1. Community
  2. Bones, joints and muscles
  3. Polymyalgia Rheumatica and GCA

Changes to Forums notifications

Posted , 15 users are following.

Emis_Moderator
Emis_Moderator

Hi,

We wanted to let you know about some changes to the way that Patient.info Forum updates are set to be delivered.

After looking at our data along with feedback from a number of users, we realised that some users were receiving a huge number of emails from us as a result of activity on the forums.

While we realise that some users welcome regular updates, for the majority it was a bit of an issue and it also meant that some email providers stopped important updates from reaching our users.

As a result, we're making the following changes in the coming weeks:

  • Browser notifications for Private Messages and Replies

    Instead of (or alongside, if you choose) receiving email updates, you will now be able to opt in to browser notifications. This will reduce the number of updates that you get to your inbox and allow you to instantly access new messages.

Simply click "Allow" on the prompts when you next visit Patient.info Forums or visit your settings notifications page to update your settings if you want to opt into these notifications.

  • Changes to forum emails

    •You will now only receive emails for forum replies and private messages.

    •New discussions from your groups will not trigger an email.

    •You will only receive reply emails for messages posted directly to youinstead of all replies in a thread.

    •You can still see all notifications (including new discussions and all replies) by visiting your notifications page.

    These changes are designed to reduce the number of emails that our users receive and highlight the important messages that get through to you.

  • Email frequency and format

    As well as reducing the number of emails, we're also changing the format of a number of them.

Active users will still continue to receive all emails, however those that take some time away will see their emails grouped together if they have multiple notifications.

Generally, these will be grouped every 6 hours, 24 hours and 7 days, with a roundup including a highlighted comment and the total number of notifications.

Again, we're looking to reduce the number of emails clogging up your inbox and improving our communication with you to highlight the things that matter to our users.

We hope that you continue to enjoy the Patient Forums and if you wish to change any of your settings, you can edit all of your communications preferences here.

1 like, 74 replies

74 Replies

Next
  • EileenH
    EileenH Emis_Moderator

    Posted

    Um - perhaps you would like to look at that announcement and consider the jargon! I got the browser pop-up a few hours ago, it meant nothing to me so I just ignored it - and to be honest, having read that post I'm not much wiser!

    But then, the emails I get from here are a minor part of the day compared to the others I get ...

    • heather39822
      heather39822 EileenH

      Posted

      I am confused by the new system replacing the old PMR forum. Is it possible for me to write to you privately Eileen? I have no objection putting my comment/question on a public forum but I can't access the old forum. Heather Zimbabwe

    • EileenH
      EileenH heather39822

      Posted

      You are on it Heather - if you could post this you must be able to post a new thread. But yes, send me a message if you need to.

  • Reeceregan
    Reeceregan Emis_Moderator

    Posted

    A little confused. If I don't click on the link or change my settings will I still get emails and and replies the same as previously? i have no issue with the way it was for me.

    • Reeceregan
      Reeceregan

      Posted

      Should add the main issue I had was the caps lock staying on.....or not. Keep forgetting to either put it on after a fullstop or take it off after use.

    • Emis_Moderator
      Emis_Moderator Reeceregan

      Posted

      Hi Reeceregan,

      This has been reported/raised as a bug but I can't give a timescale for when it will be fixed.

      Alan

  • Royall
    Royall Emis_Moderator

    Posted

    Hello. I am confused will i still receive emails and replies the same as previously ? I don' t have a problem with how it was before

    • Emis_Moderator
      Emis_Moderator Royall

      Posted

      Hi jennyrose,

      See my post at the bottom of this discussion. Replying directly as I know you won't get a notification about my post as I replied to myself. This is a known reported bug not to do with the recent change. Can you let me know if you get an email for this reply please.

      Alan

  • Twopies
    Twopies Emis_Moderator

    Edited

    i dont get it. you mean i will have to check the site everyday to see whether there are any new posts? i dont think i will do that. my settings are just the way i like them, i still want to receive email notices of new posts.

    • Emis_Moderator
      Emis_Moderator Twopies

      Posted

      Hi Twopies,

      See my post at the bottom of this discussion. Replying directly as I know you won't get a notification about my post as I replied to myself. This is a known reported bug not to do with the recent change. Can you let me know if you get an email for this reply please.

      Alan

  • ling42044
    ling42044 Emis_Moderator

    Edited

    Emis moderator,

    I am really confused with your new recommendation ! So long as i still received the emails from the forum as it stands, i don't really want to change any setting.

