Edit the notification settings for members of a private group

Group administrators can activate or deactivate non-mandatory notifications for members of their group, by creating role-specific rules.

Those rules will propagate to all subgroups, unless they have their own rules (a subgroup will inherit the settings of its closest customized parent).

Adding, editing or deleting a rule will affect the notification behavior for all users who are members of the group at the time when the notification is sent. Bear in mind, however, that the rules of a group may not always apply, depending on the priority of those rules (see diagram below).

Group notification settings are only visible by the group admins, and will not be visible from the user personal settings page.

Personal notification settings vs. group notification settings

Private group notification settings act as an additional negative filter for notifications: a user will receive a notification if the corresponding option is activated in both their personal settings, and the group settings.

In practice, we apply the following workflow to determine if we should send a notification.

Special case: belonging to several private groups

The bottom left area of the diagram above is important to understand if a user belongs to several private groups.

If a user belongs to several private groups, we will apply the notification rules of the lowest-level private group that contains all of them. If there is no such group, we will apply the rules of the platform group.

Create a rule

Rules apply to all members of the group, if they have the role indicated in the rule.

If a user leaves the group, the rules do not apply to them anymore.

If a user enters the group, the rules apply to them instantly.

1. In the left sidebar, click on a group.
2. At the top right of the main section, click  Settings.
3. In the left column, click Notifications.
4. At the top right of the list of rules, click .
5. At the top, select the roles.
6. Expand the sections, and disable the notifications. Those notifications won’t be activated by default for new members of the group.
7. On the bottom right, click SAVE.

The existing rules will be automatically updated:

• If the new rule is an evolution of an existing rule (same role, but more or fewer notifications enabled), it will replace it. Make sure your new rule doesn’t accidentally overwrite an older rule!
• If the new rule creates exceptions for a specific role, it will create a new box for that role, and remove the role from the existing rules.

Edit a rule

1. In the left sidebar, click on a group.
2. At the top right of the main section, click  Settings.
3. In the left column, click Notifications.
4. At the top right of a rule, click Edit.
5. Update the roles or the notifications.
6. On the bottom right, click SAVE.

The existing rules will be automatically updated:

• If the new rule is an evolution of an existing rule (same role, but more or fewer notifications enabled), it will replace it. Make sure your new rule doesn’t accidentally overwrite an older rule!
• If the new rule creates exceptions for a specific role, it will create a new box for that role, and remove the role from the existing rules.

Delete a rule

1. In the left sidebar, click on a group.
2. At the top right of the main section, click  Settings.
3. In the left column, click Notifications.
4. At the top right of a rule, click Delete.
5. Click YES, DELETE.

Reset all rules

1. In the left sidebar, click on a group.
2. At the top right of the main section, click  Settings.
3. In the left column, click Notifications.
4. At the top right of the page, click RESET.
5. Click YES, RESET.