This applies to anybody with a Parken Lot account.
The bell opens your notifications. Items arrive there when something happens that concerns you: a space offered, a contract to sign, a payment taken or failed, a citation, an alert from the property.
It opens when you ask it to
The panel never opens by itself when you sign in. If it is open, you opened it.
Alongside the emails, not instead of them
Anything that matters is emailed as well — a notice you have to act on is not left sitting behind a bell you might not click. The item in the panel is the convenient copy; the email is the one that counts for deadlines.
An alert from your property arrives all three ways at once: an email, an item here, and a push to your phone if you have the app.
Clearing it
Reading an item marks it read. Clearing the panel removes the items from it, and it does not undo anything they were telling you about — a bill you cleared the notification for is still due.
Which emails you get
Under Settings, then Notifications, you can turn off the messages that are a courtesy. The ones you cannot turn off are the ones a deadline runs from: a payment that failed, a permit about to be suspended, a space about to be released, and anything about your account's security.