Notifications

Notifications are how Trac tells you something happened when you weren’t looking. A task gets assigned to you, a monitor you set up trips, an account stops updating, someone undoes a reconciliation you finished — each of those writes a notification, and each can also reach you by email or as a browser banner if you want it to.

This page covers reading your notifications, clearing them, choosing what reaches you outside the app, connecting a browser for push, and setting up the one kind of notification you write yourself: a monitor.

Find what you need#

A few ideas carry the whole feature:

The inbox is always on. Every notification lands in Trac whatever your settings say. The settings only decide what also chases you outside the app. See Your inbox.
There are five kinds, and each one is a separate setting. See What Trac notifies you about.
Three ways to be reached, per kind: an instant email, a line in one daily summary email, and a browser banner. They’re independent — you can have all three, or none. See Choose what reaches you.
Push belongs to a browser, not to you. You connect each browser once, and until you do, every Push switch is greyed out. See Push to this browser.
Monitors are the ones you write. Everything else Trac decides to send; a monitor is a rule you set on a holding or the whole portfolio. See Monitors.

Jump straight to a task:

Read and clear your notifications
Open one and act on it
Stop an email you don’t want
Turn on browser banners
Understand the daily summary email
Watch a holding’s value or activity
Check your monitors right now
Troubleshooting

Open your notifications#

The bell sits in the bottom cluster of the left sidebar, below the list of destinations, next to Ask Traci and your account. It carries a badge with the number of unread notifications, and the count refreshes about once a minute while you’re in the app.

The bell lives in the bottom cluster on purpose: that part of the sidebar never scrolls, so the badge can’t get pushed out of sight exactly when it matters.

Tap it to open the Notifications screen.

Your notifications and your notification settings both follow the portfolio you’re in. Switch portfolio and you’re looking at a different inbox.

Your inbox#

The screen is three tabs, a Monitors button, and the list.

Unread (N) — the default, and the only tab that carries a count.
All — everything still in your inbox, read or not.
Archived — everything you’ve archived.

Under the tabs are two bulk actions, which appear only when there’s something for them to do:

Mark all read — marks everything currently in your inbox read. It takes a snapshot at the moment you tap it, so a notification that arrives a second later isn’t silently swallowed.
Archive read (N) — moves every already-read notification out of the inbox in one go. It never touches unread ones.

The list is grouped into Today, Yesterday and Earlier, one card per group, newest first.

Trac keeps notifications for 90 days. After that they’re removed automatically — including archived ones. An empty All tab says “No notifications in the last 90 days” rather than pretending nothing ever happened.

A notification row#

Each row is:

A dot on the left. Filled and coloured means unread; hollow means read. The dot is also the control — tap it to flip a notification between read and unread without opening it.
An icon for what kind it is, so the list scans by category at a glance.
A headline. For a monitor this is the monitor itself (“Growth Fund: value below $500,000”), because two monitors watching one holding can produce word-for-word identical messages and the rule’s own description is the only thing that tells them apart. For everything else it’s the notification’s title.
The message, and how long ago it arrived.
An archive button on the right. In the Archived tab it becomes put back.

A notification you mark read from the Unread tab stays put for a second before it leaves, so a row never vanishes out from under the click that read it.

Open a notification#

Tap the message to open it. It opens as a panel over the list rather than navigating away, so you can read it, see where it came from, act on it, and carry on down the list.

The panel shows:

The full message.
The holding it’s about, as a chip you can tap to go there — when the notification is about one.
Monitor (for a monitor) or From (for everything else) — the rule that fired, or the person who did the thing.
Received — the exact date and time, which the “2 hours ago” on the row hides.
Open — goes to whatever the notification is about: the task, the holding, the reconciliation. Some notifications have nowhere to go, and those say so plainly (“There is nothing to open for this one”) rather than offering a button that does nothing.
Mark unread and Archive.

Opening a notification marks it read.

Archiving#

Archiving is not deleting. An archived notification leaves your inbox, stops counting toward the bell badge, and stops appearing in the daily summary — but it’s still there under the Archived tab, and put back returns it to the inbox. Nothing is destroyed until the 90 days run out.

What Trac notifies you about#

There are five kinds. Each is one row on the settings screen with its own switches, and the (i) beside each name lists exactly what fires it.

