhone the app must be added to the Home Screen first. Signing out removes that device's registration. A device that has gone — the app uninstalled, say — is removed by itself the next time a push fails to reach it.
What the push looks like
Unless you have set your own wording, the title leads with your business name for an active member. With the Branding add-on it carries the app icon you have uploaded, and the MyPetSitter phone app is sent your logo as the notification's picture; without Branding, the icon is the platform's paw. Someone who has left your business sees the platform's name instead. A chat message shows the sender's name and photo rather than your name. Your own wording for push titles, set in the App Centre, needs Branding too, and covers only the four kinds above.
Saving
Only an admin can save, load the user list or use the switch beside a name. Save Push Policy keeps the four switches and turns the policy on. A policy that has never been saved checks nothing — every push goes out, subject to each person's own settings and the switch beside their name.
Tips
This card is not yet shown in your Policies list. Until it is, there is no screen to change it on, and a policy that was never saved checks nothing.
Leave the master switch on and use the switch beside a name for the odd person who asks for quiet. Their own categories do the rest.
Booking Updates is about your own alerts, not your clients' — it only governs the "just booked" push to you and your admins.
Switching a push off never stops an email or the bell inside the app. Emails are set in the Email Notifications policy.
The switch beside a name sits on that person's account, so it silences every business they belong to, not only yours.
Learning Hub • Push Notifications