Assignment notifications not working? A checklist, iPhone first

When assignment notifications are not working on an iPhone, the cause is usually one of four phone settings: notifications are off for the app, a Focus is silencing it, it’s in Scheduled Summary, or Low Power Mode has stopped it from checking in the background. Check those first, in that order. If your phone is fine, the problem is on your course site. The most common one is a surprise: the notification many students turn on for deadlines only fires when a due date changes, not before one is due. Here’s the full checklist.

Before you start: which notification is missing?

Assignment alerts can come from three different places, and each has its own settings:

Your school’s course app (push notifications on your phone).
Your course site (usually email, set in your account’s notification settings).
Your calendar app, if you subscribed to your course calendar link.

Figure out which one you were expecting. Then follow that part of the list. The iPhone checks apply to the first and third.

The iPhone checklist

1. Notifications are allowed for the app

Go to Settings, Notifications, and tap the app (your course app, or Calendar).

Allow Notifications should be on.
Under Alerts, turn on Lock Screen, Notification Center and Banners. With only Notification Center on, alerts arrive silently and you’ll never see them pop up.
Turn on Sounds if you want to hear them. Apple notes that notification sounds won’t play when your phone is silenced or the volume is all the way down.
If you see Time Sensitive Notifications, turn it on. Not every app supports it.

2. A Focus isn’t silencing it

A Focus (Do Not Disturb, Sleep, Work, Personal or one you made) blocks every app that isn’t on its allowed list.

Go to Settings, Focus.
Tap each Focus you use, then Apps.
If it says Allow Notifications From, add your course app and Calendar. If it says Silence Notifications From, make sure they aren’t on that list.
Turn on Time Sensitive on that screen, so apps that mark an alert as urgent can get through.

Check the schedule, too. A Sleep Focus that starts at 10 PM will hide a “due at 11:59 PM” alert.

3. It isn’t in Scheduled Summary

If your notifications show up in a bunch at the same times every day, this is why. Scheduled Summary holds an app’s notifications and delivers them at the times you set.

Go to Settings, Notifications, tap the app, and under Notification Delivery choose Immediate Delivery. If you don’t see that option, Scheduled Summary is off and this isn’t your problem.

4. The app can check in the background

Some apps need to check for new assignments while you’re not using them. Three things stop that:

Background App Refresh is off. Go to Settings, General, Background App Refresh, and make sure it’s on, for your course app too.
Low Power Mode is on. Apple says Low Power Mode turns off Background App Refresh. If your battery icon is yellow, that’s why things went quiet. On newer iPhones with Adaptive Power on, your phone can also turn it on by itself when the battery runs low.
Low Data Mode is on. Apple says it also turns off Background App Refresh. Check your Wi-Fi and cellular settings.

5. You haven’t swiped the app away

Apple notes that if you quit an app from the app switcher, it might not be able to check for new content until you open it again. You don’t need to close apps to save battery. Leave your course app in the background.

6. You’re still signed in

Open the course app. If it asks you to sign in, you’ve been signed out, and nothing has been coming through. A password change can do this. Sign in again.

The course site checklist

7. Your notification settings are on, and set to right away

On your course site, open your Account menu and find Notifications. Each kind of notification has its own setting, usually: right away, a daily summary, a weekly summary, or off. A daily summary is easy to mistake for “not working”.

Your course app usually has its own push settings, separate from the email ones. Check both.

8. You know what “Due Date” means

This is the one that catches the most people. On many course sites, the notification called Due Date means an assignment’s due date was changed. It doesn’t tell you that something is due tomorrow. You can turn it on and still never get a “due soon” alert.

For reminders before a deadline, look at the assignment itself. Some schools’ course apps let you set a reminder on an assignment’s page. Those reminders live on that one phone, so set them again on a new phone or an iPad.

9. Your email isn’t hiding them

If notifications come by email, check your spam or junk folder and any “Other” or “Promotions” tab. Make sure the address your course site sends to is one you actually read. If you never open your school email, that’s where the alerts are piling up.

10. One class is quiet, the others aren’t

Some course sites let you change notification settings for a single class. If only one class goes quiet, check that class’s own settings. And check that the professor actually posted something: no new work means no notification.

If you rely on calendar alerts

If you subscribed to your course calendar link in Apple Calendar or Google Calendar and expected alerts, here’s why they don’t come. The feed from your course site has no alerts in it: in the feeds we’ve checked, not one event carried an alert. Events in a subscribed calendar are read-only, so you can’t add an alert to one.

In Google Calendar on a computer, open that calendar’s Settings and look for Event notifications and All-day event notifications. If your version shows them, set a default there. Remember that assignments due at 11:59 PM usually come through as all-day items, so it’s the all-day setting that counts. In Apple Calendar, add your own events with an Alert for exams and big deadlines.

There’s also a timing catch: your calendar rereads the link on its own schedule (for Google, commonly several hours, up to about a day). A reminder for a date that just moved can fire at the old time. Our guide to a course calendar that isn’t updating explains the lag.

Why reminders break so often

Reminders fail quietly. Nobody tells you a Focus started, a battery setting kicked in, or an app signed you out. And the setting names make it worse: a notification called “Due Date” that isn’t about due dates coming up is a reasonable thing to misread. The safe habit is a quick look at the course site each evening for anything due in the next two days, whatever your phone says.

Where Coursebird fits

Coursebird’s reminders are set for you the moment your classes are connected: 24 hours and 2 hours before every deadline, and three for every exam (a week out, the day before and that morning). They come from one list of every class, and when a date moves, What’s New shows you the old date and the new one side by side. Reminders run in the Coursebird phone app, which is coming soon and isn’t in the App Store yet. The same iPhone settings above will apply to it, and its check for moved dates while it’s closed needs Background App Refresh (step 4).

Coursebird only reads your classes and never changes anything on your course site. Your data stays on your device. It’s in beta; to hear when the phone app is ready, join the list.