Novella can notify you about new feedback and workspace activity through email, the Notifications Inbox, browser push notifications, and Slack. This guide explains what each option does and how to choose the notifications you want to receive.
Open Notification Settings
- In Novella, go to Settings.
- Select Notifications.
Notification preferences are saved for your user account, so teammates can choose their own settings.
Choose Instant Feedback Emails
Use Instant Feedback Email Notifications when you want an email as soon as someone submits new feedback.
- Turn Instant feedback notifications on or off.
- Click Save Notification Preferences in that section.
Turn this option on when you need to respond quickly. If response volume is high, consider using digest emails instead.
Choose Feedback Digest Emails
Digest emails summarize new feedback on a regular schedule. Novella only sends a digest when there is new feedback to review.
You can enable any combination of:
- Daily digest each morning
- Weekly digest every Monday
- Monthly digest on the 1st
To change your digests:
- Turn each schedule on or off under Feedback Digest Emails.
- Click Save Notification Preferences in that section.
Instant emails and digests are separate settings. You can receive both, use only one approach, or turn all feedback emails off.
Choose Activity Notifications
Activity notifications cover important events inside your workspace. For each event, choose Inbox, Email, both, or neither.
Available events include:
- Mentions on feedback notes — A teammate mentions you in an internal feedback note.
- Planned surveys become active — A scheduled survey reaches its start time and goes live.
- Planned surveys close — A scheduled survey reaches its close time.
- Accepted Workspace Invites — An invited teammate joins the workspace.
To update these preferences:
- Under Activity Notifications, find the event you want to change.
- Turn Inbox and Email on or off for that event.
- Click Save Notification Preferences in that section.
Use the Notifications Inbox
Select the bell icon in Novella's top navigation to open the Notifications Inbox. The badge on the bell shows how many notifications are unread.
In the inbox, you can:
- Select Open to mark a notification as read and go to the related survey, response, or note
- Use the check button to mark one notification as read
- Use the restore button to mark a read notification as unread
- Select Mark all as read to clear the unread count
Unread notifications appear before read notifications. Within those groups, the newest notifications appear first. If you have more than one page, use the pagination controls at the bottom of the inbox.
Changing an inbox notification's read status does not change your email or push preferences. To stop future notifications for an activity, return to Settings → Notifications and turn off its Inbox option.
Enable Web Push Notifications
Web push notifications can alert you about survey activity even when Novella is not open. Push is connected separately for each browser and device you use.
- Under Web Push Notifications, turn on Enable web push notifications.
- When your browser asks for permission, choose Allow.
- Choose which alerts you want, if the browser displays these options:
- New response
- Response milestone
- Negative response
- Click Test this browser to confirm that notifications appear.
Web push settings save as you change them; there is no separate save button. On iOS Safari, Novella may hide the individual push options even though web push is available.
To stop push notifications on the current browser, turn off Enable web push notifications. Repeat this on any other browser or device you previously connected.
Manage Slack Notifications
Slack notifications send new survey submissions to a selected Slack channel and are managed for the workspace rather than as a personal preference.
If you have permission to manage workspace settings:
- Under Slack Notifications, click Manage Slack integration.
- Connect or disconnect Slack and choose the destination channel in Settings → Integrations.
For complete setup instructions, see Integrating Novella with Slack.
Recommended Setups
Choose a combination that matches how quickly you need to act:
- High-priority response workflow — Enable instant feedback email and push alerts for new and negative responses.
- Lower-volume personal workflow — Enable instant email plus the inbox activity notifications that matter to you.
- High-volume team workflow — Use a daily or weekly digest, keep note mentions enabled, and route new submissions to Slack.
- Minimal email workflow — Turn off instant and digest emails, then use the Notifications Inbox and selected push alerts.
Troubleshooting
My notification preferences did not change
- Make sure you clicked Save Notification Preferences in the section you changed. Instant email, digest email, and activity preferences each have their own save button.
- Wait for the confirmation that your preferences were saved before leaving the page.
- Refresh Settings → Notifications and verify the switches still show your choices.
- If saving is unavailable or Novella says notification storage is not installed, contact your workspace administrator or Novella support.
I am not receiving an expected email
- Confirm the relevant email option is enabled in Settings → Notifications.
- For a digest, remember that Novella only sends it when there is new feedback to review.
- Check your spam, junk, and email filtering rules.
- Confirm the email address on your Novella profile is current.
- Ask your workspace administrator or Novella support to check delivery if the issue continues.
The unread badge does not clear
Open the Notifications Inbox and select Mark all as read, or mark individual notifications as read. Changing notification preferences prevents selected future alerts; it does not mark existing inbox items as read.
Web push cannot be enabled
- Use a browser that supports notifications, service workers, and web push.
- If you previously blocked notifications, open the browser's site permissions for Novella, allow notifications, and try again.
- Make sure you are changing the setting on the browser and device where you want alerts.
- If Novella reports that web push is not configured, contact your workspace administrator or Novella support.
The push test does not appear
- Confirm Enable web push notifications is on for the current browser.
- Check that notifications are allowed in both the browser and your operating system.
- Make sure Focus, Do Not Disturb, or similar system settings are not hiding the alert.
- Turn push off and on again, allow permission when prompted, and retry Test this browser.
I cannot manage Slack notifications
The Slack integration is a workspace setting. If Manage Slack integration is not available, ask a workspace administrator or another teammate with permission to manage workspace settings.