Notifications & the mobile app

BusinessSensor can tell you when things happen — a payment comes in, a guest books a room online, a cash hand-over needs confirming, a request needs your approval — in the app (the bell), as a push notification on your phone or desktop, by email, or by SMS/WhatsApp. You choose which events you hear about and where, and you can install BusinessSensor on your phone like an app.

Before you start

• You need a BusinessSensor login. Everyone has notification settings; no special permission is required.
• For push notifications on a phone, the app must be installed from the browser (see Step 1). On iPhone/iPad this needs iOS 16.4 or newer and the app must be opened from the Home Screen icon, not from Safari.
• SMS/WhatsApp only work if your organisation has those services switched on and you have entered a phone number (Step 4).

Steps

1. Install the app on your phone (optional, but needed for push)

Android / Chrome / Edge

1. Open your workspace address in Chrome (for example yourcompany.bsensor.app) and sign in.
2. A blue bar at the top offers Install — tap it. If you dismissed it, go to Profile → Notifications → Install BusinessSensor on this device, or use the browser menu → Install app / Add to Home screen.
3. Open BusinessSensor from the new icon from now on.

iPhone / iPad (Safari)

1. Open your workspace address in Safari and sign in.
2. Tap the Share button (the square with an arrow), then Add to Home Screen, then Add.
3. Open BusinessSensor from the Home Screen icon. Push only works from there.

2. Turn on push notifications for this device

1. Click your name (top right) → Profile & permissions, then the Notifications tab.
2. Under This device, click Enable push.
3. When the browser asks "Allow notifications?", choose Allow.
4. The row now reads On — registered as …. Click Send test to check a notification arrives.

Do this once on every device you want to be notified on. Each device appears under Your devices; the bin icon removes one (for example a phone you no longer use).

3. Choose what you hear about, and where

Still on the Notifications tab, scroll to What you get, and where.

• Each row is something that can happen (Payment received, Room booking created, Approval requested…), grouped by area.
• Each column is a way of reaching you: In app (the bell), Phone / desktop push, Email, SMS, WhatsApp. Columns your organisation has not switched on are not shown.
• Tick the boxes you want and click Save preferences. A row you have changed shows Reset, which puts it back to the standard setting.
• Rows shown faded are events your role does not normally receive. You can still set them; they take effect if your role changes.
• Rows marked urgent (approval requests) ignore quiet hours.

4. Quiet hours and contact details

Under Quiet hours & contact details:

• Quiet hours — tick it and set a window (for example 22:00 to 07:00, in the site's time). Push and text messages wait until the window ends; the bell and email are unaffected.
• Allow push on all my devices — a single switch to pause push everywhere without removing your devices.
• Daily summary — hold non-urgent emails for one summary instead of one email per event. (Summaries are being rolled out; the bell still shows every item.)
• Send email to — leave blank to use your login email, or enter another address.
• Phone for SMS / WhatsApp — texts are only sent if a number is here.

Click Save.

5. Reading notifications

• The bell in the top bar shows how many are unread. Click it to see them; click an item to open the record it is about. Unread / All switches the list; the tick marks everything read.
• See all notifications (bottom of the bell) opens the full list with paging.
• Tapping a push notification on your phone opens the app directly on the record.

Tips

• Turn push on for your phone and leave email for things you want a record of (approval requests, payslips).
• On a shared till computer, leave push off and rely on the bell — otherwise every cashier's events pop up on one screen.
• Managers: POS override authorised and Cash remittance awaiting confirmation are the two events most worth having as push.

Common problems

• "Enable push" is missing or greyed out → On iPhone/iPad, you are in Safari rather than the installed app: add it to the Home Screen first (Step 1) and open it from there. On a desktop browser, make sure you are on the https:// address.
• The browser says notifications are blocked → You chose Block earlier. Click the padlock in the address bar → Site settings → Notifications → Allow, then try Enable push again.
• I get the bell but no push → Check (a) the Phone / desktop push box is ticked for that event, (b) Allow push on all my devices is on, (c) you are not inside quiet hours, and (d) this device is listed under Your devices. Send test on the Phone / desktop push channel tells you quickly.
• I got nothing at all for an event → Only people whose role covers that event are told (for example Payment received goes to users who can take receipts). Ask an administrator to check the event is switched on under Notification administration.
• Push stopped working on my phone → Phones drop subscriptions after a long time unused. Open the app, go to Profile → Notifications and click Enable push again.
• "This server cannot reach the internet…" (on-premises servers) → Push needs the server to reach the internet; the bell keeps working on the local network. Try again once the connection is back.