    • Emis_Moderator
      Emis_Moderator ling42044

      Posted

      Hi ling,

      See my post at the bottom of this discussion. Replying directly as I know you won't get a notification about my post as I replied to myself. This is a known reported bug not to do with the recent change. Can you let me know if you get an email for this reply please.

      Alan

  • Emis_Moderator
    Emis_Moderator

    Edited

    Hi all,

    This is a long one but I will hopefully cover issues raised so far and clarify it all.

    Push notifications are an alternative to receiving large numbers of emails. If you opt in to them you will receive notifications of replies and PMs from your browser. Depending on which PC or device you are using depends on how they appear. For my work laptop (Windows 10) I receive these in the action centre as below. This is accessed by clicking the icon at the very bottom right of the screen.

    image

    For Android tablets and phones these appear as per other notifications as an icon at top of the screen.

    NB iOS devices do not allow push notifications at present.

    When you drag the top of screen down the notification is for example -

    image

    When the pop-up appears there are 3 choices:

    Click "Allow"

    • This will opt you in to push notifications. If your settings were to allow emails then you will still get these as well but only for replies and PMs.
    • If you receive a push notification and click it within 10 mins to go to the post then you will not receive an email as well.
    • If you receive a push and do not click it you will also receive an email 10 mins after the push.

    Click "Don't allow"

    This means you will not receive any push notifications. If your settings were to allow emails then you will still get these but only for replies and PMs.

    Close using the X on the top right of the pop-up

    The pop-up will close and will not re-appear while you are still signed in to the site. Once you sign out and back in again it will re-appear.

    The benefits of receiving push notifications are:

    • Cutting down the number of emails filling your inbox.
    • The notifications are sent to your PC/device within 30 seconds of posting whereas emails and notifications to your forums page can be delayed due to the way they are processed.
    • You do not need to go to or sign in to your email inbox to check for new activity.

    Emails

    • If you are an active user, ie have visited the forums in the previous 72 hours and do not opt into the push - you will continue to receive an email for every post that is a direct reply to any of your posts whether a discussion, direct reply or nested reply by you. This is the same for Private Messages, you will get an email for every PM.
    • If you are a less active user who has not been in the forums for a few days or longer - you will receive less frequent emails which will be sent 6 hourly dropping to daily/weekly if you do not visit the forums in this time. These will have a format of saying how many replies or PMs you have received in the time period and will take you to your notifications page to view them or to your PM message page to see all PMs received.
    • Emails will not be sent for new discussions or any replies that are not a direct reply to you. These will continue to be sent to your notifications page in the forums as will all notifications you receive emails for.

      You will not have to check the site daily for new posts as they will remain as unread in your notifications page in the forums until you click one of the links or mark any as read. I am aware the notifications page does not let you know what new discussions are about or have snippet text for these or replies. I am pushing to get this page improved.

    If you clicked Don't allow on the pop-up and/or you want to try the push option you can change or check your settings for email and/or push notifications by going to this page at any time. If you do try the push and don't want to continue using it then you can turn them off again at any time.

    EDIT: You can also change the devices you receive these notifications to. If you initially allowed on your computer but would then like to receive them on your android phone then sign in to the site on your phone. Go to the settings page above and untick "Push" and save. Tick the "Push" option again and save. Push notifications will then be sent to your phone. You can revert by signing in on your computer and changing your settings there.

    The reason we have done this is because of user feedback about the number of emails some were getting. The other factor was the amount of emails we were sending and being opened/clicked showed the vast majority were ignored. For example in a month we were sending 3.3 million new discussion emails of which less than 500 were being opened or clicked.

    I hope this explains things but let me know by reply here if there are still questions.

    Alan

    • nick67069
      nick67069 Emis_Moderator

      Edited

      "...The reason we have done this is because of user feedback about the number of emails some were getting. The other factor was the amount of emails we were sending and being opened/clicked showed the vast majority were ignored. For example in a month we were sending 3.3 million new discussion emails of which less than 500 were being opened or clicked."

      Those emails were not clicked because they were prompt to go to notification page. My guess is that you have instituted changes for the wrong, miss-understood reason. Now I don't know if there was any new discussion or not. I am a long time user ( 4+ years)on this site and have seen so many changes to the site that over time have REDUCED the participation. I would suggest that maybe user should have input into your changes before they happened. In retrospect I wish that all changes can be rolled back for last 3 years or so.

      Before change I had notification on new discussions, and could check immediately or at my leisure,but now I have no idea if new patient has requested help or asked question that I could possibly help. Most of the "push" messages are very intrusive and interrupt what you are doing, so I don't expect that many will allow them.