Monitors — the rules you write yourself. Checked once a day after values update, or whenever you scan them. Fires when:

A value you watch crosses a threshold, up or down
A value moves more than a percentage you set, over a period you choose
A holding passes the share of the portfolio you set
A transaction you watch posts, or fails to post when you expected it

Tasks — as it happens. Fires when:

A task or data issue is assigned to you
Someone mentions you, or comments on a task you follow
Traci reports back on a task, or needs something from you

Traci jobs — when the job finishes. A job you started from a task reports on that task instead, and a scheduled job that finds nothing stays quiet. Fires when:

A job you started finished and had something to report
A job you started needs a decision from you
A job you started failed

Data issues — once per issue, when it’s first found, and everyone on the portfolio is told. A problem that persists doesn’t tell you again. Fires when:

A holding’s value does not match its source
A holding’s unit count does not match its source
An account’s authorization expired
An account stopped updating
An account connection was suspended

Reconciliation — as it happens, to whoever reconciled the period. Fires when:

Someone undid, reopened, or cleared a reconciliation you completed

Choose what reaches you#

Go to Settings → the Profile tab → the Personal toggle → the Notifications block.

You’ll find two cards:

On this browser — settings that follow this machine. See Push to this browser.
For you, in this portfolio — one row per kind, each with its delivery switches.

“For you, in this portfolio” is literal: these are yours alone (a colleague’s settings are their own) and they apply to the portfolio you’re currently in.

The three switches#

Every category row carries the same three:

Instant email — one email the moment a notification of this kind is created.
Daily summary — include this kind in the single end-of-day email.
Push — a browser or OS banner the moment it’s created. Needs this browser connected.

The in-app inbox is deliberately not one of the switches. It’s always on and can’t be turned off, which is why it’s safe to switch the other three off: the notification is still waiting for you in Trac.

The two email switches are independent, not alternatives. The daily summary is a record of the day — it includes things you already read and things you were already emailed about — so wanting both an instant email and the summary is a perfectly sensible combination.

Tap or hover a switch’s label to see what it does. On a touch screen, the (i) beside the category name opens the same explanation.

What you start with#

Defaults are quiet, and you opt up:

Monitors — daily summary and push on.
Tasks — daily summary on.
Traci jobs — instant email and push on.
Data issues — daily summary on.
Reconciliation — daily summary on.

Why Monitors has no instant email#

The Instant email switch on the Monitors row is greyed out, and hovering it explains why: “Monitors are only checked once a day, so an email cannot be sent the moment one would be triggered.”

A monitor doesn’t notice something at 2pm and wait — it fires when it’s checked, and it’s checked once a day. There’s no “moment” for an instant email to be sent at. The daily summary and push both still work.

Push to this browser#

Push banners are a browser feature, and a browser has to be connected before any of them can arrive.

In Settings → Profile → Personal → Notifications, the On this browser card holds:

Push to this browser — the connection switch. Turn it on and your browser asks for permission; allow it, and the card says Connected.
Suppress update notifications — hides the “a new web version is available” banner on this device. Unrelated to the rest of this page; it lives here because it’s the other setting that decides whether something interrupts you on this particular machine.

Three things are worth knowing:

It’s per browser, and per portfolio. Connect your laptop and your desktop separately. Switching portfolio or signing in as someone else in the same browser re-registers it automatically — you don’t have to reconnect.
Until it’s connected, every Push switch is greyed out and reads as off, even if you’d turned one on before. That’s the truth of the situation: nothing would arrive.
If you blocked notifications in your browser, the card says so and the switch is unusable until you re-enable notifications for the site in your browser’s own settings and reload. Trac can’t undo a browser-level block.

Tapping a push banner opens that notification’s detail in Trac — not just the app’s front door. A banner arrives with no context, so it takes you to the thing it’s about.

If your Trac doesn’t have push set up, the “On this browser” card doesn’t appear at all, and the per-category Push switches stay greyed. Ask whoever administers your Trac; it’s a one-time setup on their side, not something you can switch on.

The daily summary email#

One email a day, sent after the daily run, with everything from the last day in the categories you routed to Daily summary.

Subject: “Trac: your daily summary (N updates)”, where N is the number of lines the email actually contains.
Grouped by category — Monitors, Tasks, Traci jobs, Data issues, Reconciliation — with one bullet per notification and an open link where there’s something to open.
It includes things you already read. It’s a record of the day, not a list of what you missed, so it reads the same whether or not you were working in Trac that afternoon.
Repeats collapse. One monitor that fired several times is one line marked “(3 times today)”, and a run of identical data-issue lines about the same holding collapses the same way.
Settled data issues drop out. An issue that was found and then resolved the same day isn’t in the evening email — you’d be told to look at something that no longer needs you.
Every notification email ends with a Manage notification preferences link straight to your settings.

Turn Daily summary off for every category and you simply won’t get the email.

Instant emails are the same shape, one per notification: the subject is the notification’s own headline, and the body is the message plus an Open in Trac link.

Monitors#

Everything else on this page is Trac deciding to tell you something. A monitor is a rule you write: watch this holding (or the whole portfolio), and tell me when this happens.

