"Desktop Notifications" Not Working

Working in the Tape environment is difficult because there doesn’t seem to be a working notification system that will alert you when something is happening.

It should be similar to Podio: when something happens while you have the Tape interface open, there should be some kind of ā€˜toast’ or pop up indicating that a notification has happened. In the case of ā€œDesktop Notificationsā€ in Preferences, I’m assuming this is meant to pop up something when you’re not activity looking at a tab for Tape. I have Desktop Notifications enabled and when I get a notification, nothing happens. I have to constantly check my notifications manually to see if I have any.

Am I missing something, or perhaps this feature is broken somehow? I’m using Chrome on a Macbook Pro.

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Hi @andrew.cranston,

Thanks for pointing this out. To be honest, we’ve had this feature a bit on the sidelines lately, as usage of desktop notifications has been low overall. That might explain why we’re seeing inconsistent behavior across different browsers and devices, as we’ve received little feedback due to the low usage and because this feature relies on browser APIs, it can be affected by browser updates.

We’ve also observed that many platforms have started phasing out desktop notifications altogether, since mobile apps have become the primary channel for push notifications. We’ve even considered deprecating the feature to focus fully on upgrading our mobile push experience.

However, your feedback is very valuable and important for us. If desktop notifications are an important part of your workflow, we absolutely want to take that into account as we think through the future of this feature.

Best,
Leo

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For me, notifications that @mention me directly are useful. Those are also the one’s I often overlook. Almost all other notifications are just noise for me personally.

I’d love to set everything to silent with the exception of the @mentions from my team.

Not sure if anyone else can echo that use case but I figured I’d share.

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Hi Leo,

Thanks so much for the reply. I think that focusing only on mobile notifications is a bit short sighted. I hate to keep comparing Tape to Podio, but given the circumstances, I think this circumstances merits it. Everyone I know who uses Podio is trained to that pop that happens when a Podio notification comes in or when a message is received. Also, if I have Podio open and I’m looking at a Podio tab, I will see the ā€˜toast’ in the lower left hand corner that something has happened. For my purposes, I see the notification on my iPhone and then it comes up to my computer, but I don’t think this should be relied on.

Tape should absolutely notify users in some visual or auditory way or else people working in Tape will absolutely miss something crucial. Again, particularly those who come over from Podio and who have trained themselves to respond to those events.

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That’s a fair point. I do keep my phone on silent at work for most of the day. Also, not everyone has or wants the app on their phone.

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I agree that better real time alerts would be useful. Especially for those users who are transferring to Tape after being used to Podio for a long time.
Also, something a little more obvious on the Read/Unread filter. Users don’t catch that ability 9 out of 10 times in my experience.
And a ā€œMark all as readā€ option would be really nice too

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There’s already a ā€œMark all as readā€ option, at least in the desktop environment. Click the word ā€œNotificationsā€ and you will see it.

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haha, WOW, missed that one somehow

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You’re not wrong. The controls within notifications could be more user friendly and obvious.

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Hi @andrew.cranston,

Thank you so much for sharing your detailed feedback. This is a really important point. You’re right that many users coming from Podio are probably used to seeing browser notifications and relying on them in their daily work. Also, thank you @1F2Ns and @CarsonRedCliffLabs for confirming and supporting this perspective.

Because of this, we’re going to give this issue a much higher priority than before. While it might not be at the very top of our roadmap, your input makes it clear that we need to focus more on improving this.

Thanks again for your insights! It really helps us.

Best,
Leo

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