Use Notifications Like a Boss
Interested in learning how Notifications work in our new community? Read on! Notifications enable you to receive important updates or information about items requiring your attention. An unread Notification is indicated by a small numeric icon on top of your avatar (top right corner of your screen) and can be viewed by clicking on the avatar and then clicking on Notifications.
In this case, I have two unread Notifications as shown above. Clicking on Notifications will take users to this link: https://activities.sap.com/#/notifications
*Update* The Notification indicator shows the No. of new notifications, and NOT the No. of unread Notifications.
List of Notifications
Users should keep in mind that even though ‘Notifications’ is a section of the Activity Stream, this service is independent of user subscriptions (your followed items). Users will receive Notifications regardless of whether they are following a certain piece of content, primary tag, or person. If you are interested in learning how the Activity Stream works, read my other blog, Use the Activity Stream Like a Boss. The following is the list of specific activities that will generate Notifications for our users:
- Receiving a new message
- Receiving a new group message
- Gaining a new follower
- Receiving a new editorial comment
- Blog permission increased from Blog Subscriber to Blog Contributor
- Blog permission increased from Blog Contributor to Blog Author
- Blog permission decreased from Blog Author to Blog Contributor
- Receiving an answer to authored questions
- Receiving a comment on authored blog, question, answer, discussion, and comment
- Getting an answer accepted by question author or moderator
- Previously submitted “Alert Moderator” confirmed
- Previously submitted “Alert Moderator” rejected
- Moderator confirming an “Alert Moderator” on user’s published content
- Having content published by a moderator
- Receiving “Needs more work” alert from a moderator
- (Moderators only) Content submitted for review
- (Moderators only) “Alert Moderator” submitted for a tag
Mark as Read
When done following up on a Notification, users can ‘Mark it as Read’ by hovering the mouse over the intended Notification and clicking the small circular ‘Mark as Read’ option as shown:
Notifications that have been ‘Marked as Read’ will by grayed out to distinguish them from unread Notifications. Users can also mark ALL of their Notifications read by pressing the ‘Mark all Read’ button indicated in the top right corner of the image above.
Cool Tip
Using the ‘comment’ feature (not answer) can be extremely helpful in getting someone’s attention and further clarification on questions and answers. Why? Because it sends them a Notification!
Important to Note
Here I believe it is important to note the distinction between ‘comments’ and ‘answers’. The question author receives notifications for both comments & answers that the question receives. However, the answer author only receives notifications for comments that the answer receives, and not when other answers are published on the same question. Therefore to get further clarification on any submitted answer, or question, users are urged to use the comment feature available on the particular question or answer that needs clarification.
What’s Coming
As announced in Jamie’s blog 2016 Wrap Up & Looking Forward to the New Year, we will soon be launching Email Notification functionality that has been widely requested by our users. This feature would allow users to receive Email Notifications for each Notification that they receive on SAP Community. We are currently testing this functionality and will have an official announcement with more details when this feature goes live. We are also working on other aspects of Notifications to better this service and make it more user friendly and reflective of user’s needs. If you have any questions or comments, please do not hesitate to reach me via message or comments below.
Update (7.7.2017):
- Added new notification category since this blog was published: Getting an answer accepted by question author or moderator
- Added new notification category to this list: Receiving a new group message
- Added “(Moderator only)” to : Content submitted for review
Hey Sajid,
thanks for giving us this overview!
Notifications are really helpful, if I have any that’s the first thing I check!
I think the following wishes for optimization are known already:
– they should be about-marked as read when you click a link
– if you receive multiple feedback on one item (e.g. 7 comments on your blog), they should be condensed into 1 notification item
That you get notifications on comments, but not on answers to your questions was new to me, I’m not sure if I do like it.
Point can be made that would be nice to be informed, when your question is answered, no?
best
Joachim
Hello Joachim,
I am glad that you found this blog helpful. And you are absolutely right, we are working towards making it possible so that Notifications get automatically "Marked as Read" if a link in the notification is clicked. The other idea that you mention is certainly interesting and I will take it to our developers for consideration. However, don't you think this may make it confusing for our users? For instance, there can be multiple comments on separate comment threads on a post. Consolidating all such comments into one notification can be confusing for some users, leading to the possibility of them missing important conversations.