      One option that you should have provided is to keep "as is " or in this case "as was" .

      It would be less frustrating if you simply asked for an opinion BEFORE the changes were made.

    • Emis_Moderator
      Emis_Moderator nick67069

      Posted

      Hi Nick,

      I'm not sure I understand what you mean. The emails did not prompt you to go to the notifications page but directly linked to the new discussion posted. If they did go to the notification page this is even more reason to discontinue with them.

      You can still check for new discussions at any time. They will appear on your forums homepage when signed in or at the top of the list on the group pages you are a member of. As these pages are dynamic they will go down the list and off these pages as more replies are posted in other discussions. However, you can go to your notifications page and all new discussions will be listed in unread status at the top of the list until you either click the link or mark them as unread.

      Re the push notifications being intrusive - these can be set up on your device to suit you how they appear. In my case on this work PC all that happens is the icon in the toolbar changes to "filled" status as below. There is no sound or pop-ups.

      image

      image

      This was done because we did listen to user feedback as a lot of users wanted to reduce the number of emails they were receiving.

      These changes give users more choice in how they want to be notified of forum activity with the benefits listed above. If you choose not to opt in and just select emails then the only real difference is the ceasing of new discussion emails and for every reply in a discussion. As an example of the latter - there is a very active discussion in the Covid group that has had over 2 000 replies. In the last week or so there have been over 600 replies so anyone following that would have had 600 emails for one discussion.

      We have already had a lot of users opting in and any user can opt in to try it to see if it works for them. If they decide they prefer getting emails then they can change their settings at any time to opt out again. Nothing will be lost as all notifications are listed on your forums page.

      I hope this clarifies things but let me now if I can answer any other queries.

      Regards,

      Alan

    • lodgerUK_NE
      lodgerUK_NE Emis_Moderator

      Posted

      Alan, if you read this, thanks for all the help in the past. Wish you well and if the sight ever gets simple for and 82 year old ............then I will come back.

      I wish your IT people would realise that over 65's onwards are not all computer savvy. The aim for patients looking for info, should be simple, not over complicated and pretty meaningless for me.

    • nick67069
      nick67069 Emis_Moderator

      Edited

      Hi Alan,

      Let me comment on your response.

      "The emails did not prompt you to go to the notifications page" - it was not the best choice of words. I had a folder that emails from the site were forwarded to. Whenever I saw new emails in the folder was a signal that there was new discussion/ reply at the site. That was a "prompt" I was talking about. After reading new posts at the site I would empty the folder, so that any new email is obvious. That is just how I handled it.

      I have seen many posts of people complaining that they are not getting emails, but I don't remember any post of complaining that there are too many emails from this site.

      The main point that I am trying to make is that most of the people reading PMR forum are older and not computer literate. ANY change causes a problem and drives patients away. I have seen over last 4 years activity drop substantially ( in PMR section) and I have seen people migrate to sister site, where access is still old fashion email communication - either each mail as it happens or daily digest. This is what you should be changing towards in my opinion. Make the site easy for 70+ years old.

    • EileenH
      EileenH nick67069

      Posted

      Thanks Nick - I used the site the same sort of way as you.

      Yesterday I got an email telling me I had a pm from Emis_Moderator - some 5 hours after he had written to me. There is a notification of a new thread on the internal page - but no email telling me it is there yet.

      Every time I load the notification page it takes at least 10 seconds. Every single time - it soon adds up and makes me very unwilling to use it. I've complained about that for months - any improvement? Not yet ...

      I'm not 70 yet - this is just a shambles though.

    • Emis_Moderator
      Emis_Moderator nick67069

      Posted

      Hi Nick,

      See my post at the bottom of this discussion. Replying directly as I know you won't get a notification about my post as I replied to myself. This is a known reported bug not to do with the recent change. Can you let me know if you get an email for this reply please.

      Alan

    • Emis_Moderator
      Emis_Moderator lodgerUK_NE

      Posted

      Hi lodger,

      See my post at the bottom of this discussion. Replying directly as I know you won't get a notification about my post as I replied to myself. This is a known reported bug not to do with the recent change. Can you let me know if you get an email for this reply please.

      Alan

Back to top
Next

Report or request deletion

Thanks for your help!

We want the community to be a useful resource for our users but it is important to remember that the community are not moderated or reviewed by doctors and so you should not rely on opinions or advice given by other users in respect of any healthcare matters. Always speak to your doctor before acting and in cases of emergency seek appropriate medical assistance immediately. Use of the community is subject to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy and steps will be taken to remove posts identified as being in breach of those terms.