Notifications

When notifications are available in your deployment, a bell sits in the main navigation. The small number on the bell (and on the Unread tab of the Notifications page) is your unread count; it shows 99+ when there are more than 99.

Select the bell to see your newest notices in a small panel over the page you are on (on a phone it fills the screen below the top bar). Each notice shows its title, one line of detail and, at the top right, how long ago it arrived (such as 3 h ago or 2 wk ago; point at it to see the full date and time); unread notices have bold titles and a dot. Select a notice to open it in place: opening it marks it as read. Point at a notice, or move to it with the keyboard, to see two small buttons in place of its time: Mark as read (an open envelope) or Mark as unread (a closed envelope), and Dismiss (×). Each shows its name when you point at it. An open notice always shows them beside its time, and on a phone or other touch screen they are always there, under the time. The ⋮ menu in the panel offers Mark all as read (every unread notice), Clear all (every notice, not only those shown in the panel, except invitations still waiting for your answer) and, when notification emails are available, Email preferences. Press Escape, select outside the panel or select the bell again to close it; on a phone, select Close (×) at the top left of the panel. See all in Notifications opens the full page.

Your notifications include completed imports and exports, project invitations, new review access and configured workload changes. Each notice is a row. Select a row (or its arrow, on a wider screen) to open it in place: it shows the project it is about (by a folder icon), the message, and the buttons for what you can do next. Select Details (at the start of the row of buttons; it is highlighted with a tick while open) to see what the notice is about and its history: when it was sent, read, and answered or resolved. Opening a notice marks it as read. Select Mark as unread if you want to come back to it. Reading a notice never changes the related project, export or invitation.

The tabs at the top show All your open notices, the Unread ones, the Resolved ones (whose work is finished, such as an invitation you have answered: once answered, it moves from All and the bell panel to Resolved) and the Dismissed ones. Type in Search to find a notice by what it says: its title, its line of detail or its kind (such as Export completed), in upper or lower case, up to 200 characters. The list updates when you pause typing. Filters narrows the list by kind of notice or by project; the projects offered are those of your notices on that tab that you can still open. Each filter you choose shows as a chip you can remove. Search and filters cover all your notifications on the tab, not only those loaded on the page, and while one is on, a line under the search field says how many notices match (for example 12 results, or 999+ results for more than 999). Select Show older notices to load more of them.

Unread notices have bold titles and a dot. Mark as read (or Mark as unread) and Dismiss are small icons at the right of each row: point at a row, or move to it with the keyboard, to see them in place of its time; an open notice always shows them beside its time. On a phone or tablet they are always there, under the time at the top right of each row (touch and hold one to see its name), and you can swipe a closed row: left to dismiss it, right to mark it as read or unread. Each swipe offers Undo.

To tidy your notifications, select Dismiss on a notice. A dismissed notice leaves your unread count but stays in your history: select Undo straight away, or find it under Dismissed and select Restore (the undo arrow beside its time). Mark all as read in the Notifications menu marks every notice shown as read. While a search or filter is on, it reads Mark matching as read instead: it marks as read every unread notice your search and filters find on the tab, including older ones not yet loaded on the page, and nothing they leave out. It never marks a notice that arrived after your list was shown. A message says how many it marked (or Nothing to mark as read.). Dismissing a notice never answers, cancels or changes the work it is about, and nor does marking one as read.

Clear all dismisses every notice on the tab you are looking at (All, Unread or Resolved), read or unread, including older ones not yet loaded on the page. While a search or filter is on, the menu item reads Clear matching instead: it clears exactly the notices your search and filters find, and nothing they leave out. It keeps the notices still waiting for your answer, such as an invitation you have not yet accepted or declined. It never clears a notice that arrived after your list was shown, even an older one delivered late, and on Resolved it keeps one resolved after your list was shown. A message says how many it cleared and how many still wait (for example 14 notices cleared. 1 invitation still waits for your answer.); select Undo to bring back exactly those notices. If there was nothing to clear it says so (for example Nothing to clear. 1 invitation still waits for your answer.). Cleared notices stay in your history under Dismissed. Clear all and Clear matching are not available under Dismissed. A link to a saved notice, such as one in an email, opens Notifications with that notice open.

Notifications refresh as events arrive, and saved notices come back when your connection returns. If loading fails, select Retry. Refreshing the browser keeps your saved history, read status and dismissed notices.

