How does the notification bell work?

The bell's Venue and System tabs, marking rows read, one-tap actions like Extend or Mark seated, and your personal notification preferences.

The bell in the top bar is your notification centre — click it to see what's happened, act on live alerts without leaving the page, and reach your personal notification preferences.

The two tabs

• Venue — bookings and floor activity: new bookings, running-late alerts, tables ready, deposits and so on.
• System — billing, security and account updates. This tab is only shown to owners and admins, or staff whose role includes viewing system notifications.

Each tab shows its own unread count on the bell and the tab button.

Reading, dismissing and acting

• Click a row to open it — this marks it read for you and opens a pop-up with the whole message (a What's New post shows the entire entry) and its quick actions, plus an Open booking (or Open) button that takes you to the booking or record it's about.
• Read and dismiss are personal: opening or dismissing a row clears it for you only, not your colleagues.
• Live operational alerts show one-tap buttons right in the row: a booking past its end time offers Extend 15 mins and Mark cleared; a late arrival offers Mark seated and Mark no-show (walk-ins and promoted waitlist customers get an extra Release table option); a pending no-show fee offers Reverse no-show; an unassigned large party offers Assign tables, which opens the floor plan with table selection already started — from any page (in place if you're already on the floor plan or the timeline). Buttons your role can't perform are hidden.
• Once anyone on the team actions an alert, the row shows Handled by their name for everyone and its buttons disappear — so two people never chase the same table. (Assign tables is the one exception: the row is marked handled once the tables are actually saved, not on the tap.)
• Mark all read clears the current tab's unread dots; See all activity at the bottom opens the Activity Log.

Alerts on your devices

If this device can receive push alerts and hasn't turned them on, the top of the bell menu shows a quiet Get alerts on this computer (or phone) band with a Set up button — on a laptop this is the only invitation; phones and tablets also get a one-time card on Home. See How do I get ResoFlow on my phone and turn on alerts?.

Your personal preferences

Click the sliders icon (Manage notifications) at the top of the panel. It opens your personal notification matrix — in your account's Personal details for owners and admins, or the portal Profile for staff — where you can:

• Set your own Bell / Toast / Sound / Push choice per notification type, overriding the team default — Push is a lock-screen alert on your own devices, with Quiet hours underneath the grid.
• Set your personal sound mode — Use default, On or Off — and volume, with test tones.
• Mute this device only (handy for a front-of-house device or kitchen screen).
• Click Reset alert choices to go back to the team defaults.

When ResoFlow decides whether to ping you, the most specific setting wins: device mute first, then your personal override, then the team default set in Alerts and sounds, then the built-in default. Reduce Motion affects animation separately; it does not change these sound choices.

Related: How do I control dashboard alerts and sounds? · How do I see who did what? · How do staff set their own theme and notification preferences?