Why notifications matter
TD
Taylor Diaz · Sales Director
"A rep was assigned a hot lead Friday afternoon and didn't open it until Monday morning. A competitor called first. That lead — and the deal — was gone before we even got a chance."
Work that's assigned but not surfaced is functionally the same as work that was never assigned at all. The CRM needs to actively push important events to the right person, not just passively store them.
Business outcome
Hand-offs are seen within minutes, not days — nothing important slips through because it arrived at the wrong time.Anatomy of a notification
An in-app bell icon shows an unread count for the current user. Notifications are created automatically from three different sources across the platform:
| Trigger | Who receives it |
|---|---|
| Record CREATE | The record owner (if different from the person who created it) |
| Workflow "Notification" action | The recipients configured in that Workflow Rule |
| Approval request submitted | The approver(s) for the current step |
| Approval approved / rejected | The person who originally submitted the record |
Scoped to you, and only you
Every notification carries both an orgId and a recipientUsername — you only ever see notifications addressed to you, within your own org.Trigger and clear a notification
Assign a record to a teammateOpen any Lead or Opportunity and change its Owner to another user in your org.
Log in as that teammateCheck the bell icon in the top navigation — the unread count should have incremented.
Open the notificationClick the bell → the notification links directly to the record that was assigned.
Mark it readUse "Mark all as read" on the Notifications page and confirm the badge count clears.
Go further
Build a Workflow Rule with a Notification action (see the Workflow Automation trail) and watch a notification appear the moment your criteria are met — no ownership change required.Test what you learned
1. Does SmartLite push notifications instantly over a live connection (e.g. WebSocket)?
Yes, over a persistent WebSocket connection
No — the unread count is polled periodically from the frontend
2. When an Approval request is rejected, who receives a notification?
Every user in the org
The person who originally submitted the record for approval
Only the system administrator