Notifications

QuillCRM includes a full-featured notification system that keeps you and your team informed about important CRM events. Notifications are delivered through four independent channels — bell (in-app), email, browser desktop, and mobile push — each configurable per user and per category.

Notification Channels

QuillCRM supports four notification delivery channels. Each channel works independently — you can enable any combination per user and per notification type.

The Bell Icon (In-App Notifications)

The bell icon is located in the top bar of the QuillCRM dashboard, visible on all pages. It provides quick access to your recent notifications.

• Unread badge — A red badge shows the count of unread notifications (up to 99+).
• Click to open — Clicking the bell opens a dropdown popover listing your recent notifications.
• Notification items — Each item shows an icon (color-coded by category), the title, message, and relative timestamp (e.g. “5m ago”, “2h ago”).
• Mark as read — Click the checkmark icon on an individual notification, or click “Mark all read” at the top of the dropdown.
• Click to navigate — Clicking a notification marks it as read and navigates you to the related CRM page (e.g., the deal, contact, or task).
• Delete — Click the trash icon to remove a notification permanently.

The unread count updates in real time via the WordPress Heartbeat API (polling every 15–60 seconds depending on your WordPress configuration).

Browser Desktop Notifications

Browser notifications provide real-time OS-level alerts when you’re multitasking in other tabs or applications.

How They Work

• Notifications appear via your operating system’s notification center (Windows, macOS, Linux).
• They only show when the QuillCRM tab is open but not focused — if you’re already looking at QuillCRM, you see the bell instead.
• Click a browser notification to focus the QuillCRM tab and navigate to the relevant page.
• Notifications auto-dismiss after approximately 5 seconds.
• Duplicate notifications are prevented using unique tags per notification ID.

Granting Permission

1. Go to QuillCRM → Settings → Notification Preferences.
2. On the Email & Desktop tab, look for the Browser channel toggle.
3. If permission hasn’t been granted, you’ll see a “Permission needed” badge and an “Enable” button.
4. Click Enable — your browser will prompt you to allow notifications.
5. Once granted, the badge changes to “Permission granted” (green) and the toggle becomes active.

If notifications are blocked: You’ll see a “Blocked” badge. To unblock, click your browser’s site settings icon in the address bar and change the notification permission to “Allow”.

Testing Browser Notifications

After granting permission, click the Test button to send a test notification. A desktop notification will appear immediately confirming that browser notifications are working.

Requirements

• HTTPS site (or localhost for development)
• Modern browser (Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Safari)
• Explicit user permission via the browser’s Notification API
• QuillCRM tab must be open (does NOT work when all tabs are closed — this is not web push)

Email Notifications

When the email channel is enabled for a notification category, QuillCRM sends an email to your WordPress user email address.

• Subject line — The notification title followed by your site name (e.g., “Deal Won: Acme Corp – My CRM Site”).
• Email body — A clean HTML email with a color-coded left border by category, the notification title, message, and a “View Details” button linking to the relevant CRM page.
• Manage preferences link — Every notification email includes a link to change your notification preferences.
• Rate limiting — Site-wide limit of 1,000 notification emails per day (resets daily). This prevents email floods from high-volume events.

Notification Categories

Notifications are organized into categories, each with more specific subcategories. You can control each subcategory independently per channel.

* Contact Import and Contact Export are bulk operations — they support bell, email, and browser but not mobile push.

Configuring Notification Preferences

Every user can customize their own notification preferences to control which notifications they receive and on which channels.

Accessing Preferences

1. Go to QuillCRM → Settings → Notification Preferences.
2. The page has two tabs:
   • Email & Desktop — Configure bell, email, and browser notification channels and per-category toggles.
   • Mobile app — Configure push notification settings and per-category push toggles.

Global Channel Toggles

At the top of each tab, you’ll find global on/off toggles for each channel:

• In-App (Bell) — Master toggle for all bell notifications.
• Email — Master toggle for all email notifications.
• Browser — Master toggle for desktop browser notifications (requires permission).
• Mobile Push — Master toggle for push notifications (requires site-wide enable by admin).

Disabling a global channel automatically disables all category toggles for that channel. Re-enabling the global toggle restores the individual category settings.

Per-Category Toggles

Below the global toggles, each notification category is listed with individual toggles per channel. Categories with multiple subcategories expand into an accordion — click the category name to reveal subcategory-level controls.

For example, you might want:

• Bell + Push on for “Deal Won/Lost” (high priority — want to know immediately)
• Bell only for “Deal Stage Changed” (informational — don’t need email/push)
• Email on for “Task Overdue” (want a reminder if away from the dashboard)
• Everything off for “Email Opened” (too noisy)

Saving Changes

After making changes, click Save Changes at the bottom of the tab. Only changed settings are stored — QuillCRM uses a diff-based storage approach to minimize database overhead. Users who stick with defaults have zero storage cost.

Data Retention

Administrators and CRM managers can configure how long notifications are stored before automatic cleanup.

1. Go to QuillCRM → Settings → Notification Preferences.
2. On the Email & Desktop tab, scroll down to the Data Retention card.
3. Choose one of:
   • Delete after specific days — Enter the number of days (default: 30). Notifications older than this are automatically deleted by a daily cron job.
   • Never delete (keep forever) — Notifications are never automatically removed.
4. Click Save Settings.

This setting applies to all users on the site.

Real-Time Updates (Heartbeat)

QuillCRM uses the WordPress Heartbeat API for real-time notification delivery — no separate WebSocket server or custom polling needed.

• On every heartbeat tick (typically every 15–60 seconds), the frontend sends a notification check request.
• The server returns the current unread count and up to 3 recent unread notifications for browser desktop display.
• The bell badge updates automatically without page refresh.
• Browser desktop notifications fire for new unread notifications when the tab is not focused.

Role-Based Behavior

Notification visibility and configuration depend on the user’s CRM role:

Categories like Campaigns, Automations, Forms, and Integrations require the quillcrm_manage capability, so Sales Reps who don’t have access to those pages won’t receive notifications for them.

How Notifications Are Triggered

Notifications are automatically triggered by CRM events throughout the system. Here are some common examples:

• Deal won or lost — When a deal’s status changes to Won or Lost, all assigned team members are notified.
• Task reminder — When a task’s due date approaches, the assigned user receives a reminder notification.
• Campaign completed — When an email or SMS campaign finishes sending, users with campaign access are notified.
• Contact import finished — After a CSV import completes, a notification is sent with the results.
• Automation error — When an automation encounters an error, users with automation access are notified.
• Form submission — When a visitor submits a QuillCRM form, users with form access receive a notification.
• Integration sync error — When a third-party integration fails to sync, a notification is sent.

Each notification includes a title, message, and a link to the relevant CRM page. For mobile push, notifications also include a deep link for the mobile app.

Troubleshooting