Notifications

The Notifications bell sits at the top of the sidebar, under Search. It carries a count of everything you haven't read yet, and clicking it slides open a panel of what's happened recently. Every row links straight to the thing it's about. New leads, calls, patient replies, bookings and deposits, private feedback and broken integrations move the count as they happen, on every page you have open — and only ever for the categories your role receives. Something that arrived and couldn't be filed automatically can take up to a minute to move it. On the first page you open after signing in the count can appear a moment after the page itself — it waits until the page's own data has had its turn; on every page after that it is there immediately.

The bell is deliberately not a second to-do list. Today is still where work lives — the queue is what you work through, and the bell is what taps you on the shoulder when you're somewhere else in the app.

What you'll be told about

What reaches you depends on your role. Notifications come in seven groups:

• Leads and calls — a new lead from any source, a missed call, a voicemail, and a lead nobody has called yet. Owners and managers are also told when someone gives up on a lead before the practice's minimum tries: A lead is closed before the minimum tries, with the reason written, and when someone moves a lead's next call more than 2 working days away: A lead's next call is moved more than 2 working days away, with the note written.
• Patient replies — an inbound SMS, WhatsApp, web-chat or email message, and a WhatsApp, Messenger or Instagram chat that is about to close with nobody having replied. Both go to the conversation's assignee, and conversations are assigned automatically. When nobody who can take chats is assigned, everyone who receives patient replies is told.
• Bookings and deposits — an online booking made or cancelled, a deposit paid.
• Reviews and feedback — a new public review, private feedback from an unhappy patient, or an unhappy or urgent reply to a review check-in. This group also carries the two social video notifications, An edited social video is ready to review and A social video edit stopped and needs attention. Each goes only to the person who last started that video's editing: whoever started the video, asked for the latest changes or clicked Retry. It carries the two social image notifications too, A social image is ready to review and A social image stopped and needs attention, which go only to the person who created the image or last clicked Retry.
• Problems needing a human — a broken integration, something that arrived and couldn't be filed automatically, or an ad campaign that needs you (it stopped delivering, an ad was disapproved, the ad account has a problem, or the budget ran out). Owners and managers only.
• Team, rotas and staffing — a colleague wrote to you in team chat (every role, including analysts); changes to your rota, time off and shifts; and, for owners and managers, someone applying for a job you posted, or a temp cover update — a temp booked or cancelling, a shift still unfilled, hours to answer (UK practices only).
• Lab — for practices in the UK and the US that send orders to connected labs: A lab order needs you: an approval, a hold, a message or an invoice when a lab is waiting for an approval, a report, files, a reply or an invoice to be paid, or puts the order on hold; A lab order is dispatched or cancelled; and A lab invites the practice, or answers its request to connect. An order's notifications go to the person who sent it, while they are still on the team and can see lab cases; otherwise to everyone who receives this group — owners, managers, agency staff, the front desk, dentists, hygienists and nurses. A lab's invitation reaches the person it was sent to, when their verified email address is the one the lab invited.

Analysts receive no patient or practice notifications: the role exists for reporting and sits outside the care team. Team chat is the one group they hold, so a colleague can still reach them.

The uncontacted-lead nag

A notification when a lead arrives only helps if somebody is already looking at Smileline. So a lead that still has no contact attempt is raised again at 15 minutes, an hour, and four hours old.

All three stop the moment anyone attempts contact — logging a call outcome, even a no-answer, is enough. Leads that are snoozed, archived, or on a closed journey never trigger a reminder.

Chat closing soon

WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram only let you reply for a limited time after the customer's last message. A chat is about to close unanswered raises a chat 1 hour and again 10 minutes before its reply window closes, when nobody has replied. It goes to the conversation's assignee, or to everyone who receives patient replies when the chat is unassigned or its assignee can't receive chat alerts. The title names the customer, the channel and the closing time, and the push reads Chat closing soon.

