A notification component that is shared between all applications that provides notifications to users without interrupting the task that the user is working and allows users to manage the notifications from one location. The user can globally set preferences as to how the notifications should be rendered. These preferences include enabling or disabling notification classifications, which rendering type they want to use for each notification classification, and priority of notifications within each notification classification. The notification component allows the user to indicate what notifications the user want to sees and how the notifications are rendered. Rendering types include audio, visual, and pager styles. An application uses an application programming interface to send notification using schema based or text based notifications. The system parses the notification and provides the user the notification through notification classifications in accordance with the user preferences.