Also, as described in the blog, and I apologize if I was not clear, question authors ARE notified if their question is answered. That is, the question author receives a notification for every "answer" AND "comment" that the question receives. It is only that users who have ALREADY provided an answer to the question will not be notified when FURTHER "answers" are submitted on the same question.
Hi Sajid,
thanks for clarifying on the answer notifications.
About the grouping of notification on the same item:
This is only my workflow, but I do read all of the comments on my blogs - so of 3 get notifications about comments on my blog, I'll click the 1st one and read all the (new) comments.
-> so I would profit from consolidation, but I agree that others might have different preferences; maybe make it optional/switchable?
best
Joachim
Here's a real life example of notifications that could and should be grouped:
-> one message ("you got 3 comments/replies on your question") would be enough!
Even more so, as the notifications do NOT link to the new answer/comment itselfe (-> "Item") but only to the question (-> "Header")
best
Joachim
There is already idea with 66 votes asking to get the old notification functionality back.
I appreciate you effort posting this but the current functionality simply does not suit the community needs. It is not at all an improvement on what we had and I'm rather confused why anyone felt it'd be a suitable replacement.
Jelena,
I am aware of that idea and working with IT to implement that functionality. And I believe we have had plenty of opportunities to discuss this feature and what changes you would like to see. This blog is actually aimed at less experienced users so they are aware of the current state.
And I am also sure you know that this service was not replaced as a stand alone project but part of the 1DX community launch. I mean we cant still be using Jive Notifications on our new platform. I hope you will be patient while we keep making upgrades to this service so it is comparable and if not, better than what we had before. Now while that may take time, I hope such communications efforts from our team will help less experienced users to learn the new system and more experienced users such as yourself educate and guide new users.
Thanks,
Sajid Amir
The fact that answer author is not receiving notifications about other answers on the same question (and about comments not to his reply) makes notifications useless to me and to all members answering questions. And e-mail notifications will be also useless - just don't spend time on the development. "Education" of the community members is not working and will not work.
I choose to not lose hope Vadim! We couldn’t possibly give up now after all the work that we have been doing! You may be unaware but these small changes are slowly affecting the Community in a rather positive light. I hope you will be patient as we work out some of these issues Vadim. And thanks for raising this concern again (about notifications on all other answers). You should know that this issue is also in my radar as we have had MANY opportunities to discuss this already. If you have any other constructive feedback (that I am not aware of already) that will help us improve this service please feel free to share
Best,
Sajid Amir
Sorry, I am very constructive ?
I need notifications to understand that some new information is provided under some question.
Then I can open this question to provide some useful answer based on this new information.
If I have no notification the topic author will wait endlessly.
Currently I have to periodically refresh the followed tag pages to see that my name was changed by another name as update indicator – very efficient way ? Using Activity page is less effective due to posts for all questions in the followed tags.
Just look on the list of persons promoting this idea - all top contributors are here:
Johan Hakkesteegt, Veselina Peykova, jitendra kansal, Priyanka Jagtap, Steffi Warnecke, Zafer Kuru, Eli Klovski, Denis Konovalov, Ricardo Eduardo Marcondes de Oliveira, Aliona Baltramiayuk, Florian Pfeffer, Brandon Jacobson, Yves Kervadec, Gustavo Vazquez, Lutz Rottmann, Maria Terence, Mithun Suthar, Mark Pfister, Jeremy Good, Michael Appleby, Colleen Hebbert, Antoine CHABERT, Warren Nash, Prithviraj Rajpurohit, Mark A Parsons, Tom Cenens, Raf Boudewijns, Don Williams, Shai Sinai, Emmanuel Miret, Jürgen L, Andrea Kristen, Zenon Kowalewski, Patrick Genest, Ilke Tutku Senol, Jesus Antonio Santos Giraldo, Ben Slade, Vincent Rives, Niklas Theis, Bertrand Delvallée, Frank Wagner, Joe Peters, Craig S, Ricardo Jasso, Altaf Borkar, Gonzalo Gomez, Scott McClure, Jens Schwendemann, Julie Plummer, Axel Radack, Nicolas VANDER AUWERA, Bobby Richardson, Artem Böhme, Derk Rösler, Simon Ogden, Joyca Vervinckt, Philippe Vlietinck, Fabio Serrano, Robert Sleep, Marçal Oliveras, Jelena Perfiljeva, Vadim Kalinin, Joachim Rees, Lena Larionova, Martin Rapp, Volker Sengler
Thanks Vadim. I am aware of this idea.