Notification Rules

A notification rule sends a message when something happens on the farm, for example “email the Managers when a block in Room A moves to Fruiting”. The farm chooses who gets it. Members don’t have to switch the event on for themselves.

A rule sends at once, by email, text, or both. Each member’s own choices still count: a member who muted all notifications, is inside their quiet hours, or opted out of that type of message doesn’t get it.

Who can do it

• Turn notification rules on for the farm: Manager, Owner.
• Make, change, preview and delete rules: Manager, Owner.
• Choose which events members can switch on for themselves: Manager, Owner.
• Workers and Viewers don’t see rules. They get the messages a rule sends them.
• Switch events on for yourself, mute, quiet hours and your text number: everyone, on My notifications in the account menu. See My notifications.

Turn notification rules on

Rules are off for every farm until a Manager or Owner turns them on.

1. Open Settings and scroll to Optional features.
2. Turn on Notification rules.

While rules are off, the Notification rules card on the Notifications page says so and links to Optional features. Turning rules off later stops every rule; the rules are kept and start again when you turn them back on.

Make a rule

1. Open Notifications in the sidebar (under Admin).
2. In the Notification rules card, click New rule.
3. Type a Rule name.
4. Under When this happens, choose the event. A rule can watch:
   • Block stage change
   • Block checkpoint reminder
   • Harvest logged
   • Delivery status change
   • Order shipped
   • Low stock
   • Contamination risk alert
5. Optionally narrow it under Only when. Pick a filter in Add condition, then tick the values. Every condition must hold for the rule to send. Only the filters the event can answer are offered:
   • Item type, Strain and Species for block and harvest events.
   • Stage from and Stage to for a block stage change (Stage for a checkpoint).
   • Location for a block stage change or a harvest. A location includes everything inside it, so Room A also matches its racks and shelves.
   • Status from, Status to and Customer for delivery events; Customer for Order shipped.
   • Species for Low stock.
6. Under Send to these roles, tick roles, and under And these members, tick people. You need at least one role or member. Only active members are sent anything.
7. Under Send by, tick Email, Text message, or both. Leave Skip during each person’s quiet hours ticked to respect quiet hours on email and texts.
8. Write the message: Email subject and Email body (HTML) for email, Text message for texts.
   • Click a value such as {{block_id}} to add it where you were typing. {{rule_name}} and {{farm_name}} work for every event.
   • Click Use the standard text to start from Sporeline’s own wording for that event.
9. Set the limits:
   • Max messages a day: up to 20 for each rule.
   • Don’t repeat for the same item within (minutes): the same block, order or species isn’t sent again by this rule inside that time. The default is 60. 0 sends every time. For block stage changes and checkpoints, 60 or more keeps things quiet.
10. Click Save rule.

If something is missing, the editor lists what to fix above the buttons, and nothing is saved until it is fixed.

Preview and test

• Preview shows the subject and message filled in with sample values, on the page only. It also lists the members the rule selects by role and name (Would go to 2 people: …). That list is before each person’s own checks: someone muted, inside their quiet hours, opted out, or without a phone number for a text-only rule is still listed but won’t get the message. Nothing is sent.
• Send me a test checks that messages reach you. It sends a short, fixed Sporeline test message, not your rule’s text: email to your account address, or a text to the number in your own SMS Phone Number. Use Preview to check the rule’s own message. Tests count toward the daily limit on test messages (10 a person, 30 a farm).

Who gets a rule’s message

• Every active member in the chosen roles, plus the members you named.
• Email goes to the member’s account email address.
• Texts go to the number the member saved under SMS Phone Number on My notifications (or the Notifications page). A member with no number gets no text. If the rule also sends email, they still get the email; a rule that sends texts only sends them nothing.
• A member who switched the same event on for themselves gets one copy, not two.
• A member is skipped when they muted all notifications, when it’s inside their quiet hours (if the rule respects them), or when they opted out of that type of message (a contamination risk alert is an AI insight, by email or text). The rule’s history says why.

Limits

• Each rule sends at most its Max messages a day (up to 20), counted per UTC day.
• The whole farm’s rules send at most 200 messages a day together.
• When a rule reaches a limit, the rest of that day’s messages from it are not sent, and its history shows one line saying the limit was reached.
• The same event delivered twice (a retry) is never sent twice.

Turn a rule off, change it or delete it

In the Notification rules card, each rule shows what it does and Sent today: 3 of 20.

• Turn off stops the rule without deleting it. Turn on starts it again.
• Edit opens the rule in the editor. Change it and click Save rule.
• Delete asks Delete this rule? Click Delete to remove it, or Keep it.
• History lists what the rule sent and what it skipped, newest first, with the reason for each skip.

Events offered to staff

A Manager or Owner can stop offering an event to members, so nobody switches it on for themselves.

1. Open Notifications in the sidebar.
2. In Events offered to staff, untick the event.
3. Click Save events offered.

The event leaves every member’s Notification Events list and My notifications page, and what members already switched on for it stops. This only changes members’ own choices:

• A rule that watches the event still sends it. Rules can watch only the events listed under Make a rule.
• Due today and Weekly farm digest can’t be watched by a rule. If you stop offering one of them, nobody at the farm gets it until you offer it again.

When something goes wrong

• “Notification rules are off for this farm.” — a Manager or Owner turns them on in Settings > Optional features.
• “Give the rule a name.”, “Write the email subject.”, “Write the email body.” or “Write the text message.” — fill in the missing part and save again.
• “Choose at least one role or member to send to.” — tick a role or a member.
• ”… needs at least one value.” — tick at least one value for that condition, or remove it with the X.
• “Max messages a day must be a whole number from 1 to 20.” — use 20 or less.
• “This rule is too long.” — shorten the email body or the text.
• “Someone changed this rule since you opened it.” — reload the page, then make your change again.
• “A farm can keep up to 50 notification rules.” — delete a rule you no longer use.
• “Your farm doesn’t offer … notifications to staff.” — shown to a member who tries to switch on an event the farm stopped offering. A Manager can offer it again under Events offered to staff.
• A member didn’t get a message — open the rule’s History. Common reasons: notifications muted, inside their quiet hours, no phone number for texts, opted out of that type of message, the same item within the repeat window, or the daily limit reached. Also check the rule is on and its conditions match.
• “Save your number under SMS Phone Number to get a test text.” — save your own number under SMS Phone Number on My notifications or the Notifications page, then send the test again.