It is in-app and push only, both on by default; email isn't offered, because it would arrive too late to help. A push that can't arrive before the chat closes is dropped. Closed chats and a last message that only says "thanks" or "bye" never raise it. See Reply windows and reminders for the full rules and the automatic holding message.

Reading and clearing

Clicking a row marks it read and takes you to the lead, conversation or booking it refers to: a lead opens in the Today work panel, a booking opens its day on the calendar, and a social video or social image opens its own page. If the lead has already been worked and has left today's queue, Today says so and offers you the full patient record instead. Mark all read clears everything currently in your list.

Your unread count is yours. Unlike the shared inbox, a colleague reading their notifications doesn't clear yours — so the count always answers "what have I not seen", not "what has the practice not seen".

Notifications are kept for 90 days and then removed.

Your list starts from when you joined the practice. If your role later changes to one that receives more groups — from Front desk to Manager, say — each new group starts from that change: its earlier notifications don't appear in your list or your count.

Choosing what reaches you, and where

Settings → Notifications — also Notifications in the menu under your name at the bottom of the sidebar — lists every category your role receives, with three switches per row:

• In-app — whether it appears in your bell.
• Email — an immediate email to your account address when it happens.
• Push — an operating-system notification on the devices you've enabled below.

Each switch is yours alone: turning something off doesn't affect anyone else. Only categories you'd actually receive are listed — if a group isn't there, your role isn't its audience.

Team chat messages has a push switch only. The chat itself is the in-app surface (its own unread dot at the bottom of the sidebar) and an email per chat line would be noise, so those two channels are not offered for it.

A chat is about to close unanswered has bell and push switches only: the email column stays empty, because the alert is useless minutes later.

One switch is fixed: the email for An integration stopped working is always on. A broken ad connection can hold incoming leads that expire, so it is not something a preference set months ago should be able to silence. Its bell and push switches behave normally.

Email

Notification emails come from Smileline at support@smileline.io. Replies go to Smileline support; use the email's button to open the related item and contact the patient or your team in the app.

Emails go out as things happen — there's no digest to wait for. A missed call, a caller the AI couldn't hand off, unhappy private feedback or check-in replies, a broken integration and Incoming data needs review email you by default. New lead arrives, A lead has not been called yet, A lead is closed before the minimum tries, A lead's next call is moved more than 2 working days away and Voicemail left reach you in the bell and by push, with email off until you switch it on, and so do the social video and social image notifications. The lab order that needs you is urgent: it reaches you in the bell, by push and by email by default, and its push is not held back by quiet hours. The lab order updates and the lab connection notices start in the bell only. Everything else starts off and can be switched on per row. The broken-integration email goes to owners and managers once per breakage — not once per failed retry — and says how many leads are held and by when to reconnect to recover them. See Connected accounts. The needs-review email goes to owners and managers, at most once per item per day however often that item is retried; it stays in the bell as before and never pushes.

Each email carries the details and a button that takes you straight to the lead, call or booking. The subject line never includes a patient's name — subjects show on phone lock screens — but the body does, so you can act without logging in first. The footer of every one links back to this settings page.

Push devices

Under Push devices, click Enable to get pushes on the browser you're using — they arrive even with Smileline closed. Your browser asks for permission the first time. Every device you've enabled is listed with a Remove button, and you can register up to ten; past that, remove one before adding another.

Like every Smileline notification on an OS surface, a push never shows a patient's name — it says what kind of thing happened and opens the app for the rest.

• On iPhone or iPad, add Smileline to your Home Screen first (Share → Add to Home Screen), then enable push from inside the installed app.
• In the desktop app, there's nothing to set up: alerts pop up through the app automatically whenever it's running.
• On the mobile app, push arrives when the app ships.

Quiet hours

Quiet hours silence push notifications overnight — pick the hours and your timezone, and pushes inside the window are skipped rather than saved up (everything is still waiting in your bell and inbox). Two things are never silenced: urgent alerts, and everything that isn't push — your bell and emails are unaffected.