# \[DONE\] "Watcher" of an Entity **URL:** \ **Category:** Ideas & Features\ **Tags:** notifications\ **Created:** [February 19, 2020, 6:56am UTC](https://community.fibery.io/t/done-watcher-of-an-entity/563 "2020-02-19T06:56:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![B\_Sp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e8c25b/32.png) [@B\_Sp](https://community.fibery.io/u/B_Sp)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2020, 6:56am UTC](https://community.fibery.io/t/done-watcher-of-an-entity/563/1 "2020-02-19T06:56:24Z")
Hi guys, I was interested in creating the equivalent functionality of “watcher” that is offered by a lot of PM apps around their tasks and entities. This is a user who is “subscribed” to an entity’s activity - so they are informed when any status changes, fields are adjusted, comments are made, and so forth. Can I use the “assignment” extension to create this functionality? Or would I need to do this another way if that extension needs to be reserved for only actual assignees? Thanks guys! ---
**Author:** ![B\_Sp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e8c25b/32.png) [@B\_Sp](https://community.fibery.io/u/B_Sp)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2020, 2:04am UTC](https://community.fibery.io/t/done-watcher-of-an-entity/563/2 "2020-11-16T02:04:19Z")
Hey @Oshyan, sorry to be chatting you up so much lately, but I thought you might also have this need, and I noticed of the two “hearts” on this so far, you aren’t one of them! So eager to get your support! Cheers! ---
**Author:** ![Polina\_Zenevich](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/community.fibery.io/polina_zenevich/32/480_2.png) [@Polina\_Zenevich](https://community.fibery.io/u/Polina_Zenevich)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2020, 11:53am UTC](https://community.fibery.io/t/done-watcher-of-an-entity/563/3 "2020-11-16T11:53:42Z")
Hi! We have that Feature in our backlog, hope to be back there while working on Notifications! Thanks for resurrecting this issue 🌞 ---
**Author:** ![Oshyan](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/community.fibery.io/oshyan/32/11431_2.png) [@Oshyan](https://community.fibery.io/u/Oshyan)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2020, 8:44pm UTC](https://community.fibery.io/t/done-watcher-of-an-entity/563/4 "2020-11-16T20:44:14Z")
Hah, yes, would definitely like this functionality. Glad to hear it is being given some thought. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![B\_Sp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e8c25b/32.png) [@B\_Sp](https://community.fibery.io/u/B_Sp)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2020, 1:23am UTC](https://community.fibery.io/t/done-watcher-of-an-entity/563/5 "2020-11-17T01:23:02Z")
Great, thanks for adding. I hope @Polina_Zenevich and team are keeping track closely as really hoping this feature gets prioritized! Cheers! ---
**Author:** ![colman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b9e5f3/32.png) [@colman](https://community.fibery.io/u/colman)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2021, 3:48pm UTC](https://community.fibery.io/t/done-watcher-of-an-entity/563/6 "2021-06-15T15:48:51Z")
Chiming in to say we’d love this. Further, I’d like to be able to opt into notifications for an entire type or even a whole app. This would be especially useful if combined with granularity: e.g. receive all notifications from comments from this type (or app) would be my number one desire here ---
**Author:** ![ASutton](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/community.fibery.io/asutton/32/4442_2.png) [@ASutton](https://community.fibery.io/u/ASutton)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2021, 10:06pm UTC](https://community.fibery.io/t/done-watcher-of-an-entity/563/7 "2021-12-10T22:06:31Z")
I’m a new Fibery user, but this is exactly the functionality that my team has requested. I’ve tried to implement it myself by creating a relation called “subscribers” between our user and bug databases, then adding an automation to notify the subscribers when the bug database changes. It almost works, but unfortunately Fibery forces me to select which fields trigger the notifications and I can’t seem to add rich text fields or comments to the list. Ironically, I see this functionality is part of the Fibery community, but not part of Fibery itself! ![Screen Shot 2021-12-10 at 16.54.32](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/uploads/fibery/original/2X/4/4b02d283661a5c305d86e5f8b827118734bba57a.png) I hope that my vote helps to raise the priority of this request. ---
**Author:** ![Oshyan](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/community.fibery.io/oshyan/32/11431_2.png) [@Oshyan](https://community.fibery.io/u/Oshyan)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2021, 6:26pm UTC](https://community.fibery.io/t/done-watcher-of-an-entity/563/8 "2021-12-11T18:26:42Z")
Seems like this should be moved to #ideas-features perhaps? ---
**Author:** ![B\_Sp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e8c25b/32.png) [@B\_Sp](https://community.fibery.io/u/B_Sp)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2021, 3:47am UTC](https://community.fibery.io/t/done-watcher-of-an-entity/563/9 "2021-12-17T03:47:49Z")
I agree, this is a big part of basic notifications functionality. As the author of this post I’d love to be able to vote on it, thanks @Oshyan for pushing this forward! ---
