The out-of-the-box features that Knock provides, like their React library, allowed us to create our own React components and easily interact with the notification feed and user preferences. Because of this, we were able to create multi-channel notifications effortlessly, where we can trigger a “workflow” with variables and allow users to customize on which channels they receive notifications.

Using the Knock dashboard and its workflow editor with live previews, we built layouts and workflows for each alert, giving users a real-time notification feed powered by Websockets and packaged with React hooks.

Once a new notification is live in Knock, we can use the dashboard’s analytics to debug any potential issues and evaluate how our new notifications are performing. And with Knock’s API for managing user notification preferences, we have the ability to update email and web notification behavior without redeploying API infrastructure, making our iteration speed even faster.

Additionally, Knock added value to Vercel internally. Customer success engineers can troubleshoot potential issues while product managers can update notification templates without needing to take time from engineering.