Communications
Communications is how nullplatform tells people what needs their attention, right in the product: an approval waiting on them, a deployment that failed, or a maintenance window your platform leaders announced.
Communications has three parts:
- Your inbox: the bell in the header, where each person reads what's for them.
- Announcements: messages your platform leaders publish to the whole organization, in the bell, as a banner, or both.
- Inbox rules: what triggers a notification, who receives it, and what it says. nullplatform ships built-in rules, and you can create your own.
Beyond the bell, people can also get their notifications by email, and you can post inbox rules and announcements to Slack channels.
You manage announcements and inbox rules, including what gets posted to Slack, from Platform Settings > Communications.
Your inbox
Click the bell in the header to open your notifications: what involves your work in Inbox, and news from your platform leaders and from nullplatform in Announcements. Walk through it below:
Inbox settings
Inbox settings let you choose which inbox rules reach you, in the bell and by email. Open them from the settings icon in the bell, or from User settings > Inbox.
Each mode decides what you get from a rule:
| Mode | What you receive |
|---|---|
| Off | Nothing from this rule. |
| Involving me | What involves you: your own requests, items assigned to you, and approvals you can decide. |
| Everything | Everything from this rule, whether it involves you or not. Only available for rules where it makes sense. |
Settings per resource
The Default settings apply across your whole organization. To change them for one account, namespace, or application, click Customize a resource and pick it. A customized resource starts with every rule set to Inherit, which takes the value from the closest resource above it.
The most specific resource wins. For example, you can turn deployments Off for an account and set Everything for the one application you own inside it.
Customize the application and set the rules you care about to Everything. You'll get those notifications for anything in that application, not only what involves you.
Each customized resource also has a Mute everything from this resource switch. Use Remove customization to go back to the inherited settings.
Changing a setting affects new notifications only. What's already in your inbox stays.
Email
Email is Off by default for every inbox rule. You only get emails for the rules you turn on.
Each notification arrives as its own email, right away, with its title, its body, and a button to open it in nullplatform. The footer links to your inbox settings, so you can change what reaches you by email at any time.
Announcements aren't sent by email. They show in the bell, as a banner, or in Slack.
Built-in inbox rules
These rules come with nullplatform. Rules that are on by default reach you when they involve you. The rest stay off until you turn them on.
| Group | Inbox rule | On by default |
|---|---|---|
| Approvals | Approval pending, Approval resolved | Yes |
| Action items | Action items assigned, Action item resolved | Yes |
| Deployments | Deployment failed | Yes |
| Deployments | Deployment started, Deployment finished | No |
| Builds | Build failed | Yes |
| Builds | Build finished | No |
| Scopes | Scope failed | Yes |
| Scopes | Scope ready | No |
| Service actions | Service action failed | Yes |
| Service actions | Service action finished | No |
| API keys & personal access tokens | Expiring soon | Yes |
The inbox rules your organization creates show up in your inbox settings next to the built-in ones.
Announcements always reach their audience. They aren't listed in inbox settings, so they can't be muted.
Next steps
- Announcements: publish news to your organization, in the bell, as a banner, or both
- Inbox rules: tune the built-in rules, create your own, and send them from your pipelines