Declaring War On The Salesforce Notification Bell
Why We Miss What Matters in Salesforce
Does Salesforce expect too much of its users? ... Do we?
I’ve worked with Salesforce for years. I love working with it. I've spent countless hours trying to make it better: smarter automation, cleaner data, more intuitive UIs.
But despite that effort, one problem just kept coming back: Important things were being missed — all the time.
No matter how much we customized Salesforce, no matter how polished the user experience, people still missed things.
Salesforce Hides What Matters
Is it a training issue? Poor adoption? Resistance to change? Are people just being lazy?
No. People are busy and information is scattered: across tabs, buried in reports, hidden in related lists. Making it near impossible to keep up!
❓ “What changed while I was away?”
❓ “What slipped through the cracks?”
❓ “Who’s waiting on me to respond?”
❓ “What do I need to follow up on?”
It’s so easy to miss what needs your attention, but you're expected to keep track.
The Cost of Missed Moments
Missed actions costs time, money and mental energy.
🗣️ “We’re not getting to leads fast enough.” = cold leads and lost sales
🗣️
“Why hasn't this case been picked up, or actioned?” = slow response, bad customer experience
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“How did nobody see the contract was expiring?" = missed renewal and lost revenue
Always a different issue, but always costly, and all symptomatic of the same underlying problem.
And The Best We Could Do?
A frustrating cycle of monitoring, chasing and repetitive training. Build a report. Highlight the data. Send it off. Hope for the best. Repeat.
Salesforce is one of the most powerful platforms in the world. So why is everything that needs attention scattered everywhere, and why are we so powerless when it comes to tackling this problem?
The Question That Changed Everything
What if Salesforce could monitor itself?
What if it could track all activity (or inactivity) and step in when action is needed?
What if Salesforce could be proactive, and help teams carry out their tasks in real time?
Bringing everything that needs attention into one place and helping teams respond long before an issue escalates, before a lead goes cold, before someone starts shouting
Like a digital assistant, keeping watch and working tirelessly to help everyone stay at the top of their game.
That idea grew into an obsession. That obsession became ... Act On It.
Declaring War On The Salesforce Notification Bell
Energized by this idea, we set out to build what Salesforce was missing: A smarter, more proactive notification system. But we faced a big challenge:
How do we actually deliver these insights in a way that works?
📧 Email? Too much noise. People complain, or stop reading.
💬 Chatter notifications? Easy to miss, quickly buried.
🔔 The Salesforce bell? Passive. Inflexible. No real control.
We needed something better.
Something that adapts to the urgency of the moment. That grabs attention when it needs to - but stays subtle when it doesn’t. Something that's always accessible, able to reach teams wherever they are, and actually help them to take action.
That’s when we realized: this wasn’t just a feature gap. It was a foundational problem.
Reimagining Notifications From the Ground Up
Fast forward to today, and we’ve built what we believe Salesforce should have had all along: A proper notification and alerting platform.
Native. Flexible. Proactive. Smart. Visible. And designed for action.
Here's how we've tackled it ...
✅ The Inbox Salesforce Forgot to Build
We wanted to bring all notifications into one organized, filterable and actionable location in Salesforce, so we created an all-in-one notification console. Everything you need to know, in one place. Delivering on more 100 requested features the Salesforce community has asked for. Allowing users to cut through the noise; search, snooze, preview, save or act - all from one hub!
⚡ Smart Notification Builder
We wanted to free managers from supervising and chasing by putting Salesforce on autopilot, so we created an intuitive notification builder. A tool for cloning yourself by creating smart, proactive alerts that monitor Salesforce for you. No more chasing or checking. Act On It keeps watch and nudges your team when it’s time to act.
🔔 Customizable delivery
We wanted to give you more ways to keep your team in the loop, so we added 9+ delivery options, providing 511 unique ways to send notifications that work for everyone. A catalog of new and unique delivery methods to flexibly adapt delivery to match the mood and urgency, each enabled at the click of a button!
Better yet,
let users decide
how and where they’re notified! Anyone who has created email alerts, only to then hear people complain about getting too many, knows one size doesn’t fit all ...
👉 Action With One-Click
We wanted to help users act instantly from any alert, so we added the ability for admins to create resuable plug-in automations for rapid responses to any task. Approve, assign, comment, complete, without switching tabs or breaking focus.
🌍 Act On It Anywhere!
We wanted to reach your users where they work, so we integrated with outlook, email and the Salesforce mobile app to turn email and mobile alerts into instantly actionable work items.
📊 Insights & ROI
We wanted you to see the impact Act On It was having on your business, so we added advanced alerts and engagement tracking. Visibility to see which alerts drive action. For managers to see what's working, and what's not. Built-in analytics reveal user behavior and outcomes tied to KPIs.
Crucially, we wanted to make it fun, intuitive, and accessible to all, so we made it easy to try and your first use case is on us! That means full access to every feature, for unlimited users, right out of the gate.
No long setup, no lengthy projects, no steep learning curve. Get up and running in minutes!
💡 Users Deserve Better
Salesforce does a lot well. But it doesn’t help people stay on top of what matters in the moment. It reacts after the fact. It asks you to check reports, chase updates, open tabs.
We wanted Salesforce to be more than a database. We wanted it to watch, think, and help.
Act On It makes Salesforce feel like it’s finally working with you.
It’s the notification platform Salesforce should have had all along.
— The Overlay Apps Team
What People Are Saying ...
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
“If I could give 11 stars, I would. Amazing app.”
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
“What Salesforce alerts should be. Built my first in minutes.”
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
“Changed how we handle SLAs. We’re finally proactive.”
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
“Save yourself time, money and mental energy with this app.”
