Notifications
RaceRanger sends push notifications to keep officials informed during events. Notifications appear on your device even when the app is in the background.
Notification types
| Type | When it's sent | Who receives it |
|---|---|---|
| Penalty | A penalty is submitted | Officials with penalty notifications enabled |
| Incident | An incident is submitted | Officials with incident notifications enabled |
| Chat | A new message in a channel you follow | Officials in that channel with notifications on |
| Race status | A race starts or ends | Officials assigned to the race |
| Stale race | A race has been active for 3+ hours with no recent activity | Officials who can start/stop the race |
| Assignment | You're added to an event or approved | The assigned official |
| Weather | Weather data is updated | Officials with environment notifications enabled |
What's in a notification
Each notification includes:
- A title (e.g. "New Penalty" or "Race Started").
- A summary message with key details.
- A link that opens the relevant screen when tapped — the penalty review, incident review, chat, or the event's race list.
Tapping a notification
Tapping a notification takes you directly to the relevant screen:
- Penalty notification → penalty review screen.
- Incident notification → incident review screen.
- Race status notification → race mode view, so you're immediately ready to officiate.
- Chat notification → the chat channel.
- Assignment notification → the event's race list.
Tip
When a race starts, the notification takes you straight into race mode. Make sure you're in race mode during an active race — it ensures your location is tracked (if enabled) and you can react quickly to penalties and incidents.
Controlling notifications
Notification preferences are tied to your role and TO assignments:
- Penalty notifications — enabled for roles like Head Referee, Chief Race Official, and Penalty Box officials.
- Incident notifications — enabled for roles that need to respond to incidents.
- Environment notifications — enabled for roles that monitor weather and course conditions.
- Chat notifications — can be toggled per channel.
You can't override role-based notification settings, but you can disable chat notifications for individual channels.
In-app notifications
The notifications screen inside the app shows a history of all notifications you've received. Use the All / Unread filter at the top to switch between everything and only the items you haven't read yet; the Unread tab shows a live count. Entries are grouped by day — Today, Yesterday, and Earlier.
Each entry shows:
- The notification type (penalty, incident, chat, etc.).
- Who triggered it.
- When it was sent.
- Whether you've read it — unread entries are highlighted.
Swipe an unread entry to mark it read, or tap it to open the relevant screen (a penalty or incident notification opens its review and is marked read automatically). To clear everything at once, use Mark all as read at the top of the screen and confirm.
Shared devices
On shared tablets, notifications are filtered to the active event. If a tablet is configured for a specific event, it only receives notifications relevant to that event — not notifications from other events the signed-in user might be assigned to.