Follow article feature to notify users of article content updates

127 Comments

  • Andrey Bobrovskiy

    Also very interested in this feature! +1 to having an option to publish updates with or without notifying the followers. 

    1
  • Nazir Kabbani

    our use case: we update an article relating to patches and fixes available for a specific version of our tools. we want the followers of the article to be notified whenever we put a new fix for that version (ie update the article)

    1
  • Dave Dyson

    Thanks for adding your use case, Nazir! I think the workaround here would be to add a comment as well, and then you could delete that comment if you want to avoid clutter in your comment section.

    -1
  • Katie Brennan

    Hi @... - since you're with Zendesk, could we have an update on if/when a feature to satisfy this request will be implemented, or if it is something that will never be implemented? It's been nearly 7 years since it was first requested. And 10 months since I asked if we could have an update, with no response from anyone at Zendesk.

    My Zendesk account manager tells me to use the community boards to talk about the problems we're experiencing but I don't see much value in doing that if longstanding feature requests are never implemented.

    Thank you!

    1
  • Nicole Saunders
    Zendesk Community Manager

    Hi Katie -

    I have reached out to the product manager for this area for an update on this request.

    I also wanted to let you know that we're aware that responsiveness in the product feedback forums has been pretty sub-par for the last several years, and that we are rolling out new processes with our product teams around making sure these requests don't go on so long and that they receive updates more frequently going forward. They aren't in place just yet, but things should get better over the next couple of months.

    0
  • Mary Paez

    Do we know the answer to this question?  If an article is updated, will it send out a notification so our customers will know about it?

     

    Use case:  We have a configuration document that is updated quarterly by attaching an updated PDF.  in addition, we add new videos to explain new features.  The article will sit there for a number of years with periodic updates.

    1
  • elexhaji

    We put our documentation online, and whenever we add something new to our APIs, we usually updated existing articles, and would really like to notify our end-users with these additions, as the majority of our changes are brought to us directly from our customers, so it's highly relevant.

    1
  • Michael Maoz

    We use the feature to manage customer feature requests and to notify when a feature requested is released.

    If customers would receive a notification when I update the article that would make the process much more efficient.

    I must admit I don't understand what other use would there be to follow an article? The first thing that comes in mind is that the follower is updated when the article is updated

    0
  • Victoria Dvornikova

    Hello,

    For some types of articles it would be really useful to allow (maybe by specific setting, not as a default) to notify customers about article updates. 

    1
  • Chaz Spahn

    +1 for us.

    We have articles that address our product's compatibility with other products and their versions. Every time that we test out a new version of their product with ours, we update the appropriate article to let the users know that we have approved (or denied) compatibility with the latest version. Users of this specific product combination follow this article and expect that they will get an update when we add new information. 

    We have disabled comments for various reasons so adding a new comment as a workaround doesn't work for us. Customers choose to follow the articles that interest/effect them so trying to reach out to all customers to try to use a Section-based follow would be very difficult.

    If this is not going to be implemented. Perhaps you need a way to hide the Follow button on articles, so that our customers are not operating under incorrect expectations.

    Thanks!

    1
  • Laetitia Bonaldo

    Hi there,

    Is there a way to offer the "Follow" feature (e.g. section level) without Zendesk Community? For context, we have Zendesk Guide and are exploring using a dedicated section for our release notes. We would want customers to have the ability to receive notifications when we post new release notes (articles) within this section.

    Thank you very much!

    Very Best,

    Laetitia

    0
  • Katie Brennan

    Hi Nicole Saunders since it has been 5 months, do we have any updates on this feature?

    0
  • Katie Brennan

    Nicole Saunders Can we please get an update on this particular request? Is this something that is being looked at/worked on or something that Zendesk never plans to implement?

    0
  • Morgan Martin

    +1 to Antonio's comments. Our users expect that if they follow an article they will receive notifications on any changes to the articles. Also if we unpublish and republish they still don't receive notifications. Only for comments. This makes no sense to users. 

