Setting email preferences for notifications
IBM Cloud users can choose to receive email notifications about IBM Cloud platform-related items, such as announcements, billing and usage, additional notification preferences, and ordering. Users can also update their preferences to receive email notifications about resource-related items, such as incidents, maintenance, security bulletins, or resource activity on the Notification preferences page. These notifications are for only the resources in use.
To view the Notifications preferences page, go to the Avatar icon 
in the IBM Cloud console, and then click Profile > Notification preferences.
You can also visit the page if you click the Notifications icon 
in the IBM Cloud console, and then click Manage email preferences.
If you set your email preferences but aren't receiving email notifications, make sure emails that are sent from no_reply@cloud.ibm.com aren't blocked or in your spam folder. See Why am I not receiving email notifications? for more information.
Setting platform notifications
You can choose to receive email notifications about IBM Cloud platform-related items across your account. When you set IBM Cloud platform notifications, you receive email notifications that are associated with only the platform. You do not receive email notifications about events that are associated with IBM Cloud services.
Your platform email notifications settings are tied to your account.
- To stay up to date with changes to the IBM Cloud platform and products, go to Notification preferences > Announcements. To select a subcategory, set Emails to the on position.
- To receive notifications about invoices, payments, subscription and promo codes, or spending and usage warnings, see Billing and usage. Then, click Manage in the IBM Cloud console to set up spending notifications.
- To receive updates about the status of your infrastructure orders, select Ordering.
- To manage the notification distribution list in regard to your account, subscriptions, security and compliance alerts or marketing communications, click Additional notification preferences > Manage in the IBM Cloud console.
- By default, all IBM Cloud platform notifications are turned off.
To quickly turn off emails for the selected account or for all other accounts, click Actions, and select your preference.
Setting resource notifications
You can set your preferences to receive resource-related notifications for incidents, maintenance, security bulletins, and resource activity updates.
- In the console, go to the Avatar icon > Profile.
- Click Notification preferences > Resource.
- Select from the following options:
- Receive notifications about events that can cause an outage or restrict functionality. You can receive notifications for all incident severity levels (1, 2, 3, 4) or just a subset.
- Receive notifications about any important maintenance that keeps the platform operating at optimal status. You can receive notifications for all impact levels (high, medium, low), or just a subset.
- Receive notifications about security vulnerabilities and the required actions to take.
- Receive notifications about resource activity, such as status and service updates.
- By default, all IBM Cloud resource notifications are turned off.
To quickly turn off emails for the selected account or for all other accounts, click Actions, and select your preference.
Setting user notifications for classic infrastructure resources
Setting user notifications is available for classic infrastructure resources only. If you're an account owner, you can subscribe users in your account to notifications for a specific set of developer services like Auto-Scaling and Raid Alert Monitoring. When the user is subscribed to a service, they receive emails about that service. Changes that you make for a user take effect only for future notifications. A user is not notified about events that occurred before you set up notifications.
Users in your account receive notifications for the following types of important operational events:
- Unplanned infrastructure issues or outages: Issues that might cause an outage based on certain conditions for specific customers.
- Planned service or scheduled maintenance: Maintenance that is required to keep the infrastructure operating at optimal status.
- Security vulnerabilities: The affected area is isolated. A patch is created to close the vulnerability, and tests are performed on the patch to ensure that no collateral function is affected.
The timing of the notification varies depending on whether the event is unplanned, planned, or scheduled. The IBM Cloud infrastructure policy is to remedy problems as quickly as possible to remove or minimize the risk of further issues that might have a larger impact. Sometimes even planned maintenance is performed with only a short advanced notification.
To set up subscription notifications for your users, complete the following steps:
- In the console, go to Manage > Account, and select Subscriptions.
- Select a service from the table.
- In the Subscribed column, select Yes for the user who wants to receive notifications.
You can also set up subscriptions under Additional notification preferences category.
To easily find the user you're looking for, click Filter and filter by given name, surname, or user name.
Assigning required access to receive notifications
Users that you set up for classic infrastructure notifications must also have access to the devices, network, and services that send the notifications.
To ensure that a user has the correct access, go to Manage > Access (IAM) > Users in the IBM Cloud console, select their name, and then select Classic infrastructure. From the Permissions option, assign users the following classic infrastructure permissions.
| Permission Category | Required Permissions |
|---|---|
| Device | View Hardware Details View Virtual Server Details |
| Network | Manage Network Gateways |
| Services | Storage Manage |
Then, go to Devices to assign a user access to the specific devices and device types. You can also enable future access to all devices of a certain type. For more information about setting classic infrastructure permissions, see Managing classic infrastructure access.
Managing invitation notifications
Users can receive an invitation link in their notifications and by email to join an account, if they are already members of IBM Cloud. User managers can invite any user to the IBM Cloud platform if they have an email address to use for an invite.
On the IBM Cloud Notifications page, you can use the search field to locate an invitation or filter by the notification type called account. You cannot set email preferences for receiving account type notifications.
Users already present in IBM Cloud will receive an email and a notification with an invitation link. If an email address does not correspond to a known user in IBM Cloud, an invitation email gets sent to accept, but users can also choose not to accept the invitation. For more information, see Viewing notifications and Inviting users to an account.
The invitations expire after 30 days. New users to IBM Cloud can only accept an invitation by using the invitation link they received through email.
Managing marketing communications
You might receive notifications about significant technical enhancements, changes to the terms of service, plan changes, pricing changes, and the future removal of a product from the IBM Cloud catalog. With a few exceptions, these announcements are published to the IBM Cloud blog.
Use the following steps to update your preferences:
- Log in to the IBM Privacy Preference Center by using your IBM Cloud credentials. The toggle indicates if your entered credential is your preferred method of contact.
- Click Next.
- Deselect Public cloud to stop marketing communications.
- Click Save.