It’s not a queue
Need Alert doesn’t manage who gets served first. There’s no position, no ticket number, no “you’re 5th”, and no estimated wait. People subscribe to something that hasn’t happened yet and has no set time, and everyone gets the alert together when it happens.The concepts
Establishment
Establishment
The unit that notifies customers: a shop, a practice, a cinema, a unit of a chain. Each establishment has its own team, items, and time zone.If you have several units, they all belong to the same chain. The chain shares the credit balance and the product catalog.
Item
Item
What people wait for: a product, a dish of the day, an appointment slot, a movie release. Each item belongs to one establishment and has its own QR code and public link, which never change.
Subscription
Subscription
A person’s request to be notified about an item. An item’s subscribers are everyone who asked for that alert. Each unit has its own subscribers: stock, ovens, and schedules differ from shop to shop.Subscribing requires a Need Alert account.
Dispatch (alert)
Dispatch (alert)
The notification you send when the item becomes available. You can send it right away or schedule it for later. All subscribers are notified at the same time.
Credits
Credits
1 credit = 1 person notified. Before confirming a dispatch, you see how many people will be notified and what it costs. Credits are prepaid and belong to the chain’s balance.
One-time and recurring alerts
Each item has an alert type, which defines what happens to a subscription after the dispatch.What people choose when subscribing
Whoever subscribes decides how long they want to be notified:- Until when: no end date, for 1 week, 1 month, 1 year, or until a date. Applies to both alert types.
- How many times to notify: every time it happens, or a set number of times. Only shown for recurring alerts, since a one-time alert notifies once.