**Author:** ![B\_Sp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e8c25b/32.png) [@B\_Sp](https://community.fibery.io/u/B_Sp)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2021, 3:51am UTC](https://community.fibery.io/t/done-watcher-of-an-entity/563/10 "2021-12-17T03:51:14Z")
Thanks @ASutton for pushing this forward, a big need I still have! Here is another request that you may be interested in, would you have a look and consider voting? > [@Small element of Notifications - “I’ve read it” functionality](https://community.fibery.io/t/small-element-of-notifications-i-ve-read-it-functionality/1179): > > Hi again, I’d like to request as part of the Notifications improvement some feature where you could indicate you’ve “read” the message. Something a “thumbs up” or “heart” that would indicate to the writer that the recipient has seen it. We are trying to use Fibery for mass internal communication (thanks again for the [ability to commit with “Ctrl” + “enter”](https://community.fibery.io/t/planned-threads-in-comments/1049/10) I use it all the time now), and this is another big Quality of Life helper. Without it, your team member has to artificially write “Ok I … Would love your support on that one, too! It sounds like your team may have the need! ---
**Author:** ![Oshyan](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/community.fibery.io/oshyan/32/11431_2.png) [@Oshyan](https://community.fibery.io/u/Oshyan)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2021, 4:31am UTC](https://community.fibery.io/t/done-watcher-of-an-entity/563/11 "2021-12-17T04:31:23Z")
Just realized I have permissions to move topics between categories. 🤯 So I took care of it and now you can vote (and I also voted). 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![B\_Sp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e8c25b/32.png) [@B\_Sp](https://community.fibery.io/u/B_Sp)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2021, 5:23am UTC](https://community.fibery.io/t/done-watcher-of-an-entity/563/12 "2021-12-17T05:23:46Z")
Ok great, just voted too! @ASutton care to add yours? ---
**Author:** ![ASutton](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/community.fibery.io/asutton/32/4442_2.png) [@ASutton](https://community.fibery.io/u/ASutton)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2022, 3:57pm UTC](https://community.fibery.io/t/done-watcher-of-an-entity/563/13 "2022-01-04T15:57:13Z")
Voted! Thanks for your support and thanks to @Oshyan for moving the topic to the right place! ---
**Author:** ![B\_Sp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e8c25b/32.png) [@B\_Sp](https://community.fibery.io/u/B_Sp)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2022, 5:11pm UTC](https://community.fibery.io/t/done-watcher-of-an-entity/563/14 "2022-01-07T17:11:34Z")
And thank you @ASutton for pushing this along with your vote! ---
**Author:** ![mdubakov](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/community.fibery.io/mdubakov/32/10_2.png) [@mdubakov](https://community.fibery.io/u/mdubakov)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2022, 9:44am UTC](https://community.fibery.io/t/done-watcher-of-an-entity/563/15 "2022-02-18T09:44:22Z")
We are going to start implementation next week, so some more detailed requirements/use cases are very welcome, they will help us to build a better solution. ---
**Author:** ![uniquelau](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/community.fibery.io/uniquelau/32/3836_2.png) [@uniquelau](https://community.fibery.io/u/uniquelau)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2022, 6:31pm UTC](https://community.fibery.io/t/done-watcher-of-an-entity/563/16 "2022-02-21T18:31:38Z")
Would love this very much, I’d like it to: Easily watch something Easily see who else is watching Be able to set watchers via the automations I could see it working nicely if it worked like assignees: - e.g. values picked via the same style of interface - e.g. ability to show avatars on cards/entity listings, etc - e.g. have an ability to show how many people are watching (e.g. 100 watchers) A hard part seems to be how the notifications are managed, on the surface it seems like it should be set per App, but it doesn’t feel like anything of this kind already exists, so how that fits in is hard / it be more UI noise. Perhaps, the notifications could be tagged in some way so those of this new “Watching” type can be easily reviewed / hidden if required. Someone else suggested that the notifications could become more an an Inbox, which would give a lot of scope of that kind of nice-ness, e.g. view all watcher notifications, view all assignee notifications, view everything Have a good evening, ---
**Author:** ![B\_Sp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e8c25b/32.png) [@B\_Sp](https://community.fibery.io/u/B_Sp)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2022, 4:06pm UTC](https://community.fibery.io/t/done-watcher-of-an-entity/563/17 "2022-03-11T16:06:42Z")
I agree with all of what @uniquelau has said, as well as that watchers should tie in closely with Notifications. One thing that comes to mind is that in most other apps where I’ve seen watching well implemented, you will be notified about comments around something you are watching, or key changes like assignee or state. Such as “Task A has been moved to ‘in progress’”. I guess if you pretty much duplicated what you guys already have done nicely with entity history, and basically added all of that to the notifications of a “watcher,” you could accomplish this. And, I think this would also show a need for [Index comments in search](https://community.fibery.io/t/index-comments-in-search/1688) because you might see something in an entity you were watching in the comments, but then forget exactly what it was. But you can’t find it in search right now. Hope that was useful, thanks! ---
