Skip to main content
Novu provides a way to store subscriber preferences. This allows subscribers, your users, to specify and manage their preferences and customize their notifications experience. Levels of preferences:
  • Workflow channel preferences
  • Subscriber channel preferences per workflow
  • Subscriber global preferences

​
Workflow channel preferences

Each workflow has its own channel preferences. By default, all channel preferences are enabled. If disabled, the subscriber will not receive notifications for that channel step. Steps to manage workflow channel preferences:
1

Go to the Workflows page

Go to the Workflows page in Novu dashboard
2

Select a workflow

Click the workflow you want to manage channel preferences for
3

Open channel preferences

A node-based editor will appear. On the right side of the editor, click the Configure channel preferences option
4

Enable or disable all channels

Click on the All Channels checkbox to enable or disable all channels for the workflow
5

Configure step preferences

You will be able to change the preferences for only those steps which are present in the workflow. Non existing channel steps will be disabled.
6

Mark as critical (optional)

The Mark as critical toggle will make this workflow critical. Read more about critical workflows
If a workflow has only in-app and email steps, then it will have only in-app and email preferences.
Workflow channel preferences

​
Critical workflows

In some cases, you don’t want the subscriber to be able to unsubscribe from mandatory notifications such as Account Verification, Password Reset, etc… In those cases, you can mark a workflow as critical in the workflow channel preferences. Critical workflows are not displayed in subscriber preferences, so subscribers cannot change preferences for that workflow.

​
Subscriber global preferences

Subscribers can set global channel preferences, which override individual settings. For instance, if there are 10 workflows, and a subscriber wants to disable SMS notifications for all of them, they can do so with via global preferences. Preferences

​
Subscriber channel preferences per workflow

For each workflow, each subscriber has their own channel preferences. Subscribers can manage these preferences from the <Inbox /> Preferences view. Subscriber channel preferences
Inbox displays only channels present in the current workflow.

​
Priority of preferences

Since there are three types of preferences, the priority order is as follows: Workflow channel preferences > Subscriber global preferences > Subscriber channel preferences per workflow Examples:
  1. If the email channel is disabled in workflow channel preferences, global and subscriber preferences are ignored, and subscribers will not receive email notifications for this workflow.
  2. If the in-app channel is enabled in workflow channel preferences but the workflow is marked as critical, subscribers cannot change their preferences and will always receive in-app notifications.
  3. If both chat and email channels are enabled in the workflow but email is disabled in subscriber global preferences, the subscriber will receive only chat notifications for this workflow.

​
Subscriber preferences APIs

Subscriber preferences can be retrieved and updated using following APIs:

Retrieve subscriber preferences

Update subscriber preferences