---
title: "Notification Types - Push, Time-Sensitive & Calls"
sidebarTitle: Notifications
description: "Compare Echobell notification types: normal push, time-sensitive alerts that break through Focus Mode, and phone call alerts for critical events."
---

# Notifications in Echobell

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.

## Notification Types

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](/docs/webhook#notification-level) 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:

```json
{
  "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