Push Notifications on Your Phone

5 minutes

Introduction

A customer walks in and reception marks them as arrived. If you are in the back room mixing colour, you have no way of knowing until you look at a screen.

Push notifications fix that. The Luminate app can send a short banner to your phone or tablet the moment something happens that you need to know about. You choose what you are told about, and on which devices, and nobody else's choices affect yours.

Push notifications are per person, not per salon. Turning them on for yourself changes nothing for your colleagues.

Who this is for: Any staff member who uses the Luminate app on a phone or tablet.

What you'll learn:

Turning notifications on for a device
Choosing what you are notified about
Adding and removing devices
What appears on a locked screen

Time to complete: 5 minutes

Prerequisites

Before you begin, make sure you have:

The Luminate app installed on your phone or tablet
Signed in to the app on that device

Push notifications only work in the app. Opening Luminate in a web browser will show you the settings page, but the "Turn on notifications for this device" button will not appear.

Step-by-Step Instructions

Step 1: Open Your Notification Settings

Open the Luminate app on the device you want to be notified on
Tap your name at the bottom of the sidebar menu
Tap Settings
Tap the Notifications tab

Step 2: Turn On Notifications for This Device

Tap Turn on notifications for this device
Your phone will ask whether Luminate may send you notifications. Tap Allow

The device now appears under Your devices, showing its name and when it was last used.

Repeat this on every device you want to be notified on. Your phone and the salon iPad are separate — turning it on for one does not turn it on for the other.

Step 3: Choose What You Are Notified About

Below the device card you will see one card for each way we can reach you:

Email me about — sent to the address on your profile
Push to my devices — shown on the phones and tablets you turned on above

Each card lists the same things that can happen, in the same bands. Switch on the ones you want.

Appointments

	What it tells you	On by default
Customer arrives	A customer has been marked as arrived for an appointment you are the assigned staff member on	Nothing. Switch on what you want
Appointment cancelled	One of your booked appointments was cancelled, or a repeat booking was stopped	Email

Online bookings

These cover bookings customers make themselves through your booking page. A booking somebody typed in at reception never notifies anyone.

	What it tells you	On by default
Online booking made	A customer booked online	Email
Online booking cancelled	A customer cancelled a booking they made online	Email
Online booking moved	A customer moved a booking they made online	Email

Messages

	What it tells you	On by default
Customer replies	A customer has answered one of your salon's messages, by email, text or WhatsApp	Email

Rota and leave

	What it tells you	On by default
Rota changes	Your shifts changed	Email
Leave approved or declined	Somebody answered your leave request	Email

If You Own the Salon

Owners see four more bands, for the things only an owner is sent. Nobody else has these rows, because nobody else receives them.

Band		What it tells you	On by default
Stock and SMS credits	Stock runs low	A product dropped below its low stock level	Email
Stock and SMS credits	SMS credits	Your SMS credits ran low, ran out, or topped up	Email
Customer data	Customer records anonymised	Old customer records are about to be anonymised, and have been	Email
Billing and account	Payments	A subscription payment succeeded or failed	Email
Billing and account	Subscription	Your plan started, renewed, or is about to expire	Email
Billing and account	Account status	Your account entered the grace period, or was closed	Email

Think before you switch the billing rows off. A failed payment email is how you find out your card needs replacing. Switch it off and the first sign of trouble may be the grace period. The record still appears inside Luminate, but nothing will come and find you.

Customer replies and most other rows email you to start with, because they usually need an answer. Switch the email off for anything you would rather pick up inside Luminate yourself.

Everything is also recorded inside Luminate whether you switch these on or not. These switches only control whether we interrupt you.

Tap Save when you are done. Nothing is saved until you do.

Step 4: Remove a Device You No Longer Use

Under Your devices, tap the bin icon next to any device to stop sending to it.

You do not need to do this when you sign out. Signing out stops notifications to that device automatically, and signing back in starts them again.

What Appears on a Locked Screen

Notifications say as little as they can. A banner shows something like:

Customer arrived Jane Smithson has arrived.

Or:

Customer replied Jane Smithson replied.

Or, when one of your appointments is cancelled:

Appointment cancelled Jane Smithson on Tue 16 Jun at 11:00 AM.

If the customer cancelled several services at once, the banner adds how many, for example "3 services." If clients on the waitlist could take the freed slot, it ends with how many, for example "2 clients on the waitlist could fill it." Tapping it then opens the calendar with the Fill this slot from the waitlist? dialog instead of the appointment. The banner never names those clients. When a repeat booking is stopped, it reads Repeat booking stopped with the customer's name and the number of visits cancelled.

The customer's name is there so you know who needs you without unlocking the phone. Nothing else is. Phones sit on counters, and anyone walking past can read a locked screen, so a notification never shows:

The service they booked
Anything they wrote to you
A phone number, email address, or price

The full detail is there when you tap the banner and the app opens.

Sharing a Device

If a salon iPad is passed between staff, notifications follow whoever is signed in. When you sign in, the iPad becomes yours; when your colleague signs in, it becomes theirs. You will never receive your colleague's notifications on a device they signed into after you.

Common Questions

Will I get a notification for a walk-in I just booked myself? No. You are standing at the desk with the customer, so there is nothing to tell you.

I have three services booked back to back for the same customer. Do I get three notifications? No. One customer arriving produces one notification, however many services they booked.

Someone voided a bill and the appointment went back to "arrived". Did that notify anyone? No. Only a genuine arrival notifies — a customer moving from booked or confirmed to arrived.

A customer cancelled a cut, a colour and a blow-dry at once. Do I get three notifications? No. One cancellation gives you one notification, however many of your services it covered. A cancellation made separately later still notifies you on its own.

Why does a cancellation not make a sound? A cancellation is still useful an hour later, so it arrives quietly instead of buzzing through like an arrival. It stays on your phone until you look.

Who is told when a customer replies? Two people, and often the same person twice over. Whoever last messaged that customer by hand, because they are waiting on the answer. And everyone who manages the inbox — the owner, admins, managers and reception staff. Automated reminders do not count as messaging somebody by hand, so a reply to a reminder goes to the inbox team.

A customer sent me four texts in a row. Do I get four notifications? No. Replies in the same conversation are grouped for about fifteen minutes, so a burst is one notification. A reply that arrives later that day is a new one.

Does a customer replying show me what they wrote? Not on a locked screen. The email includes the first line or two so you can judge whether it is urgent. The whole message is in the inbox when you tap through.

I said "Don't Allow" by mistake. How do I fix it? On an iPhone or iPad, the question is only asked once. Go back to the Notifications tab and tap Open device settings, then turn notifications on for Luminate there. On Android, tap Turn on notifications for this device again.

Why is the "Push to my devices" card greyed out? You have not turned on notifications for any device yet. Do that first, at the top of the page.