Org Notification Policy & External Contacts

Organization admins set the notification defaults every member starts from, can switch categories off org-wide, and control the single most consequential switch in the system: whether ClashWise may email external responsible contacts — the people in your clash matrix who don't have ClashWise accounts.

Where to find it

Open Organization at https://clashwise.ai/my/organization and find the NOTIFICATIONS card (admins only; members see the settings read-only).

The org master switch

Clash notifications on/off for the entire organization. Off silences everything for everyone — email and in-app — including external contacts. Use it as the emergency brake; for day-to-day tuning use the category and member-level controls instead.

Per-category defaults

Each of the five categories — assignments, due dates, set activity, coordination sessions, and publish & analysis — has a policy the admin picks from three options:

Member choice — the category is on by default, at the default cadence you set beside it (Immediate, Hourly, Daily digest, Weekly digest, or No email). Members inherit that cadence until they pick their own.
Off by default — the category starts off for everyone, but any member can re-enable it in their own profile. Use it for categories most of your organization won't want, without taking the choice away.
Disabled for everyone — hard-disabled org-wide. Members cannot re-enable it; their profile shows the category greyed with a note. Their saved selection is kept and comes back to life if you later relax the policy.

Out of the box (no admin changes): every category is member choice — assignments, sessions, and publish & analysis default to immediate; due dates and set activity default to a daily digest.

Due-soon lead time

Due-soon lead time sets how many days before a clash's due date the due-soon notification fires (default 3). Pick the horizon that matches your coordination rhythm — weekly cycles often prefer 5–7 days.

Emailing external responsible contacts

Matrix contacts are real people — named, with email addresses — but usually not ClashWise users. When this switch is on, they are emailed about clashes assigned to them and their due dates, at the cadence you choose here (they hold no preferences of their own; daily digest is the default and a sensible one).

This switch is off by default. Emailing third parties is an explicit decision your organization makes — nothing external is sent until an admin turns it on.

What external contacts receive

A branded email listing their assigned clashes — clash number, title, status, priority, due date — grouped by clash set.
A secure read-only link per clash set ("View your assigned clashes in …") showing a live table of just their clashes: numbers, titles, status and priority chips in your matrix's configured colors, due dates with overdue highlighting. No sign-in required; nothing on the page can be edited.
An unsubscribe link in every email. An external contact who unsubscribes stops receiving ClashWise email entirely.

Links are valid for 30 days and refresh every time a new notification email goes out, so an actively-notified contact always holds a working link. Every view re-checks the live set and matrix: changing or deleting the contact, changing their email, removing or replacing the matrix, muting the set, revoking the link, or expiry invalidates the old link immediately.

Controlling external access

Mute the clash set (owner or admin) — external emails for that set stop and previously sent links stop working immediately, for as long as the set is muted.
Turn the org switch off — stops all future external email org-wide. Existing links continue to work until they expire; to kill them at once, mute the set or revoke its links.
Revoke links for a set — owners and admins can permanently invalidate every live external link for a set (contacts get fresh links with the next notification email, if external email is still on).

If a contact is also a member

A matrix contact whose email matches an active member with access to the set's project is treated as that member: their own preferences apply, notifications reach their in-app feed, and they get normal app links. An active organization member without project access follows the external route instead. This does not grant them project access; invite them to the project when they should use the signed-in experience.

Tips

Turn the external switch on once your matrix contacts are the real accountable people — it's the cheapest way to pull subcontractors into the loop without buying seats, and every email carries a professional read-only view of exactly their scope.
Keep external cadence at daily: assignments and due dates batch into one email a day per contact — informative, not spammy.
Set sessions to "Disabled for everyone" if your organization runs coordination purely inside Navisworks and the session emails aren't useful to your owners.
Heavy publishers can get chatty Publish & analysis inboxes — set its default cadence to Hourly or Daily to batch completions org-wide while leaving members free to go back to immediate.

FAQs

Will external contacts be emailed the moment we assign them in a matrix? Only if the external switch is on. It's off by default — assignment stays an internal fact until your organization opts in.

Can an external contact see clashes that aren't theirs? No. The read-only view is scoped to the clashes where they are the responsible contact, in that one set.

Can external contacts reply or edit? No. The page is read-only and the email comes from a no-reply address. To collaborate interactively, invite them to your organization.

Who counts as the set owner? The user who published the set from Navisworks. Ownership drives who receives activity and due-date notifications for the set.

Troubleshooting

A contact says their link stopped working. The set may be muted, the link revoked, or 30 days may have passed since the last email. Any new notification email re-issues a fresh link; or check the set's mute state.
A contact isn't receiving emails. Confirm the org external switch is on, the contact's email in the matrix is correct, the clash set isn't muted, and they haven't unsubscribed.
A member complains a category can't be changed. You (or another admin) set it to "Disabled for everyone" — change its policy back to Member choice (or Off by default) on the NOTIFICATIONS card.

Limitations

External contacts get email only — no in-app feed, no preferences of their own; the cadence is the organization's choice.
The read-only view lists clash data (numbers, titles, chips, due dates); it is not the 3D viewer or insights dashboard.
Notification history for members is retained for 90 days in the in-app feed.