Order Notifications
TimberCloud keeps your team in the loop with in-app, email, and SMS alerts as orders move through their lifecycle, and lets you send customers their quotes and invoices. This page explains the single most important thing first — how customer emails actually get sent — then covers the notification channels and who receives what.
Availability: Customer-facing email and SMS are Commerce and up. In-app (bell) alerts to your own team work on any paid plan. The Free plan is inquiry-only.
Read this first: automated customer emails are OFF by default
When you create a new company in TimberCloud, automated customer emails are turned off. Nothing is emailed to your customers automatically — not quotes, not order confirmations, not invoices — until you decide to turn automation on. This is deliberate: most shops want to review a document before it goes out, and to control exactly when a customer hears from them.
So there are two ways customer documents get sent, and you choose which fits your shop:
| Approach | How it works | When to use it |
|---|---|---|
| Manual (default) | You send each Quote / Acknowledgement / Invoice yourself, one at a time, with its Send Email button | You want to review and time each send — the default for new shops |
| Automated | TimberCloud emails documents automatically as the order progresses | You want hands-off, immediate customer emails at each step |
The Send Email button (your day-to-day tool)
On an order's Payments & Documents tab, every document has a Send Email button. Click it and TimberCloud emails that document to the customer with its PDF attached.
Two things make this button reliable:
- It always sends, even when your company's automated emails are turned off. It bypasses the automation toggle entirely, so it's the one dependable way to get a document to a customer on the default setup.
- It attaches the document's PDF automatically, so the customer gets the actual quote or invoice, not just a notice.
Tip: On the default (automation off) setup, sending a customer their quote or invoice is a deliberate action every time — click Send Email on the document. If a customer says they "never got their quote," the usual cause is that no one pressed the button.
Turning automation on
If you'd rather have documents email out automatically, an administrator can enable it in Settings → Company → Notifications (the Email Notifications toggle). Once on, quotes, acknowledgements, and invoices are emailed to customers as the order reaches each stage — you no longer have to press Send Email for the routine ones. You can still use Send Email any time to (re)send a specific document.
Notification channels
Separate from customer document emails, TimberCloud raises notifications to keep people aware of order activity. There are three channels:
| Channel | Where it shows | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| In-App | The bell icon in the top bar | Real-time awareness while you're working |
| A user's inbox | Detail and a record you can find later | |
| SMS | A text to a mobile number | Urgent, on-the-go alerts |
Each user chooses which channels they want for each type of event, so notifications match how each person works.
What triggers a notification
Order activity raises notifications as the order moves through its lifecycle:
| Event | Typical recipients |
|---|---|
| Quote created | Company users, the assigned sales rep |
| Order created / placed | Company users, the customer |
| Quote accepted | Company users, the sales rep |
| In production | Relevant staff, the customer |
| Completed | Shipping staff, the customer |
| Shipped | The customer, the sales rep |
| Delivered | The customer, company users |
| Canceled | The customer, company users |
| Payment received / refunded | The customer, your accounting staff |
Note: Whether the customer actually receives an email or SMS for these events depends on your automation setting above and on the customer's own contact info being on file. Your internal team's in-app bell alerts are independent of the customer-email toggle.
Who receives what
- Your team gets in-app, email, and SMS alerts according to each user's own preferences and role.
- Customers get the documents and status updates you send them (manually or automatically), plus real-time status in their order portal.
Sales-rep filtering
Sales reps don't get flooded with every order in the shop. A rep is only notified about:
- Orders assigned directly to them, and
- Orders for their own customers.
Because an order can have more than one sales rep, each assigned rep is kept in the loop for that order. This keeps everyone focused on the orders that are actually theirs.
You don't get pinged for your own actions
If you create an order or change its status, you won't get an "unread" notification about your own action — those show as already seen. Your teammates still get the unread alert. This keeps your bell focused on things that actually need your attention.
Setting your own preferences
Each user controls their own notification channels:
- Open your account notification settings.
- For each event type, toggle In-App, Email, and SMS on or off.
Preferences are stored per company, so if you work with more than one company in TimberCloud, each can have its own settings.
Tip: For SMS to reach you, add a mobile number (with country code) to your profile and enable SMS for the events you care about. Standard carrier rates may apply.
In-app bell
The bell in the top bar shows a red badge with your unread count. Open it to see recent notifications — each shows the message, a relative timestamp ("2 hours ago"), who triggered it, and a link straight to the order. Click a notification to mark it read, or use Mark all as read. Your order lists and status badges also update live as activity happens, so you rarely need to refresh.
Customer portal updates
Customers who view their order in the portal see updates in real time — status changes, new invoices, and tracking information appear without a page refresh. This is the same live experience your team sees in the admin.
Troubleshooting
A customer didn't get their quote or invoice. On the default setup (automation off), documents only go out when someone clicks Send Email on the document. Open the order's Payments & Documents tab and send it. If you expected it to be automatic, check that Email Notifications is enabled in Settings → Company → Notifications.
I'm not getting notifications. Check that the event type is enabled for the channel you expect in your own notification settings. Sales reps only get their own customers' and directly-assigned orders. In-app alerts need an active connection (they update live while the app is open).
Emails land in spam. Ask the customer to check their junk folder and confirm their email address on file is correct.
SMS isn't arriving. Confirm the mobile number includes the country code, SMS is enabled for that event type, and the number is correct.
Next Steps
- Payments & Documents — send quotes and invoices with the Send Email button
- Existing Orders — the order lifecycle and status changes that raise notifications
- Managing Customers — keep customer email and phone current
- Company Settings — turn automated customer emails on or off