Activity Streams

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Introduction An activity stream is a notification mechanism and conversation space. It lists activities relevant to it's entity be that a person, workspace, request, document or configuration item. A user notionally subscribes to, or “follow” entities activity streams to track their related content.

Related Articles News Feed Workspaces Wiki Markup Mentions

In Hornbill activity streams are present in collaboration views like workspaces, and your buzz, but they are also used in line of business applications on Hornbill, below are some examples of where you can expect to see them.

• Service Manager - Request Timelines
• Document Manager - Document Timelines
• Configuration Manager - Configuration item Timeline
• Customer Manager - Organisation, Service Contract and Contact Timelines

Using Activity Streams

Posting

Add an initial comment to start a discussion, encourage collaboration or inform other users who have access to, or are following the activity stream. When posting to an activity stream there are many common attributes and options available to you.

In the box you can add text, cut and paste images, embed rich media (lVideos etc), as well as utilise many out of the box integrations.

• Wiki Markup - Format the text content of your post, and use the icon to preview what the text will look like before posting
• Embed Content into your post using any number of the out of the box integrations
• Add sentiment to your post by using the icon to add Emoji's
• Mentions - Use the @ sign and start typing the users name to locate a user and mention them in the post, they will receive a targeted communication via a Hornbill Notification relating to the mention

Select Post or Ask a Question to add the content to the Activity Stream.

• Why use Post: Allow other users to view the post, like it, and comment on it
• Why use Ask a Question: This will enable other users to provide possible answers, these answers can receive votes / support as to their accuracy, and this allows the user posting the question to mark one of the answers as the Posters Choice

Once a post has been added to an Activity Stream you can't change history by removing it, but you do have a number of options available to you as the poster from the More Actions drop down available in the Post on the activity stream.

• Open Post - Open a specific post from the activity stream in another browser tab
• Add a Bookmark - Add the post to one of your Bookmark categories, typically for review later or easy access to, via the sidebar Bookmark feature
• New Activity - Create a new activity relating to the Post. The Activity will contain a link back to the Post it was created from.
• Lock Post - Lock the Post to prevent any further comments from being added to the post
• Archive Post - Remove the post from the activity stream and prevent any further comments from being added to the post. The Content of the Archived post is still visible to those with the rights to view the activity stream.

Comments

Much like a post, a user can add content to the activity stream, but in this context they can do so directly against a post which is already on the activity stream, providing a comment in relation to the post, or other comments on the post.

• As with a post, a user can utilise Wiki Markup, embed content, add sentiment and mention other users in the comment they are making
• Comments can be edited, or deleted by the user who added them.

• Be quick as you can only do this until another user has liked the comment, or added another comment to the post

Sorting the Order of Posts and Comments

By Default posts and comments are presented in date and time chronological order, and new posts and comments will appear in real time.

At the top of the activity stream there is a sort options, which lets each user decide if they want the activity stream content sorted by:

• Most Recently Posted: With this option selected, you will always see the last added post at the top of the activity stream
• Most Recently Updated With this option selected, you will always see the post, with the last updated comment at the top of the activity stream