    0
  • Stephen

    Hi,

    I think having notifications fire on articles when they are updated would be a fantastic feature.

    For major incidents (like the recent Log4j vulnerability in December), we publish articles for our customer base - these articles are periodically updated, as we release patches / new information comes to light.

    We encourage our customers to follow these articles for updates - being able to notify them when an update is published would be excellent.

    Best regards,
    Stephen

    0
  • Mary Paez

    Is there any update on this?  When customers FOLLOW an article, we need them to receive a notification whenever that article is updated and republished.  We have numerous technical articles that get updated quarterly based on release info.  When will this occur?

    2
  • Dave Dyson
    HI Mary, there's no update at this time, so the workaround remains to add a new comment referencing the updates you've made.
    1
  • Lorrie McConnell

    I know this post has a number of years on it already, but I too wish follow on articles worked for changes. Actually it would be nice to choose the notify criteria, for instance, the history events in Manage articles, it would be nice to choose the event to notify article followers based on title changed, body changed, published, etc. 

     

    2
  • Mathias Lakshøj-Hansen

    To chime in with the choir.

    We use guide to also post changelogs for our products/apps. Because of the product we provide apps for is constantly updating, so must we. If we need to create a new article for every changelog it will become a very long list in the different sections and categories.

    1
  • Russell Fewing

    I admit that when we moved to Zendesk I assumed that 'notifications on change in an article' was an existing feature as it is so fundamental to how many customers work.

    The work-around of using comments can result in customers being 'spammed' with every other customers comment (which we usually disable)

    Please (and I know this request was first made 7 years ago and has been repeated 100s of times) add an option to notify on a change in an article

    4
  • Elizabeth Straub

    Has this been added to the roadmap at all?

    2
  • Rob Baker

    We are using one of our Zendesk instances to include a "Known Issue Tracker" with the expectation that anyone following the article would be notified of updates made to the article itself until the underlying issue was resolved and corresponding article unpublished.  Comments are not helpful in this scenario because they become outdated or irrelevant as the article content itself is updated causing further confusion and follow-up support ticket.  This seems like a pretty basic use case--as is being able to have agents easily subscribe a user to a known issues article through an additional action available in the knowledge capture app.

    4
  • JACQUELINE LEHR

    Product management, is a Guide update in the works to solve this and the many other long standing issues? We all know you are aware of the problems users face. It feels like we're being ignored and nothing will ever be done. Please just tell us - respond to feedback in a meaningful way, not just we know and we're working on it. It's been too long. Thank you.

    4
  • David Smedberg

    Hi Ryan McGrew excited to hear more about this when you have something to share. We'd definitely take advantage of these features, as we have articles that are "Release Logs" that are updated regularly and some users would like to find out when these updates are made.

    1
  • Mary Paez

    Has this feature been added?  Eg: When you follow an article and the article is republished with changes, all followers will get an email notification letting them know the article is updated

    0
  • Ashley Smyth

    Ryan McGrew is this updated yet?

    2
  • Gwyn Mabo

    We don't allow commenting on our help Centre articles, so can't comment to notify.

    Being able to notify users of an updated article is an absolute necessity to us.

    For example, we have release notes that are added to every fortnight. Our users thought that following would mean that they get an email when the release notes have been released. However this is not the case, so users would need to keep checking back to see if it's been updated.

    We'd really need the option to choose which articles this feature would be enabled on though. For example, we wouldn't want a user to be alerted to a spelling mistake fix for example.

    4
  • Ron de Vries

    Hi Zendesk / Ryan McGrew

    Any updates on this? 

    0
  • Ryan McGrew
    Zendesk Product Manager

    Hey All,

    No updates at this time. We still have not been able to prioritize this work. Sorry for the bad news. That being said, for those of you chiming in with use cases related to Release Notes or change logs, I wanted to provide a recommendation. I'd advise you to publish weekly release notes or change logs as separate articles within a larger section. We do the same things ourselves and you can see that here. We believe it better organizes these notes for our customers. 

    -2

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