Notifications and e-mail
Orbit tells people about changes in two ways: an inbox inside the application and e-mail. This page is for members who choose what they receive and for project administrators who set who is told about a project. Site administrators also watch mail delivery.
Orbit only tells you about work you may read. If your access to a project is revoked, its old notifications disappear from your inbox.
The inbox
Section titled “The inbox”The inbox keeps unread counts, mentions, watched changes and direct links to the work item. It survives a reconnect or a restart.
- Watching. You hear about a change to a field of a work item you watch, and about a new comment you may read. You never hear about your own action, and never twice when the same change also assigned you or mentioned you.
- Read and unread. Mark one notification, or all of them, as read. You can filter the inbox to unread ones.
- Live updates. Other open sessions refresh through server-sent events. Events missed during a disconnect are recovered when the connection returns.
Set who is told about a project
Section titled “Set who is told about a project”Each project has a notification scheme. It decides who gets e-mail for five kinds of change: created, updated, assigned, commented and resolved. By default each one goes to the assignee, the reporter and the watchers.
Project administrators can replace the recipients of any event. A recipient can be the assignee, the reporter, the watchers, a project role (administrator, member or viewer), a group or a named person. An event holds up to 20 recipients, each listed once. Restoring an event brings back the default.
Project members can read the scheme but not change it. Orbit checks each recipient’s access before it sends, drops duplicates, and sends only about work and comments that person may read.
Choose your own e-mail
Section titled “Choose your own e-mail”Each person chooses how work e-mail reaches them.
| Choice | What you get |
|---|---|
| Immediate | One e-mail as each change happens |
| Daily digest | One e-mail a day, at the hour you choose (0 to 23) in your time zone |
| Off | No work e-mail |
You can also choose to be told about your own changes. Otherwise you never are. Your profile keeps separate switches for assignments, mentions and watched work, and Orbit honours them when it writes a notification.
Some e-mail always arrives: password resets, address verification and invitations.
Unsubscribe in one click
Section titled “Unsubscribe in one click”Work e-mail comes with an unsubscribe link and supports one-click unsubscribe from your mail program. Neither needs a sign-in. Either one turns your work e-mail off and drops mail that is held or queued.
Read the mail delivery log
Section titled “Read the mail delivery log”Site administrators can see the mail log, newest first, with up to 500 entries. Each message has a state.
| State | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Queued | Waiting to be sent |
| Held | Not sent yet |
| Sent | The message went out |
| Failed | The send failed |
| Bounced | The address refused the message |
| Cancelled | Cancelled before it was sent |
Orbit retries with a growing delay, and the log shows the number of attempts and the last error. An administrator can queue a failed or bounced message again. Any other state answers 409 delivery_not_retryable. A mail worker that stops loses nothing that was already committed.
Presence In development
Section titled “Presence ”Seeing who else is reading a work item and who is typing a comment is in development.
Notification centre Planned
Section titled “Notification centre ”A notification centre is planned for after launch. The inbox and e-mail above are what exists today.