Notification Types

Notifications are at the core of Echobell's functionality. This guide explains how notifications work, the different types available, and how to customize them for your needs.

When subscribing to a channel, you can choose from three notification types based on urgency:

Normal: Standard app notifications for routine alerts. These follow your device's normal notification settings.
Time Sensitive: High-priority notifications that can break through certain focus modes. Use these for important alerts that shouldn't be missed.
Calling: Call-like alerts for critical situations that demand immediate attention. These notifications appear as incoming calls on your device.

The Level You Choose Is a Ceiling

The type you choose is the highest level the channel can reach you at. A webhook request can send notificationType (active, time-sensitive or calling) to ask for a lower level, never a higher one.

For example, subscribe to your production channel at Calling. Outage alerts that leave notificationType out ring like a phone call, while routine events that send notificationType=active arrive as normal notifications. Someone who subscribed to the same channel at Normal never gets a call, whatever the request asks for.

A channel calls each subscriber at most once a minute. Another call within that minute arrives as a time-sensitive notification instead, so a script stuck in a retry loop can't ring your phone over and over.

Channels with a custom template ignore notificationType in the request, so every subscriber always gets the type they chose. See Webhooks for details.

Notification Content

By default, a channel shows the title and body each request sends; the title defaults to the channel name. If you turn on Custom Template under Advanced Settings in the channel's settings, the channel builds the notification from templates instead:

Title Template: Determines what appears in the notification header
Body Template: Controls the main content of the notification

Templates support dynamic variables using the {{variableName}} syntax. For example:

Title: {{server}} status alert
Body: {{message}} detected at {{timestamp}}

Variables in Notifications

Webhook Variables

On a channel with a custom template, every field of a webhook request becomes a variable. You can provide variables through:

Query parameters: https://hook.echobell.one/t/<channel-token>?server=production&status=critical
JSON body:

{
  "server": "production",
  "status": "critical"
}

Special Variables:

externalLink: When included, creates a clickable link in the notification records view

Email Variables

When triggering via email, these variables are automatically available:

from: Sender's email address
to: Recipient's email address
subject: Email subject line
text: Plain text content
html: HTML content of the email

Privacy and Storage

Echobell takes a privacy-first approach to notification handling:

Notification content and history are stored exclusively on your local device
Only essential data (user accounts, channel configurations, and subscriptions) is stored on servers
Your notification data never leaves your control

App Settings

Configure how notifications behave through these settings:

Repeat Voice Content: For call notifications, enables repeating the notification content
Retry Failed Call: Automatically retries call notifications that failed due to Focus Mode or other reasons

Important Notes

The app requires notification permission to function properly
Notifications are delivered in real-time when channels are triggered
You can receive notifications from both channels you create and channels you subscribe to
Different notification types can be used for different levels of urgency