> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.zionapp.co/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Notifications and preferences

> How every feature in Zion reaches a user in-app and by email, and how each person controls what they receive

Every feature in Zion, from homework and attendance to meetings and billing, sends updates through one notification pipeline. Each authenticated role, administrator, supervisor, monitor, parent, and student, has a personal notification bell and a full notification history, plus a preferences page to control what arrives and how.

<Note>
  WhatsApp is wired into the notification system but is only active for the categories a caller explicitly enables. There is no organization-wide WhatsApp toggle. In-app and email are the two channels every role can rely on.
</Note>

## The notification bell

Every dashboard header carries a notification bell. It works the same way for every role:

* An unread-count badge shows on the bell, capped at display "99+" once unread notifications pass that count.
* Clicking the bell opens a short list of recent notifications: a popover on desktop, a full-width sheet on mobile.
* A "See all" link in that list opens the full notification history for the current portal.

Staff reach their history at `/notifications`. Parents and students see the identical component at `/parent/notifications` and `/student/notifications`.

## The notification history page

The history page groups notifications by date (Today, Yesterday, Earlier) and loads more as you scroll. It has two tabs:

* **Inbox**, for active notifications.
* **Archived**, for ones you have filed away.

You can narrow the list with search, a category filter, a read/unread filter, and a date-range filter.

### Row and bulk actions

| Action              | Scope                                                                       |
| ------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Open                | Reads the notification and, where relevant, takes you to the related record |
| Mark read / unread  | Single row or bulk-selected rows                                            |
| Archive / unarchive | Single row or bulk-selected rows                                            |
| Snooze              | Single row                                                                  |
| Dismiss             | Single row                                                                  |
| Select all          | Applies bulk actions to every visible row                                   |

Snoozing and dismissing only affect the individual row you act on. Bulk actions apply to whatever rows are currently selected.

## Where notifications come from

Notifications are grouped into categories, and the categories a person sees depend on their role. A parent, for example, only sees categories relevant to their child's records (homework, attendance, meetings, report cards), while an administrator sees the full organizational set, including billing and staff-management categories. Features across Zion that dispatch through this pipeline include:

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Goal Check" icon="target" href="/features/goal-check/overview">
    Goal-marking and ritual reminders
  </Card>

  <Card title="Attendance" icon="calendar-check" href="/features/attendance/overview">
    Attendance alerts and daily marks
  </Card>

  <Card title="Homework" icon="book" href="/features/homework/overview">
    Assignment and verification updates
  </Card>

  <Card title="Meetings" icon="users" href="/features/meetings/overview">
    Booking, requests, and scheduling changes
  </Card>

  <Card title="Grading" icon="chart-line" href="/features/grading/overview">
    Score entry and moderation updates
  </Card>

  <Card title="Broadcasts" icon="bullhorn" href="/features/broadcasts/overview">
    School-wide and centre-wide announcements
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

## Notification preferences matrix

At `/profile/notifications`, every role sees a grid of the categories they can receive, with a toggle per channel: In-App, Email, and (where eligible) WhatsApp.

* The In-App and Email columns always show.
* The WhatsApp column appears only if your role has at least one category that is WhatsApp-eligible.
* The matrix is opt-out: a missing preference row means the channel stays on by default. Turning a toggle off stops that category from reaching you on that channel.
* The list also includes any category you have actually received a notification for, even if it is not yet part of the standard catalogue for your role.

## Delivery settings: digest and quiet hours

Below the preferences matrix, each person controls how their email notifications are timed:

<Steps>
  <Step title="Choose Immediate or Digest">
    Immediate sends one email per event as it happens. Digest batches your notifications into a single daily summary email instead.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Set quiet hours (optional)">
    Enter a start and end time, in your organization's local time, during which email (and WhatsApp, where active) is held rather than sent. Both a start and an end must be set together, or neither.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Save">
    Held notifications are released once the quiet-hours window ends. In-app notifications are never held or batched: the bell and history page stay live regardless of your digest or quiet-hours settings.
  </Step>
</Steps>

By default, delivery mode is Immediate and no quiet-hours window is set.

<Warning>
  Digest and quiet hours only govern email and WhatsApp. Anything sent in-app appears on the bell and in your history the moment it is dispatched.
</Warning>

## Related pages

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Broadcasts" icon="bullhorn" href="/features/broadcasts/overview">
    Compose and send school-wide or centre-wide announcements
  </Card>

  <Card title="Deliverability and audit" icon="shield-halved" href="/features/notifications/deliverability-and-audit">
    Email suppression handling and the organization-wide notification audit log
  </Card>

  <Card title="Roles and permissions" icon="users" href="/features/organization/roles-and-permissions">
    What each of the five roles can see and do
  </Card>

  <Card title="Alerts" icon="bell" href="/features/alerts/overview">
    Threshold-based alerts that also flow through this pipeline
  </Card>
</CardGroup>