Notifications: why am I getting them, and how do I change them?

What When Where can tell you about things in your town: emergency alerts, community news, and reminders for events you care about. This article explains where each one comes from and how to turn it off.

The three kinds of notification

• Emergency Notifications - Local community actions for you to be aware of. They arrive straight away, at any time of day, to anyone with emergency alerts switched on for that town.
• Community news - the occasional update from your local community admins. They are never sent overnight: anything written between 9pm and 7am waits until 7am.
• Event reminders - only if you tapped Remind me on an event. They come to your phone as a notification, by email, or both, whichever you chose.

If you saved an event with the heart or set a reminder on it, you will also get a short note if its date, time or place changes.

Turn notifications on (the app)

Notifications go to the free What When Where app on your phone. A web browser does not receive them.

On a phone's web browser you may see an Install App card floating above the bottom bar. Tap Install App (1) and it takes you to the right store. You can close it with the x beside it.

1. Install the What When Where app from the App Store (iPhone) or Google Play (Android).
2. Open the app and tap the bell (Notifications).
3. Choose Your town. Add your postcode if you like, because some alerts are only for part of town.
4. Tick what you want: Emergency Notifications and/or Community news.
5. Tap Turn on notifications, then tap Allow when your phone asks.

Set a reminder on an event

1. Open the event and tap Remind me. You need to be signed in: if you are not, it shows a Sign in button.
2. Tick the dates you want (a repeating event has several).
3. Choose The evening before or An hour before.
4. Choose how: Notification (in the app), Email, or Both. In a web browser, reminders come by email. Emails go to your account address and are only the reminder, not the newsletter.
5. Tap Remind me (or Email me a reminder). The button then reads Reminder set.

Turn them off or change them

• Open Notifications in the app, change the ticks, and tap Save.
• To stop everything on that phone, tap Turn off on this device. This also stops any reminders you set on that phone.
• Stop reminders for a single event: open the event, tap Reminder set, then Stop reminders.

"Notifications are disabled in your phone Settings"

Your phone will not ask a second time once it has been told no. Open your phone Settings, find What When Where, open Notifications, and switch them on. Then come back and tap Turn on notifications.

Prefer email?

Choose Get what's on by email on the notifications page. Emergency Notifications can come by email too. See Newsletter sign up.

TODO (client): Confirm the final App Store and Google Play names and links, and whether iPhone/Android store buttons should be shown here.