Everything the lab needs to tell you arrives in one place. This article covers reading them. For choosing which ones you get, see Your profile, timezone and notifications. Most of what arrives here is triggered by stock running down, so Update, consume, or adjust an item's quantity is the other half of the picture, and running low without anyone noticing is the problem the whole thing exists to solve.
The bell
The bell in the top bar shows your unread count. Open it to see Needs attention stock rows, Expiring lots, and recent notifications.
- Clicking one marks it read and takes you to whatever it is about.
- Mark all read clears the count without opening anything. The list stays where it is so you can still see what you just cleared.
- View All Notifications opens the full page.
New notifications appear in the bell as they arrive. You do not need to reload the page.
If the count cannot be worked out for some reason, the bell shows an exclamation mark rather than a number, so an unknown count never looks like zero.
The notifications page
View All Notifications, or the Notifications item in the sidebar, opens the full history.
Notifications are grouped by day, with Today and Yesterday named rather than dated. Within a day, several of the same kind collapse into a single line, so five low-stock alerts read as "5 items are running low" instead of filling the screen. Open the line to see them individually.
The chips along the top filter by category: All, Stock, Forecast, Expiry, Experiments, Team, Reports. Unread only shows unread notifications within that selection. The count underneath tells you how many of the total you are looking at.
Load more fetches the next batch. The list you were reading stays on screen while it loads.
How long they are kept
Notifications are kept for 30 days and then removed.
They are a list of things needing attention, not a permanent record. If you need the history of what happened to an item, that is the Audit Log, which keeps everything.
Summary emails
If you switch a category’s Digest column on, those notifications are collected into a scheduled summary email. Email is a separate channel; leaving it on can also send notification emails between summaries.
The email groups items the same way the page does, and links back to the app. Every summary carries an unsubscribe link, which stops the summary emails and nothing else. Password resets, invites and anything else you actually need still reach you.
A period with nothing in it sends nothing.
Running-out forecasts
A running-out forecast is different from a low stock alert. Low stock tells you an item has fallen below a number you set. A forecast tells you how fast an item is being used and when it will reach zero, so it can warn you before the number is hit at all.
It says the rate in plain terms, for example that at roughly 12 mL a day the 40 mL on hand will last about three days.
A forecast is raised once, and then left alone for about a week so it does not nag. You hear about it again if it becomes urgent, or if it is still a problem once that week is up.
An urgent forecast notifies the people reached by that stock, including anyone who had asked for quiet. Asking for fewer reminders about a slow problem does not hide a later escalation.
Open the bell’s Needs attention group for the current stock warnings and running-out forecasts. Its rows offer these controls:
| Button | What it does |
|---|---|
| Quiet for me, 7 days | Quiets that row’s stock warning and running-out notice for you for 7 days. Your alerts stay set and resume automatically; other recipients are unaffected. |
| Note for reorder | Records that a reorder is coming for the people this stock or alert tells. It does not quiet notifications for you or anyone else. |
While a row is quiet, it shows the quiet-until date and a Turn back on button. Use it to resume your notifications early.
The difference matters when several people share an item.
Quiet for me, 7 days changes only your notification delivery. Note for reorder shares information with the row’s recipients. The note deliberately leaves alerts active, so the person handling an order still hears if the stock remains a problem.
The row shows who has noted a reorder. After you add your note, the button becomes Undo my note. It removes only your note; you cannot add or remove a note on someone else’s behalf.
When stock recovers, its running-out state clears. If it runs out after a forecast, the bell can keep the row as out of stock. Older notifications remain in the history; use the bell’s current row for these actions.