Comments, Messages and Notifications
The communication features in Document Builder are designed to help you stay organized, knowing that procurement organizations and staff often work on multiple projects at once with many stakeholders.
This article describes the tools available to you, including messages, mentions, comments, real-time collaboration, and notifications.
Communication Tools
Messages
Messages can be sent inside projects. You can send a simple note, or you can mention someone by @name to ask a question or share an update.
Note: Messages cannot be deleted and will always display on the page you sent the message and in your Inbox.
Within a project, you can send a message on these pages:
- Documents and Sections
- Questions
- Tasks
- Inbox
- Solicitation substage: Messages
See examples below.
Document View / Section View: You can send a message from within document view and/or section view.
Questions: You can send a message on an object like questions.
Inbox: You can send a message from within your DB Inbox.
Mentions
Mentions allow you to send a direct message to a specific person or people. This action sends notifications to the user's DB Inbox and their work email inbox.
You can mention users in messages and comments. To mention someone:
- Open a new comment or message
- Type "@" followed by first name
- From the drop down list that appears, select the person you want to mention by clicking their name
- Click 'Send Message'
You can only mention users who are members of your project. If you don't see someone you need to mention, add them to your solicitation or contact your Editor/Administrator.
Comments
Comments are discussions or notes that can be added to specific text within your document sections.
Comments can be viewed on the document section page, and in the Inboxes of any users mentioned by @name in the comment thread.
To add a new comment or reply to a comment:
- Open a document section
- Click the Comment button in the toolbar, or find the comment you want to reply to
- Write your comment
- Click the green checkmark to save
Real-time collaboration
Document / sections can be edited by multiple users at the same time.
- While a text section is open, you can also see which users are writing in real-time.
- Users will be represented by a colored circle containing their initials.
- Users actively writing will have a green bar beneath their initials.
Notifications
Users are notified about new messages in 2 ways:
- DB Inbox: the red notification badge lists the number of unread messages/comments.
- Work email: users receive a new email in their work email inbox when mentioned by @name.
Idea: see this article for tips on how to use and manage your DB Inbox.
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