Question about the Square seller community support center website

[mikesclub]

I'm putting this question in the "New to Square" board because there doesn't seem to be a board for technical comments about this support center website.

When I go to the notifications page to read the responses to any questions I have posted, I see all new (unread) responses flagged with a blue flash beside the message title. This shows me easily which messages I still haven't read.

The problem is, once I open any of those messages and return to the notification center, all the flags are gone. There is no longer any marker for unread messages.

To be honest, I've seen this same problem on other support center websites, but that doesn't make it acceptable. 

Please pass this to your technical people. Reading one unread message should not clear the "unread messages" flags for any other unread messages.

Thanks.

[aarontw]

Hi @mikesclub ! Thank you for this post. I'm very glad to hear you're interested in diving into each notification individually.

Right now, this functionality is working as intended, the idea being: once you see the notification in the notification feed. However we understand that this may not be an ideal experience. We'll look into changing it and get back to you!

[mikesclub]

I really don't understand your reply. Why would I not want to read the content of each notification individually? In order to see your reply to my original post, of course I need to open the post. I sometimes comment on more than one post, and my notification list often includes several replies to those different posts. 

Once I open and read any one of them, the flags all disappear and I have to guess, hit and miss, which ones I still haven't read.

Your answer seems to be like saying that when I open my email client, I only need to see the subject lines of all unread emails, and I don't need to open any of them. 

You lost me here.

[aarontw]

Hey @mikesclub !

So we actually raised this to our platform provider and they gave us this response:

With reference to your query about read and unread notifications, Yes it is still the case that once the page is refreshed the notification count goes back to zero.
This is to indicate that the notification was viewed, it is not necessary that the interaction has to be made with the feed for the count to be reduced.
Alternative would be to directly interact with the post when the notification is received from the email using the reply by email feature.

We've pushed back on them and asked if there are any plans to improve this feature and are also looking into a customization! Unfortunately until that time the only options are to:

1. Revisit the page without the blue flags (won't re appear after you view the page, even if you haven't clicked the notification).

2. Turn on individual email notifications in your settings (vs. our standard daily digest) and use the individual emails you receive to count as individual notifications.

Apologies that we can only offer workarounds at this stage, but we are listening, and looking into fixes.

-Aaron

[pessosices · Accepted solution]

@mikesclub 

I would definitely recommend to open notification links in a New Tab, this way you can keep your notifications page open and not lose your place. It's what I do and it works great!

[mikesclub]

I’ll do that. It’s the best way to deal with something like this (although it really shouldn’t work this way!). 

Thanks!

[mikesclub]

I appreciate this answer. Feedback from the tech team is what I was looking for. 

I’ll just have to open each unread item in a new tab. That’s not ideal, but it will work. 

Please pass to the team my request to fix this, because I do consider it broken, even if it works as intended. Imagine if all your unread emails lost their "unread" status after you read only one of them. I’m sure even the tech team would find that unacceptable. 

Thanks for digging deeper. Good job!

[aarontw]

Hey again! 

@mikesclub  - thanks a ton for this feedback! We truly appreciate it. I also know this means that you are taking your engagement on Community Seriously, and we definitely appreciate that.

For right now, @pessosices's workaround is our best option. I have submitted your post/request to our platform provider, we'll share any potential updates on a fix.

-Aaron