Notifications on your phone

Notifications bring what is waiting on you to your phone or computer, so a mention, a client’s reply or a job put on your day reaches you in minutes rather than when you next open SMG Tools. Each person turns them on for their own devices and chooses which kinds they get; nobody else can turn them on for you.

Turn notifications on for this phone or computer

Open Profile → Notifications. Under This device, press Turn on, and allow notifications when your browser asks. The section then says Notifications are on for this device. Your browser asks only when you press the button — never when a page loads.

Notifications work on Android phones, in Chrome, Edge and Firefox on a computer, and in Safari on a Mac.

On an iPhone or iPad, add SMG Tools to your Home Screen first, because Apple delivers notifications only to an app opened from there (iOS 16.4 or later):

1. In Safari, open SMG Tools and sign in.
2. Tap Share, then Add to Home Screen.
3. Open SMG Tools from your Home Screen, sign in, and go to Profile → Notifications.
4. Press Turn on, and allow notifications.

Until then, the page shows these steps instead of the button. SMG Tools added to a Home Screen opens straight into the console.

You can also turn them on from For you or My Day, which offer Get these on this phone until the device in your hand is on. Not now puts the offer away on that device for good.

Send yourself a test

With notifications on, press Send a test. A notification from SMG Tools should arrive within a few seconds, and tapping it opens your notification settings. If it cannot be delivered, the page says so and the device stays listed — try again in a minute. If your browser says it no longer accepts notifications from SMG Tools — its data cleared, or the permission taken back — the device is removed, and pressing Turn on again sets it up afresh.

What reaches you, and what it says

A notification goes to the same people the item waits on in For you, so you are never told about a job you could not open:

• A mention — “Sam Ortiz mentioned you on Furnace tune-up” — to the people the note names who can see the job, never to the person who wrote it.
• A client’s reply — “Dana Whitfield replied on Kitchen remodel” — to everybody who can see the job. The email about a reply still goes only to whoever sent the client the last note.
• A reply to file — “A reply from Dana Whitfield needs a job” — to the owner and managers, when no job could be found for a client’s text.
• A booking to confirm, and a new booking, from your public page — to the owner and managers.
• A purchase to confirm — “Your purchase at Front Range Pipe is waiting for its job” — to the person whose card it was on, when purchases are matched to jobs.
• Work put on your day — “New visit: Furnace tune-up — Harriet Lindqvist, Tue Oct 7, 9:00 AM” or “New job: Water heater replacement — Tom Bradshaw” — when somebody else puts you on a job or a visit, including one they make with you already on it. A booking not yet confirmed is not announced.
• A day running behind, to the office — see below.

Tapping a notification opens the item where For you would: the job’s notes with the note in view, or, for a field worker, the job or visit on their day. The page you land on applies its usual check, so somebody who has since lost access to a job sees that, not the job.

Each item is announced once, when it arrives. Reading it, editing a note or refreshing a list sends nothing more.

What your lock screen shows, and what it never does

A locked phone can be read by whoever is near it, so a notification says only what happened, who, and on which job — and, for a visit, when. It never carries a note’s or a reply’s words, an amount, or an address. Open it to read the rest.

Notifications arrive when their moment happens. SMG Tools has no quiet hours of its own; your phone’s Do Not Disturb or Focus decides when they sound.

Hear when a crew’s day is running behind

The owner or a manager can be told the moment a planned day falls behind — a crew still on site past when the plan has them leaving, or still on the road past when they were due — before the customer calls. Turn on Tell me when a day is running behind in Automations, or on Route Planning’s page; it tells the owner, or the manager you choose: “Sam Ortiz is about 20 minutes behind — next: Lindqvist”, with a link to the planned day. It is sent once per stop, however much later the crew gets, and needs Route Planning.

It goes to that person’s phone where their Running behind notification switch is on, and to their email where its email switch is on. With both off, the automation’s history says so and nothing is sent.

Choose which kinds reach you

On Profile → Notifications, under What reaches you, each kind has a Push switch beside its Email switch. Turning a kind’s Push switch off stops it reaching any of your devices; its email is unchanged, and the other way round. Kinds that are only ever sent as notifications — new work, bookings, purchases — have no Email switch.

Every kind is on until you turn it off. The office’s kinds are not listed for field workers, who are never sent them, and kinds that belong to a tool you do not have are not listed at all.

Turn a device off, or remove one you no longer have

On the device itself, press Turn off under This device. Your other devices are listed under it, each with when it was turned on and when it last received one; Remove stops one at once — the phone you lost, the laptop you gave away.

Signing out stops notifications too: signing out on a device, or signing it out from Profile → Security → Devices, means it receives nothing more.

If notifications are blocked

If you refused your browser’s question, the page says notifications are blocked for this site and does not ask again. To allow them, open this site’s settings in your browser — the icon beside the address — set Notifications to Allow, and come back to Profile → Notifications.