Understanding Notifications

I am trying to get a better understanding of how and where some of the notification settings are located for the following items:

1. Group Activity Stream - I know there is a way for group members to configure what they want to be notified about, but not sure how they are notified.   As far as I know, there are a few ways, such as email, PMS, or onsite notifications, but unsure where or how to set this up, and whether it's something determined by administrators or can be set at the user level.



2. Recent Activity Stream - Is there a way for users (or admins) to set what users are notified about, similar to how they are within groups?



3. Notifications Tab  
3a. I cannot seem to remember how I set up the Notification tab in the "Edit Profile" section, where I permitted users to set email notifications for Private Messages.  Where would this have been set?
3b. Can this Notifications Tab also contain other notification settings, like group and recent activity?

 
 

1. Group Activity Stream - I know there is a way for group members to configure what they want to be notified about, but not sure how they are notified. As far as I know, there are a few ways, such as email, PMS, or onsite notifications, but unsure where or how to set this up, and whether it's something determined by administrators or can be set at the user level.

The CB Activity notifications will be sent as CB Activity notifications. They won't send as emails or private messages.

I recommend configuring CB Activity to override CB GroupJive notification behavior to always use CB Activity notifications for on-site notifications instead of private messages and especially do not recommend emails as it can cause a lot of spam from your domain. You can configure this in CB Activity > Parameters > Notifications > Notify > CB GroupJive section by setting "Notifications" to "Replace".

2. Recent Activity Stream - Is there a way for users (or admins) to set what users are notified about, similar to how they are within groups?

Yes, you can set notifications to be dependent on a field. This is configured in CB Activity > Parameters > Notifications > Notify. So you could create a bunch of checkbox fields, set them to display as yesno buttons, and configure your notifications to be based off those. Then in profile edit they can toggle their notifications. Notifications in CB Activity can be dependent on a field for sending AND receiving.

3a. I cannot seem to remember how I set up the Notification tab in the "Edit Profile" section, where I permitted users to set email notifications for Private Messages. Where would this have been set?

I've no idea what you configured that to do. Looks like a checkbox yes/no field configured at some point.

3b. Can this Notifications Tab also contain other notification settings, like group and recent activity?

As it's just a tab, yes. Just add more fields to it and assign those fields to CB Activity notifications as explained above. For GJ no as GJ notifications are per-group.

Worth noting we'll be reworking notifications system sometime in CB 3.0s release. We want to implement a centralized system for dealing with subscribing to notifications. It's a bit clunky right now. So the notification features in CB Activity will probably be moved into core CB so we can better integrate them throughout CB.

Thanks.    Where do onsite notifications usually appear (I can't remember where this would show up for a user)?

Yes, you can set notifications to be dependent on a field. This is configured in CB Activity > Parameters > Notifications > Notify. So you could create a bunch of checkbox fields, set them to display as yesno buttons, and configure your notifications to be based off those. Then in profile edit they can toggle their notifications. Notifications in CB Activity can be dependent on a field for sending AND receiving.

Would you mind walking me through how I configure the notifications to be based on those yes/no field types?   If I had to guess,  I think all I need to do is, instead of selecting enabled, I select the appropriate field item that I created with a yes/no field item.

And if I only wanted one yes/no field to globally affect all notifications, I would just select the same field to control it?
 

It looks like the one that I have now in the Notification tab seems to be similar to what you suggested, but from what I can tell, it's not doing anything as the PMS plugin's Notification setting is set to Yes instead of the field.   Would that be a correct understanding of what is happening?
 

Worth noting we'll be reworking notifications system sometime in CB 3.0s release. We want to implement a centralized system for dealing with subscribing to notifications. It's a bit clunky right now. So the notification features in CB Activity will probably be moved into core CB so we can better integrate them throughout CB.

Is CB3 going to be supported for J4 ( I have not yet updated to J5 and still running on an older version of MySQL (5.7.44). I need to upgrade my server's OS, so the jump up to J5 has a small hurdle to get past.  I know I am running out og time as the EOL for J4 is this fall.   By the way, how close is CB3 to being released?

Bonus question:  I am not sure what Automation/Auto Update is for, and if it's better to have it enabled?
 




 

Would you mind walking me through how I configure the notifications to be based on those yes/no field types? If I had to guess, I think all I need to do is, instead of selecting enabled, I select the appropriate field item that I created with a yes/no field item.

Correct, just select your field from the dropdown that's all there is to it.

And if I only wanted one yes/no field to globally affect all notifications, I would just select the same field to control it?

Yes.

It looks like the one that I have now in the Notification tab seems to be similar to what you suggested, but from what I can tell, it's not doing anything as the PMS plugin's Notification setting is set to Yes instead of the field. Would that be a correct understanding of what is happening?

Based off the name of the field it looks like you had CB Quickstart installed at some point as that's a field CB Quickstart creates and strings up with CB Activity PM notifications. So it's possible it did do something at some point. You can either just delete the field or goahead with configuring it to work with something it's entirely up to you.

Is CB3 going to be supported for J4 ( I have not yet updated to J5 and still running on an older version of MySQL (5.7.44). I need to upgrade my server's OS, so the jump up to J5 has a small hurdle to get past. I know I am running out og time as the EOL for J4 is this fall. By the way, how close is CB3 to being released?

Most likely, yes.