Only you can read your notifications. A notice shows as unread (with a dot) only while it still needs you: once its work is finished, such as an invitation you answered, it no longer counts as unread.

If you can no longer open what a notice is about (for example, an invitation was withdrawn, your review access was removed or you left the project), SyRF dismisses it for you. It moves to Dismissed, shows only the kind of notice and Dismissed automatically: no longer available, and cannot be restored.

An export notice shows how many studies the export processed; Open export page returns to the project’s export page. Exports are downloaded to your browser when you run them; a notification does not store another copy of the file. A completed import shows the search name and number of studies imported. Open searches returns to the project’s searches page. Only imports started while notifications are available have an established personal recipient; older imports are not added retrospectively.

Project invitations for registered accounts appear in the recipient’s notifications. Open the card to read the invitation’s message, shown in italics under the name of the person who invited you, and select Accept to join the project, or Decline (you are asked to confirm, because you cannot accept a declined invitation later). Once you answer, the notice leaves All and the bell panel, moves to Resolved and stays readable there: an accepted invitation offers Open project while you are a member, and a declined one shows the project’s name. Opening or dismissing an invitation notice does not answer it. Existing invitation emails continue, including invitations sent to addresses that do not yet have a SyRF account.

New review access appears when a committed membership or permission change grants you review access to a stage. Workload changed shows your own allocation and the number of reviews required per study before and after the change. Unrelated group edits and unchanged allocation settings do not create another notification. Claiming an individual study stays silent.

Select Open stage to enter an active stage you can currently review. If the stage is inactive, the notification explains that and keeps its context without offering a review link. Reading these notifications does not change your permissions, allocation or study work.

When release notices are available in your deployment, a New feature notice tells you about a feature that has just become available to you. It shows the same text as What’s New; Read the guide opens the feature’s guide page, and Try it (where the feature has a guided tour) takes you to it and starts the tour. A release notice is not about a project, so it shows no project (folder) line, and Details shows only its history. Release notices are never emailed. Reading or dismissing a release notice does the same on What’s New, and reading the entry on What’s New marks its notice as read, so you are not told twice. If you hide the entry on What’s New first, you get no notice, and if you hide it later, the notice stays in your history but no longer counts as unread. You can still mark a release notice as unread to come back to it; it stays unread until you open it again. Restoring a dismissed release notice brings it back to your notifications only: the entry stays hidden on What’s New. If the feature is withdrawn, its notice is dismissed automatically.

When notification email is available in your deployment, select Email preferences in the Notifications menu to choose which kinds of notification can also send you an email. Each kind has three buttons, Off, Immediately and Daily digest, and every kind starts Off. Choose Immediately and select Save preferences to receive an email that links to the saved notification. Turning a kind on does not email its older history. Reading a notice does not cancel an email, unless you then switch that kind to Daily digest, which leaves out notices you have already read or dismissed.

SyRF checks your preferences and your current access again just before it sends. Choosing Off stops unsent email of that kind; your notifications stay as they are. Dismissing a notice does not cancel an email that is already due for it, unless you then switch that kind to Daily digest. SyRF never sends an immediate email for a notice more than 24 hours old. Your administrators may pause notification email for a while; emails wait and are sent once when it resumes, unless you have turned them off or the notice is by then too old (24 hours for immediate emails, 48 hours for daily digests). Invitation and account emails are sent as before, whatever you choose here.

Choose Daily digest instead to receive one email a day listing your unread notifications of that kind since your previous digest, each linking to its saved notification in SyRF. A digest lists up to 100; any more go in the next one. Once a kind uses the digest, the Daily digest section shows your Time zone and Send time. Start typing a city or region to pick a time zone; each one shows its current difference from UTC. Pick a send time from the clock button’s list (every half hour) or type one, such as 08:30. If you have never set a schedule, the time zone starts as your device’s own and the time as 09:00; nothing changes until you select Save preferences. A line under the fields says when your next digest will be sent, for example Next digest: Wednesday 4 November at 09:00 (Europe/London). If you turn on email for a kind after today’s send time, its first digest arrives the next day. Switching a kind from Immediately to Daily digest takes effect at once: unread notifications of that kind that have not been emailed yet go into your next digest, which is today’s if today’s has not been prepared yet.

