There's that moment in most cartoons, one character tries to keep something out of view, trips, then whoops — an attention-grabbing noise. Similar can happen in a digital workplace.

Moving, archiving, deleting and hey, even correcting the odd typo are all a standard part of content management. But not every edit should draw attention with a notification to all its followers. Here are two settings to consider using in your digital workplace if you ever find yourself feeling less Roadrunner, more Wile E. Coyote.   

Global Settings > Notify Followers 

It's the last box in Global Settings: "Allow publishers to opt-out of sending notifications when content is updated. This feature will be enabled for the following content types: blog articles, calendar events, documents, forum posts and wiki articles." 

Enabling this in your digital workplace adds a checkbox next to the Save Changes button when editing content. Selecting this option before saving changes in the edit screen will prevent an email notification to followers. 

Note that people @mentioned in a post are not content followers. Editing content like a blog or wiki will generate a notification to those @mentioned in the content (not comments). The Notify Followers check-box only applies to content followers. 

Subscriptions > When users comment on or create new content

Following content is different from following a channel. Following a channel gets you notifications on new content in the channel, while following a piece of content notifies you of changes and comments. But there's a setting for the latter in the Subscriptions settings of each content channel. By default, members automatically follow articles and files they create or comment on. 

Have you ever commented on an active post and had an inbox full of follow-up notifications? This channel setting prevents it for everyone, without members having to manually unfollow the post.  

There's a time and place for each, and the use case will vary. Consider how these settings help your content creators and your notification strategy.  

Was this helpful or maybe even an "a-ha" moment like it was for me? I want to hear your thoughts. You can leave a comment here, or ask a question in the Community area.