Idea: Give System Administrators Control Over Existing System Notifications and Introduce Fully Customizable Notifications

The Problem: Notification Fatigue and Rigid Workflows

Currently, Clarity’s user notification functionality is strictly limited to pre-defined system notifications triggered by specific system activities. While helpful to an extent, the inability of System Administrators to customize messages, define exact recipients, or edit triggers could lead to notification fatigue and workflow inefficiencies.

When users receive system notifications that are irrelevant to their specific day-to-day work, they begin to ignore the notification entirely, risking the loss of truly critical updates.

Real-World Pain Points:
Here are two specific examples of how the current rigid notification structure negatively impacts daily operations --

1. Program Opening Notifications (Irrelevant Targeting): These notifications are automatically sent to the Responsible Program Staff and all staff with the "Referral Match Maker" access right at applicable agencies. However, communities often silo their matchmakers (e.g., dedicated shelter matchmakers vs. dedicated housing matchmakers; or by subpopulation). Under the current system, shelter matchmakers receive notifications for housing program openings and vice versa. Sys admins have no way to prevent this leading to cluttered inboxes.

2. "Client No Longer Eligible" Notifications: System notifications are sent when a client ages out of a unit/bed requirement. However, this hard-coded trigger fails to account for instances where eligibility was intentionally overridden by staff during the client's initial placement. Sys admins cannot disable or limit this notification, generating confusing alerts that do not align with actual local workflows or manual exceptions.

Proposed Enhancements:
To ensure the right information gets to the right users when they need it, we propose a phased approach to enhancing user notifications:

Phase 1: Near-Term Administrative Controls

Notification Toggles: Introduce system settings that allow sys admins to globally turn specific system notifications on or off based on local community needs.

Message Customization: Allow sys admins to edit the default text of existing system notifications to better match local terminology and instruction.

Targeted Delivery: Provide granular control over who receives existing notifications. Allow sys admins to limit recipients by specific Users, Agencies, and/or Access Roles (similar to the targeted options recently introduced with the new Program Visibility settings).

Phase 2: Fully Customizable, Flow-Based Notifications

Custom Trigger Engine: Build a fully customizable notification system where sys admins can write custom messages, define custom triggers based on specific system events, and dynamically route them by user, agency, access role, care team and/or responsible staff.

Roadmap Alignment:
Ideally, this would be managed through an intuitive, flow-based interface. This functionality aligns with the "Custom Workflows" feature currently on the customer-facing roadmap (Feature 156677: https://ideas.bitfocus.com/discovery/roadmap/feature/156677), which promises to "allow communities to design and enforce specific processes aligned with local protocols." Integrating custom notifications into these future custom workflows would create a truly seamless, locally tailored system.

Value to Clarity Communities:
Implementing these changes would reduce notification noise, improve user adoption, and empower System Administrators to align Clarity’s communication tools directly with the unique protocols of their local homelessness response system.

Related UserVoice Ideas:
Finally, a fully customizable notification system could create a platform to address several long-standing requests for specific notification needs, including:
- "Assign more than one case manager / allow Care Teams to get all notifications" (https://ideas.bitfocus.com/forums/930328-clarity-human-services/suggestions/46614055-assign-more-than-one-case-manager-allow-care-tea)
- "Custom Notifications for Assessments" (https://ideas.bitfocus.com/forums/930328-clarity-human-services/suggestions/45891310-custom-notifications-for-assessments)
- "Notifications for client enrollments expected to auto-exit due to inactivity"
(https://ideas.bitfocus.com/forums/930328-clarity-human-services/suggestions/45848725-notifications-for-client-enrollments-expected-to-a)
- "Create flexibility to add an Email Address not associated with a user account to receive program notifications" (https://ideas.bitfocus.com/forums/930328-clarity-human-services/suggestions/46049707-create-flexibility-to-add-an-email-address-not-ass)
- "System Notification for Referral Updates and New Notes to the Agency Receiving the Referral" (https://ideas.bitfocus.com/forums/930328-clarity-human-services/suggestions/44572842-system-notification-for-referral-updates-and-new-n)
- "90 days Inactive Notification" (https://ideas.bitfocus.com/forums/930328-clarity-human-services/suggestions/49958556-90-days-inactive-notification)
- "Email Functionality" (https://ideas.bitfocus.com/forums/930328-clarity-human-services/suggestions/46821175-email-functionality)
- "Ability to trigger emails after an action is completed in HMIS" (https://ideas.bitfocus.com/forums/930328-clarity-human-services/suggestions/48245090-ability-to-trigger-emails-after-an-action-is-compl)
- "Current Living Situation Assessment Notification" (https://ideas.bitfocus.com/forums/930328-clarity-human-services/suggestions/44672698-current-living-situation-assessment-notification)
- "Case Manager Notification when assigned a referral"
(https://ideas.bitfocus.com/forums/930328-clarity-human-services/suggestions/46279444-case-manager-notification-when-assigned-a-referral)