Three settings decide whether a patient request reaches a staff member, and they are configured in different places. This article explains how they fit together and where each one lives.
Guided tours for tasks, notifications, and availability settings are available directly in Care Team.
The three settings
Setting | Decides | Set by |
Availability | Whether patients can raise a task type at a location at all | Management and Notifications Admin roles, per facility |
Notifications | Which requests alert a given staff member | Each staff member, for themselves. Management and Notifications Admin roles can also turn another person’s notifications on or off from the Team page. |
Task assignment | Who picks a raised request up | Staff, from the Tasks queue |
They run in that order. A request that Availability does not permit is never offered to the patient, so no notification follows and nothing reaches the queue.
Completing an unassigned task assigns it to the person who completed it, so every completed task records who handled it.
Availability and Notifications are linked in one direction
For a task type in Staffing or Staffing & Scheduled mode, patients can raise the request only while at least one subscribed staff member or shared device covers that location. Turning notifications off can therefore withdraw the request from patients entirely, not merely silence an alert.
Shared devices, such as ward or unit phones, count as coverage. See Manage Shared Devices for Ward and Unit Phones. The Availability page flags a Staffing & Scheduled task type as Missing staff coverage when it is inside its hours with nobody covering.
A task type in Scheduled mode does not behave this way. Its operating hours hold regardless of who is subscribed. With nobody subscribed, patients can still raise the request but no one is alerted. The History tab on the Availability page marks those hours as Coverage gap.
How alerts are delivered
A matching request is sent as a push notification to every device where push is turned on. The Text messages setting in Settings › Notifications decides whether a text also goes to the staff member’s mobile number: Only if push fails or Every alert.
Where the settings live
Settings › Availability holds operating hours and modes per task type and location, with a History tab recording what changed and a Shared devices tab for ward and unit phones.
Settings › Notifications holds each staff member’s own coverage: push on the current device, text message delivery, a master switch, a per-facility toggle, locations, and task types.
The Team page gives a view of everyone’s coverage at once, for spotting gaps before a shift. Most Care Team roles can view it. Only the Management and Notifications Admin roles can change another person’s notifications.
A note on earlier versions
Care Team previously had a separate Alerts tab. It no longer exists, and its address now redirects to Tasks. The Location and Group pickers on the Tasks page are view filters only and leave subscriptions untouched.