12 Notifications You Should Be Using

Notifications may be the most commonly searched term in the community, but they don’t get the love  they deserve. We often find that Docebo admins configure a few simple notifications early in onboarding, but fail to continue using them to enhance their learning programs. 

It’s not hard to see why. You can’t have a functional platform without users and courses. It’d be challenging to run an effective operation (or continue to get funded) without reports. And unless you work in a self-contained silo, you’ll want to integrate your learning platform with other applications. But notifications? You can have a platform without notifications, and never know what you’re missing.

Maybe that’s the key: if you don’t use notifications, you don’t know what you’re missing. In fact, even if you do use notifications, you might be unaware of what’s available to you (unless you memorize this article and the inventory under the “List of Notification Details” section ). And those unknowns might just be the ingredients you need to change your life (or at least your work as a platform admin).

Are you missing out on the admin life you could be living? Read our list of highly recommended notifications to find out!

1. Course Has Expired

(Event Type: Courses)

You’ve just finished setting up courses and some of them have a specified end date. If this is the case, using the Course Has Expired notification serves as an important reminder for your learners that the course is about to expire, if it hasn’t already. This notification is also valuable to admins so they can review and run reports on the expired course.

2. Digest Notifications 

(Event Types: Courses and Discover, Coach & Share)

Ok, picture this. A learner enrolls in seven courses. Just as soon as she finishes signing up, she opens her email to see: seven separate notifications confirming enrollments . Over time, this adds up. Learners tend to do what any sane person would do when confronted with an overflowing inbox: they start ignoring all the notifications pouring in.

As any good infomercial would say, “There has got to be a better way!”. 

And there is, with Digest Notifications. Instead of receiving a separate notification for each course enrollment, you can batch notifications for the same type of event together. Rather than setting a date for this roundup, you configure its frequency (daily, weekly, or monthly). The result: you’ll keep learners up to date on their progress without inundating their platform, email, or Slack channel.

But wait, there’s more (cue excitement!). Not only are Digest Notifications available for User Enrolled into a Course; they’re also available for the following notifications:

• Course Has Expired

• Courses Marked as Outdated (Admin notification)

• Assets Marked as Outdated (Admin notification)

• Learner Has Yet to Complete a Course

Note: Unlike most other notifications that are triggered by specific events, Digest Notifications can be scheduled to send to whatever Branches & Groups you select either hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly .

3. New Course Unlocked in Learning Plan

(Event type: Learning Plan)

Setting up prerequisites for courses in a learning plan is helpful if you don’t want the learner to complete an entire learning plan in a day or if you want to have select courses available to a learner each week. But here’s the thing: your learners will not know when a new course is available to them unless you turn on the New Course Unlocked in Learning Plan notification . This can be a powerful way to ensure your learners take the time they need to complete all the courses within a learning plan at an adequate pace.

4. Training Material Has Been Created

(Event Type: Courses)

Sometimes not all the learning objects for a course are ready when you launch a course. Other times, you may decide to revise your course materials after you’ve published them. (It’s ok; it happens.) In these cases, you can add new learning objects to a course and with theTraining Material Has Been Created notification enabled, learners (even those that have completed the course) will receive this notification to prompt them to go back and review the new material .

There have been a couple of questions from community members asking how to apply this notification to specific users, so check out these Q&A’s for the answers:

5. Digest: Asset Has Been Marked Outdated (Admin Notification)

(Event Type: Discover, Coach & Share)

Learners have the ability to mark as asset as ‘Outdated’ (awesome, right!?). This helpful notification alerts the owner of the asset so they can take action right away. Once the owner updates the asset, the ‘Outdated’ status is removed. Out with the old, in with the new! 

Note: As shared previously in the Digest Notifications section, you can schedule digests to send hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly. We recommend configuring this notification to send more frequently so that you can take quick action when an asset is outdated. It always helps to educate your learners about this functionality and process. Help them help you! 

6. Certification Has Expired

(Event Type: Certification)

Unlike Certificates, Certifications require maintenance. And unless learners in your organization stay on top of expiration dates, Certifications will lapse. That’s bad -- particularly in compliance use cases. If you certify learners, give them the nudge they need to complete retraining assignments before their Certifications expire by leveraging the Certification Has Expired notification. Be sure to set this notification before the deadline to provide learners time to renew their credential .

7. ILT/Webinar Session Starting

(Event Type: Courses)

ILT ( or “Instructor-Led Training”) refers to live training delivered in a traditional classroom setting or virtually by webinar. We’ve all experienced signing up for something, then promptly forgetting about the appointment. With this simple last-minute reminder, you can alert learners that training is about to begin. Your attendance records will reveal the difference taking this simple step makes . 

8. User Waiting to Be Approved to a Webinar/ILT Session

(Event Type: Courses)

In a heavily-enrolled or phased ILT course, you might offer multiple individual sessions. What happens when learners enroll in a course that requires instructor approval (by configuration or because of overenrollment)? Nothing -- unless the trainer reviews the request. 

The User Waiting to Be Enrolled in ILT Session notification pings the instructor to admit or waitlist affected learners. It’s a must if you want to manage live training registrations effectively. 

9. User Has Not Logged In 

(Event Type: Users)

Suppose your user provisioning is automated. Rules in your HRIS or in Salesforce determine who gets admitted, and what learning experience is delivered. That makes it possible for users to be in your platform without ever logging in or viewing learning assets. The horror! 

But fear not -- there’s a solution at hand. To increase engagement, you could configure a User Has Not Logged In notification, letting target audiences like account managers or even power users know that inactive learners aren’t taking advantage of training offerings. You can even configure this notification to send directly to your learners to remind them to access the platform . Within this notification, you can set time constraints for reporting this inactivity (by number of hours, days, or weeks after registration) -- a key consideration for learning opportunities with deadlines. 

10. New Content Published (Discover, Coach & Share)

​​​​​​​​​​​​​​(Event Type: Discover, Coach & Share)

In case you didn’t already know, the vast majority of learning doesn’t happen in e-learning modules or in classrooms. It happens informally and socially, unfolding in the flow of work .

That’s why we created Discover, Coach & Share. Using specialized Channels, you can capture those conversations as they happen in real time .

The catch: that content only benefits those who know it’s there.

So when an expert approves user contributions and shares them to a channel, you can use this notification to alert asset owners and superadmins that exciting new insights are going live, so they can promote and track the conversation. Have channels that allow users to submit content without Expert or Superadmin approval? We’ve got you covered. Simply use the New Content Uploaded notification. It behaves identically to the New Content Published notification, only for assets in channels that don’t require peer review.

11. Asset Marked as Best Answer (Discover, Coach & Share)

​​​​​​​(Event Type: Discover, Coach & Share)

Imagine seeing an interesting question appear in a channel. Intrigued, you follow the conversation for a little while, then move on to your work for the day. Unless you monitor that thread, you might not notice when a channel expert provides a definitive answer to the question.

But if your administrator has enabled the Asset Marked as Best Answer notification, you will. Not all answers are created equal -- and this notification lets you know when a user has given a mic-dropping solution that resolves the issue once and for all.

12. New Contest Started (Gamification)

​​​​​​​(Event Type: Gamification)

Ah, the endorphin rush that accompanies configuring this notification!

Why the excitement, you ask? Because it signals a new contest has begun (obviously), but also because it broadcasts to the world (or at least the notification audience) that you’re using Gamification to engage learners. Let the games begin! 

Well, there you have it: twelve powerful notifications that you should be using. If you’re stuck on building your notification strategy, use this guide and if you need a refresher on how to configure notifications, don’t forget to check out our “Managing Notifications” course in Docebo University.