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.
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.
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."
"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.
"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.

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 alerts it has sent you since you last had it open. The number goes as soon as you switch to that community. The community you're in never shows one.

Your phone counts these itself, from alerts it has checked: those that arrive while BeanPool is open, those still waiting on your phone when you open BeanPool, and those you tap. It never asks your other communities anything to work them out. An alert you cleared from your phone before opening BeanPool isn't counted.

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 162.