Turn notifications on or off

This is for the grown-up deciding which alerts reach them, with a look at what a kid’s phone gets. It covers the first-run prompt, the five switches, what each push sends, the Sunday email, and how CubbyJar keeps track of phones.

The first time on a phone

Pushes only go to phones; the web app sends none. The first time each member signs in on a phone, a sheet asks once for that member on that phone: for a grown-up, “Know when they need you” with “A chore marked done, an ask, the day before payday — on this phone.”; for a kid, “Hear when a grown-up says yes” with “When a chore is approved, an ask is decided, or payday lands.” Tap “Turn on” or “Not now”. If you chose “Not now”, the banner on the Notifications screen is the way back. Once the phone itself has answered the system permission prompt, nobody who signs in on it is asked again. A tablet signed in from “Kids on this device” is never asked and never registers for pushes.

Choose what you hear about

To pick which alerts you get:

1. Go to More.
2. Tap “Notifications”. On a phone, the row shows the first switch that is on, such as “Chore done” or “Digest”, or “Off”.

On a computer, Settings sits in the sidebar instead of More, and the switches sit right on that screen under “Notifications”, with the note “Pushes go to your phone. The weekly email goes to your inbox.”

Under “Tell me when” there are three push switches:

• “A chore is marked done”, “The one you’ll actually act on”
• “A kid asks for money”, “Or just the grown-up your kid picked”
• “The day before payday”, “So nothing goes unchecked”

Under “Every week” there are two more:

• “The week’s digest by email”, “Sunday evening”
• “Required chores missed”, “One push on Sunday if a kid missed one”

All five are on to begin with. On a phone, if pushes are off for the phone itself, a banner reads “Notifications are off for this phone.” with “Open settings”, or “Turn on” if you said “Not now” to the prompt.

What each push sends

• “Chore done” arrives only when a kid marks done a chore you check; a chore that earns as soon as it is marked done has nothing to approve, so it sends nothing.
• “{kid} asked” goes to the grown-up the kid picked, or to every grown-up when nobody was picked.
• “Payday tomorrow” arrives at 6 in the evening, family time, and counts the chores still waiting. A payday with no allowance and nothing waiting sends nothing.
• “Required chores missed” arrives on Sunday at 6 in the evening, family time, when a chore marked Required and due Monday to Saturday was left undone. It names up to three kids, such as “Ana missed 2, Leo missed 1”, and opens the Kids tab. A chore a grown-up skipped does not count.

The Sunday email

Every Sunday at 6 in the evening, family time, each grown-up with a confirmed address and the switch on gets one email titled “Your week at {family}: {from}–{to}” covering Monday to Sunday. It has a money section when anything was paid that week: what was spent and how that compares with last week, income, the top three categories, cash and net worth, which categories went over budget, and what is due in the next 7 days. Then one section per kid: chores done and approved, required chores missed, money waiting for payday, asks waiting, the goal and how close it is, and the next payday. Jar totals are not in it.

A week with nothing to report sends no email, a grown-up who joins mid-week gets their first one the following Sunday, and a grown-up whose address is not yet confirmed gets none.

The footer carries “Manage notifications”, which opens the switches above, and “Unsubscribe”. One tap on Unsubscribe, or on your mail app’s own unsubscribe button, turns just the email off without signing in and shows “You won’t get the weekly email.” with “Turn it back on any time under More › Notifications.” A link cut short by a mail app shows “That link didn’t work” and offers “Sign in” instead.

What a kid’s phone gets

A kid has no switch. Their pushes are titled “{chore} approved”, “{chore} sent back”, “Yes!”, “Not this time”, “Payday!”, “Savings grew” and “Goal reached!”. “Savings grew” waits until 8 in the morning, family time.

Which phones CubbyJar remembers

Signing out removes that phone’s registration, so it gets nothing until someone signs in again; if the phone was offline at the time, a nightly job removes it as soon as the phone no longer holds a valid sign-in. A phone that has not opened the app in 60 days is forgotten; opening the app registers it again.