An alert is the pop-up your computer or phone shows outside Laureo: a banner in the corner of a desktop, a notice on an iPhone lock screen. It is the only thing Laureo has that can reach you when the tab is in the background or the app is closed altogether. Everything else, the bell count and the notifications inbox, needs you to come and look.

Alerts are a separate decision from the bell. Each event has its own Bell and Alert switch, and they are independent: to stop an event's alert, untick Alert. Unticking Bell alone leaves the alert on. New email and Team Chat alert without ever appearing in the bell, because they keep their own counters.

Go to Settings > My preferences > Notifications. The first card is This device, and it tells you where that device stands: Alerts are off for this device. Press Turn on alerts and your browser asks for permission. Say yes and the card changes to Alerts are on for this device.

On your FIRST device, Laureo also switches on a starting set of events for you, so alerts are useful straight away:

Turned on from this page, there is no dialog: the same starting set simply appears already ticked in the Alert column of What reaches you, further down the same page, which has a switch for every event Laureo can tell you about. Untick anything you would rather not hear about and press Save preferences. Turned on from the invitation card instead, a short dialog lists the set, described below.

On a second or third device nothing new is switched on, because your choices already exist and re-asking would invite you to undo them. This page simply says Alerts are on for this device. and the invitation card closes without a word.

If Laureo could not save the starting set on your first device (a dropped connection, or a second tab saving at the same moment), it says so rather than leaving you waiting for alerts that will not come. This page says Alerts are on for this device. We couldn't pick a starting set of events for you, so choose what alerts you in the list below. The invitation card says Alerts are on for this device. Choose what you hear about in Settings → Notifications. Either way alerts are on, and the Alert column is where you pick what they are for.

You may meet a small card headed Get alerts for new email, chat and mentions. Turn on turns alerts on for this device, just as the settings button does. Not now sets it aside and you may see it once more on a later visit. Don't ask again ends it for good on that kind of device. If it comes back, it offers Turn on and No thanks, and No thanks ends it for good on that kind of device. The card appears at most twice per device type, at least fourteen days apart, and you will never see two invitation cards in one sitting.

On your first device, the card's Turn on is followed by a short dialog headed Alerts are on. It lists the starting set above, every item ticked, so you can untick anything you would rather not hear about before you press Done. Your unticks are saved as the dialog closes, however you close it. If that save does not land, Laureo tells you rather than letting those alerts carry on unexplained: Couldn't save that change. Adjust it in Settings → Notifications. Every choice in the dialog is a normal setting you can change later in the Alert column.

Once a device is on, a Send a test alert button appears beside it. Press it and Laureo replies: Test alert sent. Except on an iPhone, an iPad, or in Safari on a Mac (including Laureo added to the Dock from Safari), a Laureo window in front hides the pop-up: switch to another app or tab, or check another device. That is worth reading rather than skipping, because everywhere else a test sent while you are looking at Laureo is deliberately not shown. Safari on a Mac, the Dock app added from Safari, iPhone and iPad show it anyway.

Three kinds of notice have fixed switches, so you cannot turn them off: security notices about your account, a file of yours being blocked by our malware scan, and a scheduled deletion of an account or of the whole workspace, which goes to the workspace admins. They reach the bell and your email, and they alert every device you have turned alerts on for. An admin can cancel a scheduled account deletion from Admin > Users until it runs. A workspace deletion can only be cancelled through support, because every member is locked out while it waits, and a deletion that starts at once cannot be cancelled at all. The notice itself says which applies.

"Always on" is about the switches, not about the clock. Security notices and blocked files do not alert during quiet hours: they reach the bell at once and your email when quiet hours end, and no alert is sent for them later. A scheduled account or workspace deletion is urgent and comes through a quiet window, like an urgent money or deadline notice, because whatever time is left to cancel it is short. All three still respect a pause, exactly like every other alert, and nothing at all comes through a pause.

A pause silences alerts everywhere at once, for a while, and then ends by itself. It is the right control for a meeting or a flight, because nothing is switched off and nothing has to be switched back on. Your bell keeps counting the whole time, so nothing is lost, only quiet.

A pause is saved for your account, so it has to reach Laureo to count. If it does not, the card takes it back rather than showing a pause that is not there, and says Couldn't pause alerts. Check this device's clock and connection, then try again. A resume that does not go through says Couldn't resume alerts. Check your connection and try again. and alerts stay paused until it does.

Quiet hours are on from the start, from 22:00 to 07:00 on your own clock. Inside that window, Laureo holds your email notifications until the window ends and sends no alerts at all: an alert for something that happened overnight is not sent later, in the morning or ever. The bell keeps counting, so you see everything when you come back. To move the window, change its From and To hours in Settings > My preferences > Notifications under When and privacy; to have alerts around the clock, switch Enable quiet hours off there and press Save preferences.

There is one exception, and it is narrow on purpose: urgent money and deadline notices still come through, by email and as an alert. A customer's payment that failed (Payment failed, which includes an autopay that could not collect), a failed payment for your Laureo subscription, a dispute with a deadline, a support commitment that has been breached, a scheduled account or workspace deletion. The page says so on the switch itself: Hold email until quiet hours end, and send no alerts during them. Urgent money and deadline notices still come through, and the bell keeps counting. Not every payment notice is on that list: Recurring payment failed, Payout failed, Stripe disconnected and AI Customer Support Agent paused send no alert during quiet hours, like any other notice.

By default an alert names who it is from and shows a little of what it says. If you would rather that did not appear on a lock screen in front of other people, turn off Show sender and preview in alerts, in the same When and privacy section. The row explains what you get instead: Off shows only the kind of alert, so nothing readable lands on a lock screen. You still learn that something arrived and what kind of thing it was; you just read it in Laureo.

If alerts were refused in this browser at some point, the card says This browser is blocking alerts. and offers no Turn on button, because pressing one would do nothing: a browser records the refusal and no page is allowed to ask again. Only your device's own settings can undo it, so the card prints the steps for the device and browser you are actually using, under a heading that says where the switch lives. In a browser tab that is Allow alerts in followed by the browser's name, and the steps start at the address bar. Safari on a Mac is the exception: its heading is Allow alerts in Safari on a Mac and its steps start at the Safari menu. The installed app has no address bar, so its steps point at the app's own settings instead: Allow alerts in your phone's Settings for the Home Screen app on Android, Allow alerts in App info for a Chrome or Edge app window on a computer, and Allow alerts in System Settings for a Safari web app in the Mac's Dock. On an iPhone or iPad it is always Allow alerts in the Settings app.

Apart from iPhone and iPad, the steps above are for Laureo in a browser tab. Opened from its Home Screen, Dock or app icon, Laureo runs in a window of its own with no address bar, and the card prints these instead:

A notification profile can tick Alert for the events a team should hear about, so a new joiner does not have to work out a sensible set for themselves. The admin screen states the limit plainly: These reach members assigned this profile who have not customised their own notification settings. Alerts arrive only after a member turns alerts on for one of their own devices. Permission to grant a device is the person's to give, and no profile can give it for them.

A profile sets no time zone. The page says so where the picker used to be: Digest times and quiet hours run on each member's own profile time zone, not a zone set here. Its quiet-hours controls are labelled Quiet from and Quiet until. Managing notification profiles needs the same permission as managing users.