Notifications

Next Inventory's notification system is multi-channel — the same event (usually low stock, but also check-outs, transfers, and adjustments) can reach you via email, browser push, in-app notification centre, and sound cue. Every channel is user-configurable per event type.

Open it from the bell icon in the top bar → Notification Centre, or from the user menu → Notification Preferences.

For Users

The Notification Centre

The bell icon in the top bar shows a red badge with the count of unread notifications. Clicking it opens a dropdown preview; clicking View All opens the full Notification Centre page.

On the full page you can:

• Filter — by type (low stock, check-out, transfer, adjustment, system), priority (low / normal / high / urgent), read/unread, date range, or free-text search.
• Bulk actions — select rows via checkbox and mark-as-read or archive many at once.
• Click through — each notification carries a link that jumps you to the relevant item, transaction, or report.

The list refreshes itself every 60 seconds — you don't need to reload the page to see new notifications.

Notification Preferences

Each user controls their own preferences at user menu → Notification Preferences. The page has three sections:

1. Email — tick the event types you want delivered by email.
2. Browser Push — subscribe your current browser / device to receive push notifications, even when Next Inventory isn't open. A per-device toggle per event type.
3. Sound — plays a chime when new notifications arrive in the centre. Per-event type so you can be loud about urgent alerts and quiet about routine ones.

See Settings > Notifications for the admin-side VAPID configuration that enables the Browser Push channel below.

First-Time Push Setup

The first time you toggle a push notification on:

1. The browser asks for notification permission. Click Allow.
2. Next Inventory registers your browser with the server so push messages can be delivered to this device.
3. The toggle lights up, and the next matching event triggers a browser push notification.

You can revoke permission at any time from your browser's site permissions settings, or un-toggle in Preferences. Either way, the server's record for your device is cleaned up automatically.

Common Workflows

• Silence all notifications for the weekend — Preferences, tick off Email and Push on everything, leave Sound off.
• Get paged when something's really wrong — keep only urgent priority push notifications on; everything else lives in the centre for later.
• Triage the weekly backlog — Monday morning: filter to unread, bulk-read after scanning, archive what's resolved.

For Admins

Event Types

The built-in event types:

Channels and How They Work

• In-app — every notification lands in the Notification Centre. The bell checks for new notifications every 60 seconds.
• Email — HTML email via Joomla's mailer. Requires working SMTP configuration in Global Configuration > Server > Mail.
• Browser push — real push notifications delivered by the browser itself. Requires the VAPID key pair configured in Settings. Push works across browser restarts and when the tab is closed.
• Sound — a short chime played in the browser. Requires the user to have interacted with the page at least once (browser autoplay policy).

VAPID Setup for Push

Under Configuration > Settings > Notifications, click Generate to create a fresh VAPID key pair, or paste keys you already have. If the public key isn't set, the push toggle in user Preferences stays disabled with a "Push notifications not configured" message.

Device registrations older than the configured retention window are removed automatically, so long-gone browsers and devices don't accumulate.

Deduplication

Low-stock notifications are throttled to once per 24 hours per item per user. A user who gets a low-stock alert for Item A today won't get another for Item A until tomorrow, even if the stock dips and rises repeatedly.

Other event types (checkout, transfer, adjustment) fire on every event by design — each is a specific action with its own audit trail.

Permissions

Notifications are per-user, not per-role. Any authenticated Joomla user with access to Next Inventory can receive notifications. The only role-based check is for sending system broadcasts:

Edge Cases

• HTTPS required for push — browsers only allow push notifications on HTTPS sites (or localhost). Push on plain HTTP is silently unavailable.
• Email not arriving — check Joomla's mail log (if enabled) and the user's own Notification Preferences. If the email toggle for that event type is off, the user un-subscribed themselves.
• Push arrives but click does nothing — clicking a push notification opens the notification's link. If that link is missing or malformed, the click does nothing. Open the same notification from the Notification Centre as a fallback.
• Sound blocked — Chromium-based browsers block audio before first interaction. Tell users to click anywhere on the page once per session to unlock it. The page intentionally doesn't force- play sound to avoid being that kind of site.
• Archiving vs deleting — archive hides a notification from the centre but keeps it on record for audit. There's no permanent delete from the screen on purpose.