👥 Deduplication

Deduplication is the process of detecting duplicates in a system and removing them.

In NotificationAPI, this refers to the process of detecting duplicate notifications (same user, same channel, same content) and preventing them from being sent.

What constitutes a duplicate?

A notification is duplicate if it is:

  • The same notification type, e.g. order_tracking
  • Being sent to the same user ID
  • Using the same channels as before, e.g. email & in-app
  • With the same exact content (same subject, same message, same attachments, …)

How does it work?

NotificationAPI dashboard interface showing deduplication feature settings and configuration

When setting up deduplication, you are asked to select a deduplication duration. This is the window of time during which we will consider a notification a duplicate of another.

Example: duplication window of 1 hour

  • A notification is sent to user at 10:00:00AM (successful)
  • Same notification to user at 10:59:59AM (ignored)
  • Same notification to user at 11:02:00AM (successful)

Ignored requests are properly logged in our logs and insights features

How to use the deduplication feature?

Deduplication is a feature that can be enabled on a per-notification basis in the notification configuration page.

It is disabled by default.