Notifications give signed-in users one calm place to review important activity across Visual Space. The center favors updates that help you act or understand what changed, then takes you straight back to the relevant work.
It is not a second inbox for every event. Chat, Direct Messages, and update indicators on joined spaces or activities keep their own attention signals. This separation lets the notification center remain useful without repeating every message or local update.
One Center for Important Activity
Open Notifications from the right-side tools bar to see your global notification list. It brings together selected updates from the spaces and work you can access, rather than creating a separate inbox for every space, subspace, activity, or app.
Notifications appear newest first. Each row uses a title, an actor or official sender when relevant, a visual badge, and a date to explain what happened. Recent dates use a compact relative form; older items show a calendar date. When a new comment or reaction joins an existing grouped notification, that row returns to the top.
The current center can include:
Private space-area updates are limited to people who can access that area. Supported notifications also avoid alerting you about your own action. Together, these rules keep the global list focused on meaningful changes that came from someone else or from Visual Space itself.
The global center keeps recognizable update rows beside the workspace where you opened it.
For a closer look at row details, ordering, and read behavior, see The Notification Center.
Follow a Notification Back to Its Context
Most notifications are shortcuts as well as notices. Select a row to open the post, article, chat, space area, or other destination behind it. Awards return you to the recognized work, while role notifications open the relevant space so you can continue there with your new access.
Official notices have two distinct destinations. A Terms of Service update opens the hosted policy page. A Visual Space update opens its article in a focused reader over your current context, so you can read it without replacing the page beneath it. Both appear from VS Team.
If a row no longer has enough current context to open its destination, selecting it leaves you where you are. This can happen when related content or routing information is no longer available.
Use Review and Open Notifications for the complete review journey.
Read State Without Inbox Chores
Opening the center loads your current list and acknowledges all unread global notifications. Items that were unread when the panel opened keep a subtle highlight for a short time, helping you recognize what was new even though the read state has already changed.
There is no per-row selection step and no need to clear each notification manually. If the list is empty, the panel simply shows No notifications.
Comments and reactions use a slightly richer read model because several events can belong to the same item. A grouped row shows how many new comments or reactions arrived in the current unseen round, not the lifetime total on that post or message. After you check the center, later engagement starts a fresh round rather than filling the list with near-identical rows.
The Notifications button does not currently show an unread total. The absence of a badge does not mean the center has been checked, so open the panel when you want to review its current contents.
Keep Conversation Signals Where They Belong
The global center and conversation unread state answer different questions. Notifications highlight selected events from across the product; conversation indicators help you follow an active stream in its own place.
This means the same tools bar can help you discover an important cross-product update without turning every conversation message into another global row. If you are waiting for a reply, check the relevant Chat or Direct Message indicator rather than relying on Notifications.
Choose the Updates That Matter to You
Notification preferences control which supported families may enter your center. In Account Settings, open Notification preferences to set global choices. You can then create more specific exceptions for a joined space, subspace, or activity when one area deserves a different level of attention.
An area follows your global choice until you change that family for the area. The exception remains explicit, so you can distinguish a local choice from an inherited one and return the area to the global behavior when the exception is no longer useful.
Area exceptions pair a selected space location with the notification families it currently inherits.
Preferences affect future notification creation. They do not merge the separate unread systems for Chat, Direct Messages, joined spaces, or activities into this center. See Notification Preferences for the model, or follow Manage Notification Preferences to adjust it step by step.
Current Delivery Boundaries
Notifications are currently in-app only. Visual Space does not send these center updates by email or device push, and it does not play a notification sound.
Meeting reminders do not currently arrive in the notification center. Check the relevant meeting or event context for current schedule information.
The center refreshes when it opens and can refresh when a supported realtime update arrives while you are online. Grouped comment and reaction bursts may wait until the next time the panel loads. There is no active background polling that guarantees the center refreshes while it remains closed.
Common Questions
Why did a new Chat message not appear in Notifications?
Ordinary Chat messages use Chat's own realtime and unread experience. The global center stays low-noise, although supported Chat Awards and message reactions can appear there and route back to the conversation.
Does opening one notification mark only that row as read?
No. Once the panel has loaded, opening the center acknowledges all currently unread global notification rows. Newly arrived items are highlighted briefly so you can still identify them.
Why do several reactions appear as one row?
Comments and reactions are grouped by their target. The row shows the activity that is new since your previous check and moves back to the top when another round arrives.
Can I receive the same notifications by email or on my phone?
Not currently. Delivery is limited to the in-app center; email, device push, and sound are not active channels.
Will Notifications remind me before a meeting?
No active meeting-reminder source currently sends rows to the center. Use the meeting or event surface to review its schedule.
Why is there no number on the Notifications button?
The tools-bar unread counter is not currently active. Open Notifications to load and review the current list.
Can I turn off updates from one activity without changing every space?
Yes. Keep the global family choice, then create an exception for that joined activity from Notification preferences. Space and subspace exceptions work the same way.