**Author:** ![HereBeBeasties](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/community.fibery.io/herebebeasties/32/5429_2.png) [@HereBeBeasties](https://community.fibery.io/u/HereBeBeasties)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2022, 8:40am UTC](https://community.fibery.io/t/done-watcher-of-an-entity/563/18 "2022-09-16T08:40:58Z")
> [@mdubakov](#): > > We are going to start implementation next week, so some more detailed requirements/use cases are very welcome, they will help us to build a better solution. The “normal” set-up for ticket systems is that they have a creator/reporter, assignee(s), and watchers. Creators and/or reporters automatically get added to watchers. Watchers and assignees get notified about changes, and those notifications should be useful; they should contain who made the changes, and exactly what has changed. This should include the full text of any added comment, and a diff of before/after field values for any changes there. (A nice red/green text diff for rich text would be a bonus, so that if someone checks a checkbox in a description field, you just get that diff.) If someone updates more than one field on a ticket within a small time period, I would expect the notification system to batch those changes together into a single notification (containing multiple field diffs). The “VIew activity” pane on an entity has all the information you would need to make the notification system really great for watchers. Essentially I’m looking to subscribe to that with a three minute delay to coalesce adjacent updates together. “{Name} was updated” _really_ doesn’t cut it for us - notifications are honestly the biggest drawback to using Fibery over other ticketing/planning tools for us and very nearly made us not buy the product. ---
**Author:** ![B\_Sp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e8c25b/32.png) [@B\_Sp](https://community.fibery.io/u/B_Sp)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2022, 2:43pm UTC](https://community.fibery.io/t/done-watcher-of-an-entity/563/19 "2022-09-16T14:43:53Z")
Love this post, @HereBeBeasties I think you’ve hit it all perfectly! Particularly agree with this comment below: > [@HereBeBeasties](#): > > “{Name} was updated” _really_ doesn’t cut it for us that creates a lot of lost benefit as the user has to click in to see what actually happened, instead of seeing at a glance the update. And this is extremely well-said and one of my ongoing pain points, glad to hear some other voices around this. In fact very similar to the conversation we’re having over [here](https://community.fibery.io/t/new-template-reminders/2934) > [@HereBeBeasties](#): > > notifications are honestly the biggest drawback to using Fibery over other ticketing/planning tools for us and very nearly made us not buy the product. this highlights where I think Fibery is really missing out, and continues to be difficult for my team - the lack of evolved “typical” features you’d see in other more well-known tools, such as notifications, comments, easily configurable activity dashboard, more robust search (showing at least which entities are “done”), mobile friendly versions, etc. I really like this comment in that thread I just quoted from @Oshyan: > [@Lack of Work Management features in Fibery (Reminders, Dependencies, Notifications, My Work, etc.)](https://community.fibery.io/t/lack-of-work-management-features-in-fibery-reminders-dependencies-notifications-my-work-etc/3319/5): > > By which I mean, Fibery may survey their current users and see “Hmm, only 25% actually use it for Project Management/tasks/etc.” and perhaps conclude it may not be so important to have really polished functionality here, or that the more flexible approach should continue to be the largest focus. After all that is where Fibery _currently_ excels. > > But of course there are all the people who are choosing _not_ to adopt Fibery because of the - let’s be honest here - fairly clunky overall experience of doing task management, especially around notifications, and simple task functions like recurrence as highlighted in this topic. How much is Fibery missing out without these features? I have been here since Oct. 2019 and the growth of users seems much slower to me than it should be given how superior Fibery is to so many other tools in so many ways. I recently got into the [superlist.com](http://superlist.com) beta ahead of the regular queue, and this involved an interview with a Project Manager there, had never heard of Fibery. I feel like by this point most people in the space should have heard of Fibery, and maybe that would be the case if more of these features were developed and Fibery was indeed less clunky! Appreciate your support of better notifications! ---
**Author:** ![Chr1sG](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/community.fibery.io/chr1sg/32/3941_2.png) [@Chr1sG](https://community.fibery.io/u/Chr1sG)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2022, 3:22pm UTC](https://community.fibery.io/t/done-watcher-of-an-entity/563/20 "2022-09-16T15:22:19Z")
> [@B\_Sp](#): > > the lack of evolved “typical” features you’d see in other more well-known tools, such as notifications, comments, easily configurable activity dashboard, more robust search (showing at least which entities are “done”), mobile friendly versions, etc. At the risk of sounding like a biased Fibery cheerleader, I think it’s worth remembering that it can be a little unfair to compare Fibery with the the best available implementation across all possible competitors. For example, I would say that neither Notion nor Airtable have particularly nice/advanced notifications, but if you compare Fibery with some other tools, then it could clearly become better. Similarly, if search is important to you, then you would probably prefer Fibery over ClickUp for reasons that Oshyan [has well-described](https://garden.oshyan.com/t/fibery-vs-clickup-for-managing-software-development-in-2022/166), but Fibery does not have the best search capabilities of all tools on the market by a long shot. I think the typical features or ‘baseline requirements’ for a tool will vary hugely from user to user, and expecting Fibery’s implementation to be the best-in-class for all of them is a little unfair. Hopefully Fibery is now a little better than ‘[mediocre at everything](https://fibery.io/anxiety)’ 😉 ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/uploads/fibery/original/2X/6/62dd683982b596e26db8d39c33e19c024c65519f.jpeg) [Next page](https://community.fibery.io/t/done-watcher-of-an-entity/563.md?page=2)