Dashboard - Updates

Updates

Updates are designed to help you keep on top of all the things that other people are working on with you. In other words, Updates let you know what other people are doing with the activities you are sharing with them. You will only receive Updates if you are sharing activities with other Accomplice users.

"Updates" are seperated into 3 basic categories: Requests, Alerts, and Watches, and each category has a corresponding button in the Dashboard. Clicking on any of these buttons will navigate you to the Updates tab and filter it for that type of Update.

Requests

Requests are things that other people are requesting of you. So if someone creates an activity and shares it with you, you will receive a request to accept the shared activity.

Because Requests rely on a decision in order to progress, the Requests button in the Dashboard will flash whenever new Requests arrive. To deal with your Requests, click on the button, and Accomplice will navigate to the Updates tab, where it will show you your latest requests. Here you can review the requests. Notice that the activity details, team panel, and notes are all displayed below the request. This allows you to view the share request in detail before making your decision to accept it or not.

To accept or decline a request, just click on one of the buttons located below the request, in the Activity Details panel.

Note that you can take action on a request in either the Updates tab or directly in your Activity list. The Updates page gives you a richer history for the activity, whereas the Activity list allows you to see the activity in the context of its related activities -- its subtasks and super-activities.

Alerts

Alerts pertain to activities that you are already sharing. More specifically, Alerts are updates that may affect the way you work on an activity. New notes, declined requests, and role changes made by other people appear as Alerts. Unlike Requests, not all Alerts require you to respond to the sender, so when you receive new Alerts the button does not flash.

However, some Alerts do ask you to take action. If someone stops sharing an activity with you, for example, you will receive an Alert asking you how you would like to handle the activity, now that it is no longer being shared with you. Your decision does not necessarily affect anyone else, so no one is depending on you to accept or decline the action. However, you now have a "tentative" activity in your system that you will be unable to edit or delete until you decide how to handle the Alert. To learn more about what you can do when someone stops sharing an activity with you, click here.

Like all Updates, Alerts are displayed on the top of the Updates tab, with the activity details, team panel, and notes below. This way you can quickly see precisely what has changed, whether it be a collaborator's role, a new note, or the overall status of the activity.

Watches

Watches are the most specific updates. They neither require you to take action or alert you to important changes. Watches are set by you on specific activities that you would like to watch closely. If you have a big upcoming project that you are collaborating with someone else on, and you want to make sure that you don't miss any steps, you can decide to watch this activity closely. That means that every time anyone else changes anything pertaining to that activity (the due date, the category, or the importance, for example) you will be notified. If you really want to make sure you're on top of an activity, you probably want to use the "watch" feature.

To watch a particular activity, select the activity in the Activities tab, and open the Team Edit Box (by either clicking the small down arrow in the Team field, or clicking the "Sharing" button in the activity toolbar). From here, just click the checkbox that says "Watch this activity." From then on, any time anyone you are sharing that activity with changes anything, you will receive a "Watch" Update.