Overview
Communication Types let you control which system notifications are sent to each contact on an Account or Business Account. Instead of every contact receiving every notification, you decide who hears about what.
Every contact has a Communication Types field with four options:
- Account and Services
- Orders and Checkout
- Billing and Payments
- Work Orders
When a system message is sent on an account, it is only delivered to the contacts who have the matching Communication Type enabled. This gives you fine-grained control over who receives what — for example, a billing contact who only receives billing communications, or a network contact who only receives account and technician updates.
This article covers how to manage Communication Types on a contact, how they map to system messages, the default behavior when the feature is enabled, and the important limitations to keep in mind.
Managing Communication Types on a contact
You set Communication Types on each individual contact. A contact will only receive system messages that match the types they have enabled.
Editing Communication Types requires the Account > Edit or Business Account > Edit permission. There is no separate permission for this feature.
- Navigate to an Account or Business Account.
- Open the contact you want to update.
In the Communication Types field, enable or disable each type as needed.
You can disable all Communication Types on a contact to stop them from receiving any system communications.
The contact will now only receive system messages that match their enabled Communication Types.
Communication Types on System Messages
Every system message that targets an account is tagged with a Communication Type. You can review these tags in your settings.
- Navigate to Settings.
- Open Communications.
- View the new Communication Type column.
The tag follows the message's area of the product:
| Message area | Communication Type |
|---|---|
| Billing messages | Billing and Payments |
| Account messages | Account and Services |
| Ordering messages | Orders and Checkout |
| Work order messages | Work Orders |
Communication Types on system messages are managed by gaiia and cannot be changed by your organization.
Default behavior for new and existing accounts
There is no change to which notifications are sent when this feature is released. Communication Types are mapped so that existing behavior is preserved:
- Primary contacts on both new and existing accounts have all Communication Types enabled by default. To change this, you must explicitly edit the contact.
- Existing secondary contacts with the billing notification type enabled are mapped to Billing and Payments.
- Existing secondary contacts with no notification types enabled will have no Communication Types enabled and will continue to receive no communications.
Important notes
- Communication Types only route system notifications. They do not apply to custom messages or mass communications.
- They only apply to system messages that target accounts.
- This feature is available on Accounts and Business Accounts only. Properties and Property Groups are not supported at this time.
- Communication Types are not displayed in the customer portal; they can only be managed and seen by users in gaiia.
- PIN verification continues to be sent only to the primary contact.