Notifying people

Loomio includes tools to help you notify people about activity within Loomio. For example; when you start a new discussion, require a response, invite people to take an action or just want to make sure people are alerted to new information.

A notification in Loomio sends an email to the people you notify. Notifications also appear under the bell icon at the top right of Loomio.

Notification needs vary from group to group, and often vary over time as people become more familiar with Loomio as part of their daily work. Consider how people in your group want to be notified, and try to strike a balance of letting people know about new activity in Loomio without overwhelming their inbox.

On this page

Notify about a new discussion

When you start a discussion, you can choose to notify all members of a group, or just some of them. Notify sends the discussion to specific people via email.

You can also invite guests to the thread. Guests can see and participate in the thread, but cannot see other threads in your group that they have not been invited to.

Use the drop down menu to select a group of people, and click on the group to see individual people. You can remove people from the notification list by clicking the x beside their name.

Screenshot of notify field. It is populated with oval buttons for each person to be notified, with an X in the button to remove them from the notifications

You can type in the first few letters of the name of a member of your group, and their name in Loomio will appear. Click on this to add to the 'Notify' panel.

Screenshot of a name being typed out. "viv" is typed and a dropdown appears showing the member "Vivien Ovanov"

You can type or paste in a person's email address. This is useful to invite a 'guest' to the discussion. Guests can see the discussion and all comments and polls within the discussion, however they cannot see any other discussions of your group. You can remove a guest from a discussion.

If the person is a member of your Loomio group they will receive the notification as usual.

Screenshot of notify field. Vivien Ovanov is already added. Next to her the email jaiyush.devi@gmail.com is spelled out, with a dropdown appearing below the field showing this same name, with a letter icon indicating it is an email

Do not notify anyone

You can also choose not to notify anyone about your discussion. If the discussion is started in a Loomio group, then all members of the group will be able to see and participate in the discussion. Members will be alerted that the discussion has started through the daily Catch up summary email if enabled.

A Loomio discussion offers a way for you to share information and work transparently - to "work out loud".

By not notifying people you are saving a few emails from their in-box, and members of your group can stay informed of progress of the discussion through the 'Catch up summary email' or by signing into Loomio.

Mentioning

Mentioning people

If you want to get the attention of a specific person, type @, start typing their name, and then select the user name of the person you want to mention. The mentioned people will be notified immediately.

You can mention people in comments, threads and polls.

Screenshot of a comment being typed out, with @Jaiyush Devi mentioned at the start of the sentence. The name is in blue, while rest of the sentence is in black, indiciating it is a clickable link.

Mentioning the group

You can also notify everyone in the group at once, by typing @ then typing the group name.

Screenshot of a comment mid-writing. The author is typing "@o" and a dropdown appears below with "Oatmilk Co-op" listed, showing they can click this to quickly mention the whole group. Screenshot of the same message, now with @Oatmilk Co-op added, the name a blue clickable link.

Replies

When you click reply on a comment, the your reply will be prefilled with an @mention to the person you are replying to. In this way, a reply will notify the person you're replying to. If you remove the @mention, they will not be notified.

Reactions

Reacting to a comment is a great way to encourage and acknowledge a comment by letting the comment author know how you feel. It is a quick and light-weight way to participate that does not require any text, nor send an email.

On any comment or thread's context you can react and choose an emoji.

Reactions send a notification within Loomio, but do not send an email.

Screenshot of a comment in a discussion. The majoriy of the screenshot is grayed out, so that the reaction icons are highlighted in the bottom right of the comment.

Invite to discussion

You can invite people to the discussion at any time after the discussion has started.

Screenshot of a discussion, with it's opening context message. In the bottom right is an invite button.

Select the people you want to invite by group, subgroup or individually.

To add people individually:

  • Group members - type the first letters of their user name or type/paste their email address.
  • Guests - type/paste their email address.

Screenshot of the "Invite to thread" window. A field shows that you can add names or email addresses, along side a dropdown offering the ability to invite "Members of OatMilk Co-op" or "Members of OatMilk Co-op board"

You can remove a person from the discussion by clicking the 3 dots menu to the right of their name and selecting Remove from discussion.

Invite a guest

You can invite any person outside your group to see and participate in a discussion.

Guests can not see any other discussions in your group - only the discussion they have been specifically invited to.

Invite a guest with their email address.

