Notifications - General Overview

The Notifications feature of D2L give you the option to receive notifications about activity in your courses. To subscribe to notification sources, specify the time for daily course summaries, and identify courses you do not want to receive notifications for, click on the Notifications icon (looks like a gear).

Clicking on the notifications icon will take you to the Notifications "control" page.

Contact Methods

A user's UWM email address is the default. You can change the email settings to a different system email or a custom email address. 


You can also register a mobile number to receive text-message notifications via your mobile device. Once you register your mobile device, you will be able to select the maximum number of messages received per day. The options range from 5 to "no limit." 


NOTE: The user is responsible for all charges resulting from receipt of text messages from the D2L system.  Check with your cell phone service provider to understand your cell phone text messaging plan.

Summary of Activity

There are two options – never or daily. A time for this summary must be specified when “daily” is selected.

Instant Notifications

Discussions: You can choose to receive an email from the D2L system that notifies you of unread discussion messages, however discussion messages cannot be sent directly to a mobile device.

Dropbox and News (update and new) have email and mobile options. Messages regarding changes to these areas are sent as they occur. They will also come through as part of the daily Summary of Activity. These messages will appear to be from the helpdesk (News) or the UWM Help Desk (Dropbox).

Exclude Some Courses

You can select courses and groups to exclude from your Summary of Activity and/or Instant Notifications.

Subscribe to Dropbox Deadline Reminders (Email, SMS)

The Notifications feature allows you to subscribe to receive email or SMS (text) notifications about approaching Dropbox folder deadlines.

Email and/or SMS subscribers will be notified about end dates that are two days away. Even if you have already submitted files to the Dropbox, you will be notified in case there are files you would like to add or would like to make final modifications before the end date.

In addition to receiving immediate notifications, you can also add Dropbox folders with end dates in the next 7 days to the daily course update.

Subscribe to News (Email, SMS, RSS)

There are three ways to receive notifications about changes to course news:

1. Email (a system defined email address or another email address)


2. SMS (text message)


3. RSS (news feed)

By selecting one or more of these news options, you will be notified whenever a news item is available, or when an instructor makes a major update to a news item.

Email notifications can go to any email address you choose. These messages include the headline, full body of the new item, links to access the News tool for the course, and any attachments.

SMS notifications enable you to receive news items on your mobile device. These notifications include a course identifier, and as much of the headline and news body text as allowed in a short message.

If you would like to aggregate your news from all your current courses or from individual ones, you can subscribe to an RSS feed for News.

Once you click on the RSS feed icon, you will be able to subscribe via the news aggregator of your choice.

RSS works best with Firefox and Safari. Chrome has issues with the RSS feature. If you use Chrome, you can get a plug-in as a workaround. However, the plug-in lacks functionality.

Subscribe to Course Updates (Email)

Instead of receiving immediate notifications, you have the option to receive a daily activity summary for each course.

The daily summary includes News activity details and Dropbox folders with approaching end dates. For students, this notice also includes the number of:

• Unattempted quizzes
• Unread discussion messages
• New email messages
• Dropbox submissions with unread feedback

For instructors, the summary includes the number of:

• Unread discussion messages
• New Emails
• Ungraded quiz attempts
• New dropbox submissions
• New enrollments

News - General Overview

Previously referred to as the Announcements page, the News tool is located on the Course Home page. It is now possible to read instructor messages, course information, and other news updates by using the News widget.  It is also possible to dismiss a news item and restore a dismissed news items.    

News items appear in the News widget, but you can also receive instant notifications about postings through email, SMS, and RSS feeds. See Notifications to learn about creating instant notifications for news items.

The News tool enables you to create news items that help communicate course updates, changes, and new information to your users quickly and effectively. Since My Home or Course Home is the first page that users often see when they log in or access their courses, the News widget is a good area for displaying important information.