Each digest is prepared at your send time from the notifications that are then unread, not dismissed and not resolved. Reading or dismissing one afterwards does not take it out of that digest. SyRF checks your preferences and access again before sending, so turning a kind off still removes it, and switching it to Immediately sends it as an immediate email instead. If you change your send time or timezone, the change takes effect at the next send time, or straight away if your new send time for today has already passed and today’s digest has not been sent. Either way, that digest includes everything since your previous one. A digest never includes a notification more than 48 hours old, so if email was paused or off for longer than that, the older notifications stay in your notifications list only.

Preview your daily digest

Select Preview daily digest to see the email a digest prepared now would send you, from your saved preferences (save any changes first). Nothing is sent, and previewing changes nothing: the notifications in it stay unread and still go in your next digest. The preview leaves out what the digest would leave out: notifications you have read, dismissed or that are resolved, ones you can no longer open, ones in a muted project, and ones more than 48 hours old. If nothing would be sent, the preview says so and shows when your next digest is due. If a digest has already been prepared but not sent yet (for example while email is paused), the preview shows that digest and the time it was prepared for. If nothing in it can still be sent (its notifications were muted, turned off, moved to immediate email or are no longer available), the preview says that digest has nothing left to send, and that digest won’t be sent. A notification moved to immediate email is still emailed on its own.

A digest groups notifications by project, with the ones that need you (such as an invitation waiting for your answer) first and marked Needs you. Other lines can carry a short status after their name: Completed with problems for an export that had errors, or You accepted the invitation / You declined the invitation. Each line names the kind of notification, shows when it arrived (the time for today, or the date and time for an earlier day) and links to it in SyRF, which checks your access before showing anything.

Mute a project’s email

Each project in a digest has a Mute email for link. Following it mutes that project’s email at once and offers Undo. A muted project sends you no email, immediate or digest; its notifications still appear in Notifications. Your muted projects are listed under Muted projects in Email preferences; select Unmute to receive their email again.

Reconciliation questions

When reconciliation conversations are available in your deployment, a reconciler can question reviewers who have completed their own review of the study. Choose the reviewers and write a question below the candidate forms. To ask about one question of the form, choose it under About; otherwise the question is about the whole study. Reviewers are named by a code that is new for each study, such as Reviewer 7Q, never by name. The codes match the candidate forms and do not change when another reviewer reopens or finishes a review. A reviewer who has been questioned, by you or by another reconciler of the same study and stage, is marked Questioned during reconciliation with the date, and replied once a reply exists, both beside their name in the question form and above their candidate form. The mark shows only that they were questioned, never what was asked or by whom. A question does not change any annotation or reconciliation answer.

Each reviewer you choose gets a separate, private conversation with you. Reviewers cannot see one another’s questions or replies, and a reviewer’s reply is sent to you alone. Only you and that reviewer can read and reply, while you both keep your current stage access. Reviewers who have not completed their review are not offered. If you have reviewed the study yourself, in any stage of the project and whether or not you finished, you cannot question its reviewers or send follow-ups: the page explains this instead of offering the question form, though earlier conversations remain readable.

A Question from the reconciler, or a reply such as Reviewer 7Q replied, appears in your Notifications and in the bell panel. Open it to read the message: messages appear as speech bubbles, yours on the right. A reply also shows your own last message above it. To answer straight away, select Reply, write in the box that opens and select the send button inside it (or press Ctrl + Enter); the line under the box says who will read it. Your reply then shows in the notice, which is marked You replied and moves to Resolved once you leave Notifications or close the panel. A new message from the other person arrives as a new notice. Select Open conversation to see the whole conversation.

The conversation page shows the project, the stage and the study as text, and the form question it is about, if any. A reviewer is never sent into the study’s editable review page from here; the reconciler’s Open study link returns to the reconciliation page. The reconciler sees Read and the time under each of their messages once the reviewer has opened it (its notice, or the conversation) or replied after it. The time is the first opening and does not change; marking a notice as read or unread in Notifications, or Mark all as read, neither adds nor removes it. Under Details the reconciler also sees when the reviewer was first questioned, the status of their review at that time and when they first replied. Reviewers are told that the reconciler can see when they read a message. Marking a notice as read does not answer the question or close the conversation.

If your access changes, the notice and the conversation may become unavailable. An inactive stage or a removed candidate can leave the history readable but turn off replies, and then the notice offers no Reply. If a send is not confirmed, retry with the same text and reviewers; if the conversation changed, reload before replying. Each post allows up to 4,000 characters, and each conversation keeps up to 100 posts. While reconciliation conversations are switched off for your deployment, these questions and conversations are hidden, their notices leave your unread count, and any conversation emails waiting at that moment are not sent later.