Screenshot of the "Invite to thread" window. A field at the top asks "Who would you like to invite to the thread?". The field is already populated with an email address, that has been converted into a clickable button icon. Beneath this field is a larger text area with the heading "Message"

Notify about discussion changes

Notify people to let them know when a discussion has been updated.

The discussion can be updated at any time by adding/removing text in the discussion context.

When updated, you can write a comment in What's changed? describing the change.

Screenshot of the "Edit Thread" window. There are two tabs, content and settings, with the content tab currently active. the window is a form with multiple fields for group, tags, title, context, alongside a new "what's changed" field and a notify field, populated with the option "Everyone in the thread".

The thread edit comment will appear in the thread.

Screenshot of the edit comment. An icon of member Takashi Kim next to text that says "Takashi Kim edited the thread" and beneath this "Based on your input I have revised the service description and updated the thread context".

Who has seen or been notified about the discussion?

At the top of each discussion is Seen by and Notified.

These features help you track engagement in a discussion or poll. Although someone may not yet have commented in the discussion, you can check to see if they have seen the discussion, who has been notified, and if the notification has been read or the email has been opened.

Screenshot of a thread, with majority of screen grayed out so that the the "seen by" and "notified" numbers are highlighted. Both of these are blue links next to the thread author. They show the thread was seen by 6 and notified 6.

Seen by

Click on Seen by to see who has seen the discussion and when.

Screenshot of the "Seen by" window. It has the heading "Seen by" followed by a list of 6 members and when they saw the thread, e.g., "Takashi Kim - 11 minutes ago".

Notified (Discussion notification history)

Click on Notified to see who has been notified about the discussion

The ✓ indicates that the notification has been read or the email has been opened.

In Discussion notification history you can see all notifications for that discussion, including the discussion invitation, and mentions and replies within comments.

Screenshot of the notified window. It has the heading "Thread notification history" followed by the helper text "✓ indicates the notification has been seen or email opened". The text beneath is grouped into three sections, each section heading is a bolded description of an event in which people were notified, and beneath this is a list of people that were notified. The first heading, in bold, is "14 hours ago - Michael Mentioned 1 people:" and beneath this the name "Jaiyush Devi". The second group is "October 31 - Takashi Kim invited 5 people to the thread" followed by a list of names. Some of the names have "✓" next to them, and some do not.

You can also access discussion notification history from within the discussion. Go to the discussion 3 dot (...) menu.

Screenshot showing the beginning comments of the thread. At the top is a set of icons, with the "..." icon clicked. A dropdown appears beneath the mouse cursor clicking the "..." and the dropdown has the options "Make a Copy", "Notification History", and "Print".

Comment notification history

Alongside the comment, click on the 3 dots drop-down menu (⋯) to find Notification history.

A screenshot of a comment, with the "..." icon clicked. The majority of screenshot is grayed out so that the "..." menu items are highlighted, specifically the item "Notification History"

Opening the Notification history will show if any notifications for the comment have been sent, and when.

The ✓ indicates that the notification has been read or the email has been opened.

Screenshot showing the comment notification history window. The window has the heading "Comment notification history" beneath this is helper text "✓ indicates that the notification has been read or the email has been opened". Beneath this is the subheading "6 minutes ago - Jaiyush Devi mentioned 1 people:" and beneath this a single item list with the name "Chloe Miller" and a "✓" next to her name

Poll notification history

At the bottom of the poll, click on the 3 dots drop-down menu (⋯) to find Show notifications.

Screenshot of a poll in a discussion thread, with the "..." menu open. Majority of screen is grayed out so the "show notifications" item on the menu is highlighted.

The poll notification history shows who has been invited to the poll and the date invited.

The ✓ indicates that the notification has been read or the email has been opened.

Screenshot showing the poll notification window. It has the heading "Poll notification history" followed by gray helper text "✓ indicates the notification has been seen or email opened". In bold text beneath this is the line "August 31 - Takashi Kim invited 5 people to vote:" followed by the list of people's names. "✓" is next to four of the five names.

Subscribe

Click Subscribe to watch the discussion for any activity. All further activity will be emailed to you immediately. If it is an active discussion, you may receive many emails.

Screenshot of the opening message of a discussion thread. The majority of the screen is grayed out, highlighting the row of action links in the bottom right of the discussion, specifically the "subscribe" link, which has a gray background indicating a mouse is hovering over it.