A Follow-Up Secretary That Works on Your Clock
There’s not much point being reminded about something when you can’t do anything about it.
A reminder system can become annoying very quickly.
Ping.
Ping.
Ping.
Eventually you stop reading it.
That is why Dazza Follow-Up isn't being designed around sending as many notifications as possible.
The better question is:
When do you actually want your secretary to put things back in front of you?
Your day, your reminder times
The current DFU build allows reminder times to be configured around the user.
The default thinking has been a morning check and another later in the day.
For a trade business, that makes sense.
Morning: what needs attention before the day gets away?
Afternoon: what loose ends need tying up before tomorrow?
But one schedule won't suit everybody.
The important part is that the secretary should work around the business, not force the business to work around the software.
Snooze means “not now”, not “forget it”
Sometimes something matters, but there is absolutely no point looking at it today.
The supplier said Friday.
The customer is away until next week.
You're on the tools and can’t deal with it until tonight.
That is what Snooze is for.
A snoozed follow-up hasn't disappeared.
You've simply told Dazza:
Bring this back later.
That’s very different from hoping you remember later.
Pause is different again
Some follow-ups genuinely need to stop for a while.
Maybe the job itself has been delayed.
Maybe a decision is waiting on something outside anyone's control.
Maybe chasing it every second day would just create noise.
DFU can pause a follow-up without pretending it has been completed.
That distinction matters because Done really should mean done.
Urgent should actually look urgent
Another part already built into DFU is urgency.
If something suddenly matters now, it can be marked urgent and lifted out of the general pile.
That sounds obvious.
But when every item in a system is highlighted, nothing is actually highlighted.
The aim is to make the secretary useful enough that an urgent item really catches your eye.
In-app secretary summaries
The current reminder system also creates secretary summaries inside DFU.
Instead of throwing every follow-up at the user separately, the app can provide a picture of what needs attention.
Urgent.
Overdue.
Due today.
Waiting on you.
That is much closer to how a human secretary might work.
Not:
Here are seventeen notifications.
More:
Dazza, these are the things you need to look at.
Notifications are still part of development
There is more work to do around external and device notification behaviour.
We aren't going to pretend a notification feature is finished simply because a button exists on a screen.
Real phones, browsers and operating systems have their own rules and quirks, and those need proper testing.
The in-app secretary and reminder engine are already substantial pieces of working DFU.
The wider notification experience will continue to be developed and verified before release.
That is also why there is no release date being announced yet.
The goal isn't to get the most notifications onto your phone.
The goal is to have the right loose ends appear at the right time so you can deal with them and move on.
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