How do I get notifications on my phone?

Notifications come from the Cut the Cake app, for events you host or help host. The website has none: a notification needs a phone to arrive on. On an iPhone or iPad they are paused for now, while the app is away from the App Store; on Android they arrive as below.

What you hear about

• A guest's question, as soon as it is asked.
• New answers, gathered into one notification for each event, no more than once every fifteen minutes.
• Reminders when an event needs you: the same ones your bell shows, such as an event that has filled up or an invitation that bounced.
• Achievements you earn, while Achievements is turned on: one notification for each, or one for all of them when more than three arrive together. Pressing it opens your achievements. Turning Achievements off stops these too.

Answers and reminders arrive between 8 in the morning and 9 at night on the event's own clock, and achievements between 8 in the morning and 10 at night on the clock of your newest event. A guest's question arrives at any hour. A notification shows the event's name and a count, never a guest's name or what they wrote. Pressing one opens that event at what it is about: a question on Messaging's Questions tab, new answers on Guests, a reminder where you would act on it.

Turning them on

On an iPhone or iPad, notifications start quietly: they collect in Notification Center without a sound or a banner. On Android, nothing arrives until you allow it.

The app offers Turn on notifications once on each phone, at the first of these: you publish an event, you send invitations, or a guest asks you a question. Press it and allow notifications when your phone asks.

Later, open Account → Notifications in the app. While notifications are not fully on, Turn on notifications is at the top, beside the button that turns everything off. If they are off for the app in your phone's own settings, the same place opens those settings instead.

Choosing what you get

Open Account → Notifications in the app and press an event. Under Notifications on this device there are two switches: When someone answers and Reminders when the event needs you. They are separate from the email switches above them, so you can have one without the other. A guest's question has no switch, since somebody is waiting on you. Turning When someone answers back on does not notify you about answers that came in while it was off; they are on the Guests tab.

The number on the app's icon

The badge on the app's icon is the same number as the bell inside the app.