The Activity Feed module is intended to line up the communication process within the company among users, for example, among employees who set tasks and those who handle them.
This functionality allows to track either Additional Comments or Work Notes left within some record or track the record field changes (all record fields or a field set specified by the user).
The Activity Feed can be used on table records in the agent and portal interfaces, which allows the users to use it without any specific roles.
Add the widget to a form
Add the Activity Feed widget to a record form using the Form Layout functionality. To do this, complete the steps below:
- Open the hamburger menu in the top left corner of the form.
- Navigate to the Configure → Form → Layout item and click it.
- Find the Activity Feed widget in the Available box and move it to the Selected box.
- Click Save to apply the changes.
Perform these steps for every form for which you need to enable Activity feed functionality, since it is not inherited. Every activity feed is related to the specified table.
By default, two activity feed fields are available:
- Additional Comment
- Work Note
Activity feed view
After the widget is added to a form layout as described above, create a new record or open an existing one to find the activity feed view as shown below (this screenshot is given as an example; the out-of-the-box version in your application may differ from it).
The Additional Comments and Work Notes fields are both of the Journal Input type and intended for cross-user communication.
- The Additional Comments field is for communication with the caller. It may be, for example, progress updates or clarifying questions. These comments are visible for the requestor on the portal view of the record.
- The Work Notes field is for internal communications of the task fulfillers (agents). These comments may be technical and can contain information that should not be shared with the caller.
Comments or work notes can be sent using the Ctrl+ Enter keyboard shortcut.
Besides that, the Activity Feed displays history of field changes. It displays information about those fields, the value of which have been changed.
- Previous values are in gray color. The new values are black.
- Field changes are displayed according to the history display settings.
By selecting the tabs under the input field, you can filter out the displayed information.
| Section | Description |
|---|---|
| All | Displays field changes and all comments left to a record. |
| Work Notes | Filters out work notes left to this record. |
| Additional Comments | Filter out additional comments left to this record. |
| History | Filters out record field changes. |
Filtration
The displayed information can be filtered for specified users or user roles by using the ACL functionality. Thereby, the activity feed view can differ for users granted different roles. For this, create an ACL rule for information filtering.
To protect fields that allow users to comment records (such as Additional Comments or Work Notes), create an ACL rule for a corresponding column of the Journal Input type. Or create a rule that will restrict access to the Activity Types (sys_activity_type) table for users with specific roles.
The activity type settings are saved in the Activity Column Filters (sys_activity_column_filter) table for each user individually.
To display changes of the specific fields in the History section instead of all fields changes, use the Available history fields handler functionality:
- Click the three dots on the right to open the kebab menu.
- Click the Available history fields item.
- Clear the checkboxes of fields whose changes should not be shown in the activity feed.
- Click Apply.
If the history contains the fields that have been changed but are not selected in the Available history fields handler, they will be replaced by the No fields selected text.
If the changes of field values are not displayed in the Activity Feed, they are logged and stored in the History dictionary.
Create a custom activity type
By default, two commonly used fields of the Journal Input type are delivered for Task objects; these are the Additional Comment and Work Notes fields.
To add custom Journal Input fields, complete the steps below:
- Navigate to System Definition → All Columns.
- Click New and fill in the fields.
- Click Save or Save and Exit to apply the changes.
Another way to add a column is via the related lists of a specific table record. Open the table you need to add a new activity type, scroll down to the Related Lists area, select the Columns tab, and click New.
As a result, a new activity type will be created automatically by the system in the Activity Type (sys_activity_type) table.
To configure the new activity feed field, complete the steps below:
- Navigate to Activity Feed → Activity Types.
- Open the activity you need and fill in the fields.
- Click Save or Save and Exit to apply the changes.
Configure the field set
You can configure the set of activity feed fields. To do this, you need to use the Form layout functionality.
To add or remove an activity feed field, complete the following steps:
- Open the record form that you need to configure.
- In the hamburger menu
, navigate to Configure → Form → Layout. - In the Section field, select the section containing the Activity Feed.
- Move the field of Journal Input type:
- from the Available box to Selected to add the field to the Activity Feed
- from the Selected box to Available to remove the field from the Activity Feed.
- Click Save.
When you create a new record, you will see the added Journal Input fields as regular fields on the form. After the record is saved, these fields are displayed in the Activity Feed.
