How does the dashboard alert me when a booking comes in or is cancelled?

In Settings › Account › Notifications you decide three separate things: whether the on-screen alert appears, whether a tone plays (you pick which one and at what volume, and you can test it) and whether you want browser notifications, which reach you even with the dashboard closed.

You also choose what alerts you: new bookings, cancelled bookings or both.

Tapping an alert takes you to that appointment. The on-screen alert ("View appointment"), the bell and the notification on your computer or phone open the Schedule on the day of the appointment with its card open, even if it is cancelled or belongs to another of your businesses. If you have a form half filled in at that moment, it does not pull you out of it: it leaves the alert with its link for when you finish.

Browser notifications are enabled on each device and the browser has to allow them. If you blocked them by accident, only you can re-enable them from the padlock next to the web address: for security reasons, no website can ask you again on its own.

Turning alerts off does not switch anything else off: bookings keep coming in, you just stop seeing the pop-up.