# Connectivity notification holds

This topic describes how to use the Hold feature in the Connectivity Notification Service (CNS).

## What are Holds?

Holds are a mechanism within the Connectivity Notification Service (CNS) to pause the delivery of notifications on demand. This is useful for maintenance, testing, or issue resolution purposes.

## Points to remember

Granular hold controls: You can selectively apply holds at three levels:

- Endpoint-specific holds: Pause notifications for specific endpoint.
- Notification type-specific holds: Pause specific types of notifications.
- Globally, for all the notification types and subscribed endpoints.


You can set up notification holds in advance for planned maintenance or for a service outage.

## Managing notification holds

You can use holds to temporarily prevent the delivery of notifications to specific endpoints, notification types or across all notifications.

Notification holds can be:

- upcoming: You can schedule a hold to take effect in the future.
- active: You can schedule a hold to take effect immediately.


For both types of holds, you can:

- update the hold details
- release the upcoming or active hold


### Add new notification hold

1. After you log in to the Provider Portal, go to **Administration** > **Notification Service Settings**.
2. Click **Add new notification hold**.
3. To pause notifications for:
  1. Single notification, select **Single notification**. Select the Notification type and a version.
  2. Single endpoint, select  **Single endpoint** and select an endpoint.
  3. All notifications, select **All notifications**.
4. Select a start date and time. You can choose from now or select **Custom** to select a custom start time.
5. Select an end time from the predefined period or select **Custom** to specify an end time.
6. Click **Create Notification hold**.


## Update notification hold

You can update an active/upcoming notification hold by clicking on the more options icon by the side of the notification and selecting **Update upcoming hold**.

## Remove notification hold

You can release an active/upcoming notification hold by clicking on the more options icon by the side of the notification and selecting **Release upcoming hold**.