Admin notifications
The admin Notifications page is where platform admins send announcements to users — service-status updates, new-feature launches, security advisories, or important policy changes. Notifications fire through OneSignal (push) and / or in-app banners and / or email, depending on the target audience and urgency.
This page is used sparingly. Sending too many platform notifications trains users to ignore them.
What admins send
| Notification type | Use |
|---|---|
| Service-status alert | "Sync is temporarily slow — investigating" |
| Feature launch | "Memory maps just launched — try it out" |
| Security advisory | "We've fixed a vulnerability — please update the app" |
| Policy change | "Privacy policy updated — review and accept" |
| Survey invitation | "Help us improve LifeWell — 5-minute survey" (opt-in only) |
| Outage post-mortem | "Yesterday's brief outage explained" |
Configuring a notification
The form asks:
| Field | Notes |
|---|---|
| Audience | All users / premium only / free only / specific country / opt-in to surveys |
| Channels | Push / in-app banner / email (one or more) |
| Priority | Low / normal / high (high bypasses quiet hours) |
| Title | Short headline |
| Body | Brief description (push limit ~120 chars; in-app longer) |
| Action | Optional CTA — link to docs / settings / specific page |
| Schedule | Now / specific time / deferred |
Preview is mandatory — see exactly what the user sees before sending.
Confirmation flow
For high-volume notifications:
- Configure as above.
- Tap Preview to see the rendered notification.
- Tap Send — system prompts for confirmation.
- If audience is large (>10,000 users), a second admin must approve before the send fires.
- After approval, the send goes to OneSignal's API.
- Delivery typically completes within minutes.
The dual-admin check on large sends prevents accidental "send to everyone" mistakes.
Per-channel routing
- Push: via OneSignal → FCM (Android) + APNs (iOS) + browser push.
- In-app banner: rendered on the dashboard on next page load.
- Email: via the email provider (separate from LifeWell's core stack).
Users can opt-out of marketing notifications via Preferences. Critical security and policy notifications can't be opted-out (they're delivered regardless).
What admins should NOT send
- Marketing pressure ("upgrade to premium now!" — annoying).
- Engagement-baiting ("you haven't opened LifeWell in 3 days").
- Misinformation about health topics — that's a community-admin issue, not an admin notification.
- Cross-promotion for unrelated products.
The discipline matters: every notification trains users on whether to take future ones seriously.
Audit log
Every notification logs:
- Admin who sent.
- Timestamp.
- Audience size.
- Channels used.
- Content snapshot.
Anyone can query the audit log via the dashboard.
Delivery metrics
After sending, the page shows:
- Sent count (target audience size).
- Delivered count (OneSignal delivery success).
- Opened count (users who tapped the notification).
- Action count (users who tapped the CTA).
These help calibrate future sends; they're not for ad-style A/B testing.
What this page is not
- Not a marketing automation system. No multi-step drip campaigns.
- Not a user-segmentation engine beyond the few coarse audience filters.
- Not personalised. Same content to everyone in the chosen audience.
Where to read next
- Push notifications — the user-side delivery.
- Reminders — user-set reminders (distinct from platform notifications).
Last updated: 2026-05-11 Author: Ahsan Mahmood