Notifications

Choose which alerts reach your phone, and when events remind you.

Choosing your alerts

Open Settings. Under App Settings, tap Notification Preferences.
Switch each kind on or off:
Direct Messages: when someone messages you, writes in one of your groups or mentions you, invites you to join a group, or when a vote opens in a group or enterprise you are in. Also when your community opens a vote on removing a member that you can vote on and, where a jury decides that vote instead, when you are drawn for the jury, and the reminders a juror gets.
Marketplace Activity: requests, approvals and refusals on your deals, and what happened to a post you reported or one of yours the admins removed. Also news about events you are going to, notices from your community's admins, and a community starting near a place you asked about.
When a neighbour asks for something I'm into: when someone in your community posts a Need in a category you starred on What are you into? on Home, at most once a day. It is on until you switch it off. It comes with your Marketplace Activity alerts, so it stops if you switch those off too. Only communities that send it show this switch: the global community doesn't.
Held in Trust & System: beans held, released or in question.
Requests to join: when someone asks to join your community from the global community, so you can help welcome them. Only members who can let people in see it: owners and admins are always told, so they have no switch, and in a community where only admins let people in it isn't shown.

In the web app the first is called Chat Messages, and the third is the one named after Deals. They set what reaches your phone.

Changes save by themselves. They are kept by your community's server, so they follow your account.

Four alerts about your account always come through, and the app has no switch for them: that your account was just restored on another device, that an admin started moving your account to a new phone, that your community opened a vote about your account, and that an admin took down your reply on that vote. If you run your community's server, its alerts about the server always come through too.

What an alert says

An alert on your phone says only what kind of news it is, for example:

"You have a new message."
"There is news on one of your trades."
"Someone in your community asked for something you're into." It never says who asked or what for: tap it to open the Need.
"An event you're going to starts soon."
"Your community has a notice for you."
"Your community opened a vote on removing a member." It never says who the vote is about. Where a jury decides, only the jurors are alerted, with "You were drawn for a jury in your community." instead; everyone else gets no alert.
"You were drawn for a jury in your community. Open BeanPool within three days to serve or step aside." When less than two days of the vote are left, it says so: "You were drawn for a jury in your community, and its vote closes in less than two days."
"A jury you were drawn for is waiting for your answer." A reminder, two days after you were drawn, if you haven't answered.
"A jury you're on closes in about a day." A reminder, when about a day of the vote is left, if you haven't voted.
"The member your jury is deciding about has answered the case."
"Someone asked to join your community."
"A community answered your request."

It never says who it is from, which listing, how many beans, or what your community's announcement says. Alerts pass through Apple's, Google's and Expo's servers on their way to your phone, and anyone can read a lock screen, so the rest stays with your community. Open BeanPool to see it.

On a phone that can't get alerts from a community, BeanPool tells you itself: "You have new messages in Castlemaine." That line comes from BeanPool on your phone, not through those servers. It names the community, so anyone who can read your lock screen can read that name, and it says nothing else. It stays quiet where an alert would: for a chat you've muted, with Direct Messages off, and for an event's chat. While BeanPool is closed, your phone checks for new messages about every 15 minutes at best. If you leave messages unread in the community you are currently using, your phone will tell you about them again after each time you open the app.

BeanPool never asks for your 12 words or a password in an alert.

When you tap an alert

Each alert carries your community's signature, made for you alone. BeanPool checks it before doing anything:

It checks out: BeanPool asks your community what the alert was about and opens it. If the alert is from another of your communities on this phone, BeanPool first switches to that community, just as tapping it under Your communities does, and opens the alert there. If you are partway through joining a community, BeanPool stays where you are. If that community no longer recognises your account, you see what it says instead of the alert.
It doesn't: BeanPool opens nothing and tells you once: "That notification didn't come from your community. Ignore what it said. BeanPool never asks for your 12 words or a password in a notification."

While BeanPool is open, an alert that doesn't check out isn't shown at all, and neither is one you've already seen.

Your phone shows an alert's words before BeanPool can check them. So someone who got hold of your phone's alert address could put their own words on your lock screen. Tapping one does nothing, and BeanPool says so.

An alert from a community you've removed from this phone does nothing either.

If your community's server hasn't been updated yet, its alerts carry no signature. BeanPool shows them in general words ("There is news from your community.") and, when you tap one, opens where you left off.

Numbers on your other communities

On the phone, tap the bean at the top left. Under Your communities, a small number beside a community shows how many unread messages wait there, as far as your phone has heard. The number goes as soon as you switch to that community. The community you're in never shows one.

Your phone asks each of your other communities how many messages wait for you: at most every 5 minutes while BeanPool is open, and about every 15 minutes at best when it isn't. It asks no more than six at a time, and takes turns if you have more. Each question goes to that community alone, signed by you, and tells it nothing about your other communities. Message requests aren't counted. A community that can't be reached keeps the number it had, and between questions an alert your phone has checked can raise it.

The number on BeanPool's icon adds your communities together. While BeanPool isn't open, your phone asks the community you're in as well, in the same way and among the same six, so that community's messages are on the icon too. If it can't be reached, the icon stays as it was.

When you allow notifications, BeanPool sends your phone's notification token to every community you keep, signed by your account key. To stop alerts and unread message checks for a community, tap the bean at the top left to open the BeanPool sheet, press and hold that community, and switch off Alerts from this community.

Notices when BeanPool checks in

Every so often your phone lets BeanPool check in with your community in the background. If your community kept a notice for you that you haven't seen, such as what happened to one of your posts, BeanPool shows it on your phone in full, once.

This needs nothing but your community's server, so it still works if alerts don't. It comes later than an alert would: your phone decides when, from about 15 minutes to a few hours.

Event reminders

Under the switches, Event reminders sets how long before an event you are Going to or Interested in starts you are told. Tick 1 week before, 1 day before, 2 hours before, 1 hour before or 30 minutes before — you can tick more than one — or tick Off for none at all.

Everyone starts on 1 day before. This is your usual choice; any one event can be set differently on the event itself. See "Events".

Reminders arrive with your Marketplace Activity alerts, so they stop if you switch those off. You are never reminded about an event that was cancelled or has ended, or about a time that had already passed when you said you were coming. If the host moves the event, the reminder moves with it.

No alerts at all?

BeanPool asks for notification permission only when you tap to turn it on: from the card at the end of How it Works, on Home until answered, or when you send your first message or request to join. It never asks at install or when you create your account, and nothing is asked after you restore an account. If your phone already allows notifications for BeanPool, nothing is asked at all.

If your phone won't show its own question again (for example after you tapped Don't Allow on an iPhone), Turn on says notifications are off for BeanPool in your phone's settings, and Open Settings takes you there. The card stays on Home until your phone allows them or you tap Not now.

If you tapped Not now and want them later, or your phone turned them off, check that your phone allows notifications for BeanPool in your phone's own settings.

One chat at a time

You can mute one group's, project's or enterprise's chat for 8 hours, a week or for good. See "Muting a chat".

The same guide is in the BeanPool app, and works there without a connection: open Settings, then "Help & how it works" under BeanPool. Every other rule, guide and manual is in the Help Centre. Guide version 165.