Open them with the Monitors button at the top right of the Notifications screen.

Create a monitor#

Tap + in the Monitors panel. A monitor is either a Value monitor or an Activity monitor.

Watch — the holding you’re watching, or your whole portfolio.

Value monitors ask about what something is worth:

Value rises above / Value falls below — an amount.
% change over a period — a percentage, plus a window of 1d, 7d or 30d.
Portfolio weight exceeds — a percentage. Only available when you’re watching one holding, since the whole portfolio is always 100% of itself.

Activity monitors ask whether a transaction happened:

Activity — Any activity, Buy, Sell, Dividend, Fee, Transfer, or a liability payment. The grouped options list the exact transaction types they cover underneath, so you don’t have to guess.
When to check — Any time, Monthly, Quarterly, or On a date.
For Any time, an optional Amount over floor so small transactions don’t trip it.
For the scheduled options, Tell me: Only if it happens, Only if missing, or Either way — which is how you turn “the dividend I expect every quarter didn’t arrive” into a notification. You also set the day of the month (or the exact date), and an optional amount floor.

Frequency, on both types:

Every day (value) / Every time (activity) — keeps firing while the condition holds.
Once — fires once, then disarms itself.

If you build a monitor identical to one you already have, Trac warns you rather than blocking you — two identical rules produce two identical notifications, which is worth knowing but is occasionally what you want.

Managing monitors#

Each row in the Monitors list reads the rule back as a sentence (“Portfolio value above $2,000,000 · daily while true”). Tap the row to edit it, use the switch to arm or disarm it, and the bin to delete it.

A Once monitor that has already fired shows “Fired — save again to re-arm”, and its switch reads off — because it is off, whatever it was set to before. Saving it again (or flipping the switch back on) re-arms it.

Scan now#

Monitors are checked once a day. Scan now, at the top of the Monitors panel, checks yours immediately without waiting.

It lists every monitor you own with what just happened to it: “Triggered just now”, “Checked, not triggered”, “Already fired, not checked — save again to re-arm”, or “Off, not checked”. A rule missing from the list would read as one the scan lost, so nothing is hidden.
Anything it finds lands in your inbox, but a scan deliberately sends no email and no push. Those rows still ride the evening summary if you route monitors to it.
There’s a two-minute cooldown. Press it again too soon and it tells you how long to wait rather than failing.

Monitors on one holding#

A holding’s own page has a bell beside its ⋯ menu. It opens two panes: the notifications about that holding, and the monitors watching it — the same rows and the same editor as the main screen, scoped to that one holding.

The holding bell has no Archived tab and no archiving, deliberately: with nowhere to see an archived row there’d be nowhere to undo one. Archive from the main Notifications screen instead.

One caveat: activity monitors read structured transaction entries. If a holding is still on the legacy transaction model, the form says so and won’t let you build an activity monitor for it — one saved there would sit armed and never fire. Value monitors work as normal on those holdings.

Troubleshooting#

I’m not getting any emails. Check the category’s switches in Settings → Profile → Personal → Notifications. Defaults are quiet: everything except Traci jobs starts with instant email off. Also check the category is the one you think it is — a mention on a task is a Task, not a Monitor.
The Push switches are all greyed out. No browser is connected. Turn on Push to this browser in the “On this browser” card above them. If that card isn’t there at all, push isn’t set up for your Trac — ask your administrator.
I connected push but nothing arrives. Confirm the card says “Connected.” and that the specific category’s Push switch is on. Each browser connects separately, so a banner on your laptop doesn’t mean your desktop is connected.
My browser says notifications are blocked. Trac can’t undo that. Re-enable notifications for the site in your browser’s settings, then reload.
My monitor never fired. Check it’s armed in the Monitors list, then press Scan now — the per-rule lines tell you whether it was checked and what the verdict was. A Once monitor that already fired won’t fire again until you save it. An activity monitor on a legacy holding can’t fire at all.
My monitor fired but I got no email. Monitors have no instant-email option — they’re checked once a day. Use Daily summary or Push. And a Scan now never emails, by design.
A notification disappeared. Check the Archived tab and use put back. If it’s older than 90 days it’s gone for good.
I archived the whole inbox by accident. Archive read only moves rows you’d already read; open Archived and put back whatever you want.
The bell badge doesn’t match the list. The badge counts unread rows and refreshes about once a minute. Reload if the two look out of step after that.

Dashboard — the values monitors watch, and where a whole-portfolio monitor’s notification takes you.
Feed — the activity stream, as opposed to this list of things that need you.
Activities — the transactions activity monitors watch for.
Traci, the AI Assistant — the assistant whose jobs produce the Traci jobs category.
Automation rules — rules that change your data, as opposed to monitors, which only tell you about it.