Staff alerts: the notification bell and what each alert means

The bell at the top of the admin, the pop-up and email that come with each alert, and what every alert (new booking, inquiry, overdue return, driver runs, kiosk alerts and more) means.

Renta tells your team when something needs attention by putting an alert on the bell at the top of the admin. Each alert also pops up briefly on screen and is emailed to the person.

Where to find it

Look for the bell icon in the top bar of any admin page (next to the shop switcher if you run more than one shop). A red number on it counts alerts you have not read, and shows "99+" past ninety-nine.

The notification bell open, showing a new booking alert and an overdue return alert

How the bell works

Click the bell to open the Notifications panel. It lists your 20 most recent alerts, newest first. Each row has a title, a line of detail, and how long ago it arrived ("just now", "5m", "3h", "2d").
Unread alerts have an orange dot and a tinted background.
Click an alert to open the page it is about (usually the booking). It is marked as read.
Click the small × on an unread alert to clear it without opening it. This only marks it read. It does not delete it, and it stays in the list, greyed out, until 20 newer alerts push it off.
Clear all marks every unread alert as read. It appears only while something is unread.
With nothing there, the panel says "Nothing yet. New bookings, website inquiries and chats show up here."
New alerts arrive live while you have the admin open, with no need to refresh.

The pop-up

When a new alert arrives while you are in the admin, a small card slides in with its title, detail line and a View details → link. It closes itself after 8 seconds or when you click its ×.

The email

Each alert is also emailed to the person it was sent to, at the email address on their staff account. The subject is the alert's title. Renta checks for new alerts every couple of minutes, so the email normally follows the bell closely. An alert older than two hours is not emailed, because by then it is out of date. The bell always has it.

Who gets an alert

Every active team member who has accepted their invitation and can sign in. People who were invited but never accepted, and people you have deactivated, get nothing. Two exceptions: a driver alert goes only to the driver, and a disputed kiosk tip goes only to owners.

Renta has no settings page for choosing which alerts you personally receive. The only related setting is the grace period for overdue returns, described below.

What each alert means

| Alert title | What happened | Opens | |---|---|---| | New booking (with the booking number) | A booking was confirmed, either paid on your website, or created through the booking API or an AI assistant connection. The detail line shows the customer's email, the total and the pickup date. You are not alerted about a booking a staff member just typed in on the booking desk. | The booking | | New inquiry from (name, or "your website") | Someone sent a message through your website's contact form or chat assistant. | Inquiries | | Waitlist: (item) just freed up | A cancelled or expired booking released an item that a waiting customer wanted. The detail line shows who, their email and the dates. | The waitlist | | Quote (number) accepted | A customer accepted a quote and a booking was created. | The booking | | Quote (number) declined | A customer declined a quote. | The quote | | Quote (number): customer tried to accept, items unavailable | A customer tried to accept, but the items were no longer free. | The quote | | New website chat (or "from" a name) | A visitor started a chat with your ACG website assistant. Needs ACG connected. Checked about every five minutes. | Inquiries, Chatbot tab | | ACG connection needs reconnecting | Website chat messages have stopped syncing. | Settings → ACG Assistant | | Overdue return (with the booking number) | A rental is past its return time plus your grace period. | The booking | | Drop-off assigned to you / Collection assigned to you | You were put on a delivery run. Sent to that driver only. | Dispatch | | Drop-off cancelled / Collection cancelled | A run you were assigned was cancelled because its booking was cancelled. Sent to that driver only. | Dispatch | | (Name) is ready for pickup | A customer at the kiosk is waiting for you at the counter. The kiosk sends this when staff need to hand over the gear or finish a step only staff can do. | The booking | | (Name) returned gear — needs review | A customer returned gear at the kiosk and it needs a person to look it over, for example because of a damage report or an unfinished checklist, or because your kiosk is set to send every return to staff. | The booking | | A kiosk tip was disputed | A customer's bank is disputing a tip. Sent to owners only. | The booking |

More detail on the less obvious ones:

Overdue return. The detail line shows the customer's email, how late the return is, and when it was due. How long Renta waits and whether it alerts at all is set in Getting notified when a rental is overdue.
Kiosk alerts. The detail line lists the gear, and then, after "Needs staff:", anything the kiosk could not finish by itself. You get one alert per booking, so a double tap on the kiosk does not ring twice.
The "Practice:" prefix. Kiosk alerts about a practice booking start with "Practice:", for example "Practice: Jordan is ready for pickup". Practice customers can be renamed to anything, so the prefix makes sure you never mistake a practice kiosk alert for a real customer standing at your counter. Other alerts, such as New booking, carry no such prefix. See Practice customers.
Driver alerts. The time shown inside a driver alert is in UTC (universal time), not local time. See Coordinating deliveries and pickups for the day.

Example

A customer pays for a booking on your website. Within a moment the bell shows a red 1, a card pops up saying "New booking" with the customer's email, the total and the pickup date, and an email arrives a couple of minutes later. You click the alert, the booking opens, and the alert greys out.

Good to know

Clearing or dismissing an alert never deletes it for anyone else. Each team member has their own list.
A new booking made on the website while its payment is still pending does not alert you yet. The alert comes when it is confirmed.
To turn off the overdue-return alerts, change the setting in Getting notified when a rental is overdue. The other alerts cannot be switched off from the admin.