How to enable email notifications on your feeds/discussion boards and public PDF annotations

In order to keep your attendees engaged with your feed/discussion board and your PDF document reviews, even when they do not have the app actively open, you can enable email notifications that are automatically and instantly sent to attendees when their input is needed.

This is particularly useful for events that can span over a long period of time, where attendees do not necessarily actively stay in the app, and may therefore miss the in-app notifications. 

These notifications, once enabled in Backstage, can be sent to attendees:

• Whenever they are tagged in a post or comment, and/or
• Whenever someone has replied to one of their existing posts or comments.

The app user can decide specifically if and when they want to receive these email notifications, by setting their preferences in the web app or mobile app.

Enabling the email notifications for feeds in Backstage

To enable or disable the instant email notifications in your workspace for feeds/discussion boards, go to the Feeds > Preferences tab, and open the Notifications section:

Here you can choose to enable the following settings based on your needs for your discussion boards or feeds:

• Mentions - Email notifications: Send instant emails to app users when they are tagged in a post or comment.
• Replies - Email notifications: Send instant emails to app users when someone replies to their posts or comments (without tagging).

Remember to click Save to confirm the settings.

Once these email notification settings are enabled in the workspace, they are sent out by default to the app users. The app users can choose whether or not to receive these notifications by adjusting their preferences.

Enabling the email notifications for public document PDF annotations in Backstage

To enable or disable the instant email notifications in your workspace for public document PDF annotations, go to the Documents > Preferences section in the workspace:

Here you can choose to enable the following settings based on your needs for your PDF document annotations:

• Mentions - Email notifications: Send instant emails to app users when they are tagged in a comment by another app user.
• Replies - Email notifications: Send instant emails to app users when another app user replies to their comments (without tagging).

Remember to click Save to confirm the settings.

Once these email notification settings are enabled in the workspace, they are sent out by default to the app users. The app users can choose whether or not to receive these notifications by adjusting their preferences.

How can the app user decide whether or not to receive notifications?

If the feed/discussion board or public annotation email notifications are enabled in Backstage, the app users can choose whether or not to receive these notifications by adjusting their preferences.

This is done via the web app or mobile app, by accessing the settings in the Notifications section, via the cogwheel button in the top right:

The settings for the email notifications for feeds or discussion boards are located in the "Feed" section, and are the Replies instant email and Mentions instant emails ones, as seen below:

The settings for the public document annotations email notifications are located in the "Documents annotations" section, and are the Replies instant email and Mentions instant emails ones, as seen below:

How can I edit the email templates that are used for sending the email notifications for feed/discussion boards and PDF annotations?

Backstage users can customize the emails that are used to send email notifications from feeds/discussion boards and thew public PDF annotations.

The email templates are available via the Emails > Templates section in the workspace:

To note, the two same templates are current used for sending emails from the feeds/discussion boards AND the PDF annotations. The templates are the following:

Instant email notification - Mentioned in post
Sent when an app user is is tagged in a post in a feed or a comment in a document:

Instant email notification - Response to post
Sent when there is no tag, but there is a response on an existing comment or post from the attendee in a feed or a document: