📦 Batch & Digest

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Status: Batch & Digest is currently in active development. Stay tuned for more updates and improvements.

The NotificationAPI's Batch & Digest feature allows for the creation of recurring user digests at configured intervals. By batching multiple notifications into one, it effectively reduces notification fatigue. This feature is particularly useful for weekly reports or user digests. The notification editor provides a versatile tool for customizing the appearance of combined notifications, and your users can set their preferred schedule if needed.

Example Use Cases

• Social media post likes and comments: In social media platforms, each like and comment on a post generates an event. Instead of sending separate notifications for each event, the Batch and Digest feature consolidates these into a single notification. At your chosen time, the requests will be compiled and sent a summarized report of all interactions on the post.

• Truck Driver Schedule: For administrators overseeing food supply chains, a daily overview of all pickups and deliveries is crucial. The Digest feature provides these summaries, promoting effective and timely operations management.

How does it work?

For each notification, you can configure the channels' Delivery Options as following:

• Instantly: When we receive an Email request, we try to deliver it to your user instantly. This delivery option is the default.
• Hourly: We deliver all the Email requests that we receive in an hour.
• Weekly: This configuration delivers all the Email requests once a week. You can choose the day and time for it.
• Monthly: To deliver Email notifications once a month. It can happen at the beginning or end of a month. You can also select the time to deliver as well.
• Allow unsubscribing: This allows your users to unsubscribe from this Email.

The Default Preference indicates your users' default preference for delivery options.

The following shows a sample of an Email channel's Delivery Options.

If you adjust the settings in the above component, the default user preference prebuilt component will be displayed as follows:`

Each channel can have one or more templates, and each template can be configured for one or multiple delivery options.

Using the example new_comment notification above, you can configure the Email channel to deliver every Monday at 9:00 am via enabling the Weekly option and choosing Monday 9:00 am from the dropdown boxes. Doing so will give your notification three delivery options: Instantly, Weekly and Allow Unsubscribing. You can optionally choose to have the Weekly option as the default, via selecting it in The Default Preference options.

In the design tab, you can create two Email templates: one for the Instantly delivery option and one for Weekly. Requests sent for this notification will be batched and on Monday at 9:00 am the notification will send on its Email channel using the Weekly template. If your user changes their Email preference to Instantly, then the notification will be sent instantly with the corresponding Instantly template.

When using Parameters (Merge Tags) while you are desiging a template, you can access the batched items via {{_items}}. This parameter is an array of all requests that were batched since the notification was last sent and delivered based on your Delivery Options.

For example, you can retrieve the number of comments in the new_comment notification by using a filter like {{_items | size}} in your template. This parameter will be replaced with the number of requests in the current batch.

With batching you can still use all the functionality that is provided by the Parameters (Merge Tags) feature, such as Loops, Conditional Logic, and filter.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

How does Batch & Digest work when there are no requests at the delivery time configured in the Delivery Options?

If there are no notifications for a user in the specified period, the system will not send a notification. For example, assume you have selected the Weekly delivery option on Monday at 9:00 am for the Email channel. If there is no request recorded for the user by Monday at 9:00 am then no email will be sent.

How does Batch & Digest work with Throttling?

The Throttling criteria are checked at the configured time in the Delivery Options. For example, assume if you have configured Throttling for 2 notifications per user per 24 hours and configured the delivery option as hourly, and then sent a notification every hour. In the first two hours, a batched notification will be sent. Any notifications recieved afterwards will be discarded until 24 hours has passed.

Likewise if you have a notification with Throttling set to allow 5 new_comment notifications per hour and a Weekly delivery option selected, then the 6th notification within the same hour will be ignored.

How does Batch & Digest work with Deduplication?

The Deduplication criteria are checked at the configured time in the Delivery Options.

For example, assume the Deduplication window is 24 hours and a hourly delivery option is selected. If any batches are detected as a duplicate, then they are discarded.

How does Batch & Digest work with Scheduling?

Batched notifications are sent based on their selected Delivery Options. Any requests recieved (either from scheduled or instant notifications) are added to the batch.

For example, assume a notification is configured to send batches Weekly on Monday at 9:00 am, and recieves a scheduled request for Sunday at 1:00 pm. The request is not sent on Sunday at 1:00 pm: instead it is batched and will be included in the notification sent on Monday at 9:00 am.

Do I have to pay extra for Batch & Digest?

No, this feature is provided for no additional charge.