Reverted automatic changes to message email notifications

We recently introduced push notifications for the Church Social iOS and Android apps. As part of that change, we added some automation to help members avoid being notified twice about new messages: once by email, and once by push notification. Once a member was consistently receiving push notifications for new messages on their phone or tablet, we automatically disabled their matching email notifications.

While this change was meant to reduce duplicate notifications, we heard from some churches that automatically changing members’ notification settings caused confusion for people who wondered why they were no longer receiving email notifications for new Church Social messages.

Based on that feedback, we’ve adjusted our approach. Going forward, Church Social will no longer automatically disable new message email notifications for members who are receiving push notifications.

Instead, we now include the following short note at the bottom of new message emails, explaining how members can turn off email notifications themselves if they’d prefer to avoid duplicate notifications:

Hey there! It looks like you're using the Church Social iOS/Android app and are already receiving push notifications for new messages. If you don't want to be notified twice, you can disable these email notifications in your account notification settings.

Please note that we are not automatically reverting this change for members who already had their new message email notifications disabled. Administrators can re-enable these notifications for members, or members can re-enable them themselves from their account notification settings. Once re-enabled, these email notifications will remain enabled moving forward.

Thanks for your patience as we continue to improve how notifications work in Church Social.