Help! Notification for location reminders does not work
 

I just started using OmniFocus on my MacBook Pro and iPhone 4 recently. I am trying to figure out how notifications for local reminders are supposed to work, namely: am I supposed to be notified by sound and banner (iPhone's Notification Center) when I am near location where certain actions are to be taken?

First of all, OmniFocus notifications are enabled on my iPhone under Settings/Notifications. OmniFocus has been added to Notification Center. It is set to show 5 recent items, use Banners as alert style, with "Badge App Icon", "Sounds" and "View in Lock Scree" all set to ON.

Now, in OmniFocus itself, there is "Notifications:Sounds & Alerts" button on Settings screen. When I tap on it I see that both "Show Alerts" and "Play Sound" options are set to ON in "Location Reminders" section. So, I understand that when I drive or walk near, say, a store where I am supposed to buy something (and of course this store has its coordinates assigned in Map section of OmniFocus") then my iPhone is supposed to make a sound and display a notification banner on the screen. Yet, it does not happen. No notification whatsoever!

I believe I have it all set up correctly, since when I click on Map in OmniFocus home screen, it shows me the list of items I am supposed to buy at that store. So why does it fail to notify me with sound and notification banner? (all other reminders work fine).

I would appreciate your help in resolving this problem.

Cheers,

GeorgeC

There are a couple of things that you didn't mention that are necessary for the feature to work.

It isn't sufficient to simply add a location to the context; you also need to set a notification. If you edit the context, you should have a status field, a location field, and a Move button. If the location field doesn't have a line like "notification: when arriving" you don't have a notification set up. Tap on the location field to bring up the editor and add one.

Also, not all location specifications can do notifications. It has to be a single, fixed location, and so cannot be a search like "Home Depot" or "grocery store".

[QUOTE=whpalmer4;107914]There are a couple of things that you didn't mention that are necessary for the feature to work.

It isn't sufficient to simply add a location to the context; you also need to set a notification. If you edit the context, you should have a status field, a location field, and a Move button. If the location field doesn't have a line like "notification: when arriving" you don't have a notification set up. Tap on the location field to bring up the editor and add one.[/QUOTE]

I completely missed Notification button at the bottom of Edit Location screen. Thank you very much for pointing this one out to me! I just enabled notification for when arriving and will test it tonight.

I can see that with this change GPS activity icon stays permanently in the status bar at the top of iPhone's screen. I will keep an eye on battery usage, although I use Mophie Juice Pack Plus, so I doubt power drain will be an issue :-)

[QUOTE] Also, not all location specifications can do notifications. It has to be a single, fixed location, and so cannot be a search like "Home Depot" or "grocery store".[/QUOTE]

If I understand you correctly, you mean that it has to be a specific Home Depot store at particular location, not just a general "Home Depot" string entered as context, right? If so, I indeed have specific physical stores as context for location notification.

Thank you for your help!

GeorgeC

You understand correctly!

[QUOTE=whpalmer4;107914]There are a couple of things that you didn't mention that are necessary for the feature to work.

It isn't sufficient to simply add a location to the context; you also need to set a notification. If you edit the context, you should have a status field, a location field, and a Move button. If the location field doesn't have a line like "notification: when arriving" you don't have a notification set up. Tap on the location field to bring up the editor and add one.

Also, not all location specifications can do notifications. It has to be a single, fixed location, and so cannot be a search like "Home Depot" or "grocery store".[/QUOTE]

I'm flummoxed by this. I've checked up and down and there's no place I can find that allows me to set a "when arriving" or "when leaving" context to a location. I can get in and edit a context--I see the status, location, and move buttons--and I set it's location by address, etc, but there's nowhere to tell it the context. I've checked on my iPad and my iPhone (4S and iPad 3).

I could send a screenshot that shows a lack of that option, but I can't find anywhere else to look for it!

Please help!

Thanks,

Chip

Maybe some pictures will help?

Here I've created a context and set the location to be the address:

[URL=http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/834/img0981.png/][IMG]http://img834.imageshack.us/img834/4504/img0981.png[/IMG][/URL]

I've tapped the Notification button to edit the notification:

[URL=http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/717/img0982.png/][IMG]http://img717.imageshack.us/img717/786/img0982.png[/IMG][/URL]

I chose "When Arriving" and tapped the button to go back to the previous screen:

[URL=http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/27/img0985.png/][IMG]http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/3465/img0985.png[/IMG][/URL]

Here's where I can configure the desired radius of the notification:

[URL=http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/442/img0986a.png/][IMG]http://img442.imageshack.us/img442/1152/img0986a.png[/IMG][/URL]

Does that help?

Having just reinstalled OmniFocus on one of my iPads, I'm reminded there's one other thing that needs to be set to get the notifications to work. In the settings panel, tap Sounds & Alerts (under Notifications) and make sure that the Show Alerts item under Location Reminders is set to on. If not, you won't have the option of setting a notification for the location.