Collaboration
The activity stream
Every task record (and many others) carries a work notes and additional comments field, both surfaced in the activity stream. The distinction is fundamental:
- Additional comments are customer-visible and appear in notifications and the portal.
- Work notes are internal, restricted to users holding roles that grant access, and never sent to the requester.
Users follow conversation via @mentions, which notify a specific user, and subscribe to a record to receive notifications on changes.
Other collaboration features
- Notifications are triggered by events and conditions and delivered by email or in-product.
- Live feed / Connect provides social-style posts on records and in groups.
- Side conversations let agents consult colleagues from inside a record without leaving it.
- Watched records and favorites keep work visible on the user's home or lists.
- Tags give ad-hoc classification that users can search across record types.
Traps
Questions love swapping work notes and additional comments. Remember: comments talk to the customer, work notes talk to the team. A second trap is assuming an @mention notifies anyone regardless of access - the mentioned user must be able to see the record. A third: notifications are configuration (administered), while subscriptions are user choices; a user cannot subscribe their way past an ACL.
Worked example
A technician needs to ask a colleague a question about a case without the caller seeing it. The correct action is a work note or a side conversation - never an additional comment. If the caller should see the resolution, use additional comments.