Joomla 3 will be discontinued with CB 3.0 though for sure. Joomla 4 is undecided. We want to adopt a "last 2 major" policy so that we only have to support the last 2 major releases of Joomla and right now that's Joomla 4 and 5, but Joomla 6 is releasing in October so we'll probably still support Joomla 4 anyway.

CB 3.0 development hasn't started. It has mostly been design and planning phase. The architecture is all pretty well documented at this point so we've a solid plan going forward. We've a lot of information about this that we'll make available after CB Gallery 3.0 is complete (we're at roughly 90-95% on this now so Beta 1 will probably be out this week).

Bonus question: I am not sure what Automation/Auto Update is for, and if it's better to have it enabled?

These parameters should all tell you on mouse over. Auto update automatically updates the stream with new posts if there are any. Auto load automatically activates the More button when scrolled into view.

Thanks again, Kyle! 

Just to recap the 3 ways people are notified of various things that happen in CB, they can be notified by email, a PMS or onsite notifications.

Global Setting?
1. You mentioned that Notifications are a bit clunky and will improve with CB3.  Does this mean right now there isn't a global setting for which type of notification people get based on what the content is (Private message, Stream activity, etc)?

Just to make sure I've looked at all the places where notification settings are, I summarized them here.  Could you let me know if I've covered them all?

2. Private Message System Plugin
Here is what I know.   For Private Messages, I configure it via the plugin (Parameter/Internal/Notification).   I am not sure how they are notified, though or where this is set up.
 



3. GroupJive Plugin
Within the plugin, I found the Notification setting, but this looks to be admin notifications (or am I mistaken?) I also found the notification method options (Email and PM)
 



Under GroupJive: Notifications, I believe this is a log of what people have set their notifications, but when I look at one, I notice more options than what appears on the front end, but some of them appear to be for admins/moderators (eg, New post approvals).  Is this because the log pulls in everything, whether or not it applies to a user?
 



4. CB Activity Plugin
Under Parameters/Notifications/Notify, I found the biggest set of configuration options, such as what things trigger notifications and who gets notified

From what I can tell, only CB Activity offers the onsite notification (Is this correct?).  My questions about this:

4a. When it's set to Enabled is the notification type is whatever is configured in the plugin (Notifications/General, i.e. Email or PM)

4b. When it's set to Replaced, it will ONLY be sent as on-site notifications - Is that correct?   (I believe this setting is what you suggest to reduce the number of emails that go out from the site to mitigate spamming issue)
 

On-Site Notifications
5.  Where do onsite notifications for users usually appear (I can't remember where this would show up for them)?   Is there a module or a pop-up that I should be enabling?

1. You mentioned that Notifications are a bit clunky and will improve with CB3. Does this mean right now there isn't a global setting for which type of notification people get based on what the content is (Private message, Stream activity, etc)?

All CB Activity notifications are configured exclusively in CB Activity > Parameters > Notifications > Notify. Those notifications are for on-site notifications, which is a feature provided by CB Activity (the globe icon on your profile). All other notifications are scattered throughout their respective plugins of which most can be dependent on a field just like CB Activity.

So if you want a single place for people to manage their notifications you must make that yourself by making fields in CB > Field Management and configuring those parameters to use your fields. With CB 3.0, at some point in its release as CB 3.0 will be a gradual rollout of features, we'll have a centralized notification management feature to eliminate all of this and make it easier to create/edit notifications.

2. Just to make sure I've looked at all the places where notification settings are, I summarized them here. Could you let me know if I've covered them all?

I've no idea what all you have installed, but yes that is quite a lot of them.

3. Private Message System Plugin
Here is what I know. For Private Messages, I configure it via the plugin (Parameter/Internal/Notification). I am not sure how they are notified, though or where this is set up.

That sends an email as the parameter descriptions describe.

4. GroupJive Plugin
Within the plugin, I found the Notification setting, but this looks to be admin notifications (or am I mistaken?) I also found the notification method options (Email and PM)

Those are group notifications. The notifications that users can toggle on within individual groups in their notifications page accessible from the dropdown in each individual group.

Under GroupJive: Notifications, I believe this is a log of what people have set their notifications, but when I look at one, I notice more options than what appears on the front end, but some of them appear to be for admins/moderators (eg, New post approvals). Is this because the log pulls in everything, whether or not it applies to a user?

Correct, that's a list of what notifications each group user has subscribed to. It's just there for management purposes and generally doesn't need to be used. There are more notifications there because it's pulling in the GJ integration parameters. Each GJ integration (e.g. CB GroupJive Events) is responsible entirely for its self. So integration parameters are of course configured in the integration plugins parameters.

5. CB Activity Plugin
Under Parameters/Notifications/Notify, I found the biggest set of configuration options, such as what things trigger notifications and who gets notified

From what I can tell, only CB Activity offers the onsite notification (Is this correct?).

Correct.

5a. When it's set to Enabled is the notification type is whatever is configured in the plugin (Notifications/General, i.e. Email or PM)

If that parameter specifically is set to enabled it will log an on-site notification in addition to whatever GJ does.

5b. When it's set to Replaced, it will ONLY be sent as on-site notifications - Is that correct? (I believe this setting is what you suggest to reduce the number of emails that go out from the site to mitigate spamming issue)

Correct.

6. Where do onsite notifications for users usually appear (I can't remember where this would show up for them)? Is there a module or a pop-up that I should be enabling?

Anywhere you want. By default it's the globe icon on their profile. You can however use the CB Activity module to place the notifications globe popup wherever you want or just create a Joomla menu item to the CB Activity plugin notification page.