Notification groups
A notification group is a named list of people who get notified when a workflow fires. Workflows point at the group rather than at individual addresses, so when someone joins or leaves the on-call rotation you change the group once and every workflow that uses it follows.
This page is for Workspace Admins. It covers creating groups, adding and removing members, what the Disabled state means, and how groups are picked when you build a workflow.
Where to find it: Sidebar -> Administration -> Notification Groups. Only Workspace Admins see this entry. If it isn't in your sidebar and you believe it should be, ask your provider.
What a group is for
Workflows have two actions that notify people: Send email and (if your plan includes text messages) Send SMS. Both can send to one or more notification groups, to a handful of addresses typed directly on the node, or to both. Groups are the better choice whenever:
- More than a few people should hear about an alert.
- The same set of people should hear about several different workflows.
- Who is on the list changes over time (shift rotations, staff turnover), and you don't want to re-open every workflow to update it.
A group is a list of people, not devices. Adding a device to a group is not a thing; a workflow chooses which devices it watches on its own.
Create a group
- Go to Administration -> Notification Groups.
- Click Create group.
- Give it a Name (required, up to 128 characters). Pick something a workflow author will recognize later, for example "Maintenance team" or "Weekend on-call".
- Optionally add a Description (up to 512 characters) that says who the group is for and which kinds of workflows should use it.
- Click Create.
The drawer stays open and switches to edit mode with a Members section underneath, so you can add people straight away.
Permission required: Workspace Admin.
Add members
Members save the moment you add or remove them; there is no separate Save step for the member list. There are two ways to add someone.
Add a colleague from your workspace
Switch the source toggle to Account user and pick from the dropdown. It lists the active members of your workspace who have an email address, showing each person's name and email. People who are already in the group appear grayed out with "(already added)" next to them. This is the quickest way to add colleagues who already sign in to the platform, and it always adds them by email.
Add an address by hand
Keep the source on Manual entry for anyone who does not have a login, such as a shared mailbox, a contractor, or a phone number:
- Channel: Email, or SMS if your plan includes text messages.
- Address: the email address, or the phone number for SMS. Emails are checked for a valid shape; phone numbers must be US, Canada, or Puerto Rico numbers (the platform normalizes formatting, so "+1 555 123 4567" and "(555) 123-4567" are the same number).
- Display name (optional, up to 128 characters), useful for shared mailboxes and numbers.
- For an SMS member, tick the confirmation that this recipient has agreed to receive SMS alerts at this number. The platform records who confirmed and when. You cannot add a phone number without it.
- Click Add.
The same address cannot be added to the same group twice. If you type a phone number while the channel is still set to Email, the form tells you to switch the channel rather than rejecting the entry silently.
Email and SMS members live side by side in one group. A Send email action reaches the group's email members; a Send SMS action reaches its SMS members. Someone who should get both needs two entries: their email and their number.
Remove a member
Click the trash icon on the member's row and confirm. Removal is immediate and takes effect on the next workflow fire. It doesn't touch the person's login or anything else in the workspace.
If you suspend a colleague from the Members list (see Account settings), the platform removes their email from every notification group in the workspace at the same time. Reinstating them later does not put them back into groups; re-add them by hand.
Members marked Disabled
Each member row shows a status: Active or Disabled. A disabled member stays in the group for your records but is skipped every time a workflow fires. Hover over the tag to see the reason.
The usual cause is an SMS recipient replying STOP to an alert text. That opts their number out platform-wide, so it is disabled in every group it appears in. The recipient can text START to the same number to opt back in, and their entries become Active again on their own; you cannot override an opt-out from the admin side.
Who receives an alert
Being in a group is not the only thing that decides who is notified. When a workflow fires, each recipient is checked against the device or gateway the alert is about:
- Addresses with no login always receive. A shared mailbox, a contractor, or any other address or number that does not belong to someone with a login is notified every time. Notifying outside people is what those entries are for.
- A colleague with a login is only notified about equipment they can open. If they could not open the device or gateway after signing in, they are not emailed or texted about it.
- A colleague limited to a site (their Site access is set to one site, see Sites) is only notified about devices and gateways in that site and the sites nested under it. Equipment that has no site yet does not notify them.
- A suspended colleague is not notified, even if their address is typed in by hand.
The same check applies to addresses typed directly on a workflow's Send email or Send SMS action, and to recovery emails. It is made at the moment each message is sent, so if a device is moved to another site between an alert and its recovery, a colleague limited to a site can receive one of the two and not the other.
Recipients on your account's own version of a provider-managed workflow (see Making a managed workflow your own) are checked the same way. They are yours alone: your version replaces your provider's on your devices, so your provider's recipients are not messaged by it.
In the group, a member who is limited to a site shows a Site tag with the name of their site, and picking one from the Account user list shows a note saying the same. They can stay in the group: they simply hear only about their own site.
When someone is not notified for one of these reasons, the workflow's fire log says so on that run, for example "email skipped: recipient limited to another site". See Creating workflows -> Monitoring.
Rename, describe, or delete a group
Open the group from the list to change its Name or Description, then click Save details (only the name and description need this button; members save on their own).
Delete removes the group. You cannot delete a group that a workflow still references: the platform refuses with an "in use" message so a live workflow never quietly loses its recipients. Edit or delete those workflows first, then delete the group. Deleted groups drop out of every list and picker but their history stays in the audit log.
Permission required: Workspace Admin.
Using a group in a workflow
When you build a workflow (see Creating workflows), the Send email and Send SMS actions have a Notification groups picker. It lists your workspace's groups; pick one or more. Every active member across the chosen groups is notified once per fire, even if they sit in more than one of them, and anyone typed directly on the node in addition is de-duplicated too.
A few things worth knowing:
- Workflows your provider manages for you use the provider's own recipient lists, so your groups don't appear on those and you can't edit them. To be added to (or taken off) one of those, ask your provider.
- Each person's own notification switches still apply on top of group membership: someone who has turned off email notifications in their account settings won't get alert emails even while listed in a group, and the same goes for SMS.
- If a group has no members it still saves and can still be picked, it just notifies nobody. The Members column on the group list shows the count at a glance.
Limits
The number of groups you can create depends on your plan. When you reach the limit, the Create group button is disabled and shows "Limit reached" with the number. Delete groups you no longer use, or ask your provider about raising the limit. There is no cap on members within a group.
Frequently asked
Someone in the group says they aren't getting alerts. Where do I look?
Open the group and check their row: are they Disabled? For SMS that usually means they replied STOP; ask them to text START. Does the row carry a Site tag? Then they only hear about equipment in that site, see Who receives an alert. If they are Active, check that they haven't switched off email or SMS notifications in their own account settings, then open the workflow's Email deliveries tab (or its run history for SMS) to see the per-recipient outcome. See Creating workflows -> Monitoring.
Can I stop receiving alerts for one workflow without leaving the group?
Not per workflow. Group membership is all-or-nothing, so either ask a Workspace Admin to move you to a different group that the workflow doesn't use, or turn off the whole channel for yourself in account settings.
Does adding someone to a group give them access to the platform?
No. Group members are just delivery addresses. A member with no login gets the email or text and nothing else; to give a colleague access, invite them from the Members list instead.
Why can't I pick SMS as a channel?
Text messages are a plan feature. If the channel selector shows only Email, your plan doesn't include SMS; ask your provider.