# Feature COMMS-73 - Continuously update the notification center. Don't ask for loading updates.

Project: Stream Communicator
Status: closed
URL: https://community.openproject.org/work_packages/COMMS-73

## Planning

| Attribute | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Date |  |
| Priority | Medium |
| Target versions | 15.0.0 |
| Sprint |  |
| Backlog bucket |  |
| Votes |  |
| List |  |
| Roadmap |  |
| Relevance |  |

## OPEN POINTS / FEEDBACK

| ID | Subject | Status | Decision |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| COMMS-80 | clicking mark as read within notification center fully closes the work package | resolved |  |

## Features and Chunks

_No work packages_

## Bugs and other work packages

| ID | Type | Subject | Status | Assignee | Target versions | Spent time | Module |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| COMMS-88 | Bug | User sees NetworkError when coming back to notification center | closed |  |  |  |  |
| COMMS-91 | Bug | Console errors are shown when user is on the activity panel | rejected | Jonas Jabari |  |  |  |

## Technical Details

| Attribute | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Module |  |
| Feature Flag |  |
| Requires doc change | Yes |
| Enterprise plan |  |

## Details

| Attribute | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Pull preview |  |
| Mockups |  |
| Accessibility | No |

## People

| Attribute | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Assignee |  |
| Accountable |  |
| Product manager |  |
| Developers |  |
| Designer | Parimal Satyal |
| Ordered by |  |
| Signed off by |  |
| Interest by |  |

## Estimates and progress

| Attribute | Value |
| --- | --- |
| PD (min) |  |
| PD (max) |  |
| Work |  |
| Labor costs |  |

## Description

This feature is trying to escape forward from a conflicting behavior with the freshly introduced polling of new journal entries in the activity tab.

The notification center used to show a blue flash banner informing about new notifications and asked the user to load them. That leads to a problem when having a work package open in a split screen that polls for new updates on the work package. For example if I receive a comment that @-mentions me, then, in the past that would have triggered that blue flash message, asking to load changes, which obviously is unnecessary and confusing, as the message was already loaded and displayed.

The solution for this is to change the notification center. Instead of telling the user that there are updates and asking her to load them, it simply loads them directly.

**Acceptance criteria**

  - The Notification Center loads updates directly. New notifications on the current or other work packages will get loaded directly.

  - When I open a work package **Activity** tab from within the Notification Center and a new journal entry arrives which has an unread status (e.g. @-mentions me) I don't see a blue flash message informing me about new notifications as I already have that state open.

  - In the blue flash message we never ask the user for loading notifications anymore as it does not make much sense as all updates are already loaded into the notification center.

  - When in the Activity tab new notifications arrive the main header notification bell icon counter also updates (almost) immediately and does not lag up to 10 seconds.

**Out of scope**

  - We will remove the blue banner as an indicator for new notifications.

We will remove the blue banner completely for now and see if users miss it. We'll add it back later if necessary.

  - ~~When a notification for a Work Package other than the currently selected Work Package is received in the Notification Center, the Center updates its state automatically but DOES show a flash message in order to inform the user of a "background" update. This flash message is hidden again whenever the user selects a different Work Package in the list.~~

**Known but accepted imperfections:**

The Notification Center polling is currently set down to 10 seconds in order to be fast enough to keep up with the changes in the activity tab. Still, the state of the surrounding Notification center lags a bit (a few seconds) behind the state of the activity tab.