Push notifications are the reason an app beats an email for anything time-sensitive. A member who has them on finds out about a cancelled service on Sunday morning, not on Monday.
How a member turns them on
The app asks during setup, the first time somebody signs in. They tap Allow and that is the whole job.
The prompt appears once. If they tapped "Don't allow" (or swiped past it while half paying attention, which is common), the app cannot ask again. That is a phone rule, not ours. From then on it has to be done in the phone's own settings:
iPhone: Settings → Notifications → EasyChurchApp → Allow Notifications.
Android: Settings → Apps → EasyChurchApp → Notifications → turn on.
Have them check it there before assuming notifications are broken. In our experience this is the answer roughly every time somebody says they are "not getting anything."
What actually gets sent
Notifications go out for things with a time attached to them:
- Announcements you send from the Notifications page
- Event reminders: one nudge early on the day of an event that uses RSVP, sent to members who have not answered yet, with an I'm Going button
- Volunteer invitations: these can be accepted or declined straight from the notification, without opening the app, which is the single most used thing on this list
- Group activity in groups they belong to
Ordinary changes to your website do not trigger a notification. Publishing a sermon or editing a page is not an interruption, and treating it as one is how people turn notifications off.
Before you send to everyone
A push notification is the most intrusive thing your church can do with this software. It goes off in a pocket, during work, possibly at night.
Two habits worth keeping:
- Send to a group when the message is for a group. The whole congregation does not need the youth trip's departure time.
- Ask whether it could be an email. If it can wait until this evening, it can be an email. Save the buzz for the things that genuinely cannot.
Churches lose notification permission by over-sending, and once a member turns it off in their phone settings you have no way to ask again.
Testing it on yourself
Send an announcement to a group that contains only you, and watch it arrive. It is worth doing once before your first real one, because it shows you exactly what your members will see on their lock screen, including how much of your message gets cut off.