Blog from November, 2011

Hey everyone,

The Wikis Service Team is very happy to announce that we implemented a solution to the "Autowatch email notifications issue" many of clients were having. Last Friday, Novembver 11th, we turned off the autowatch feature that automatically emailed page and space notifications to all users of the space.

What does that mean? Users who create or edit pages will not automatically recieve notifications about changes made to those edited pages. If you want to allow users to watch a page and recieve notifications please follow the instructions below.

You can 'watch' a page, a blog post or a space. Confluence will then send you a notification by email whenever anyone adds or updates content on that page, blog post or space. You can also subscribe to daily email reports and other notifications of various updates, as described below

For instructions on configuring an email server so that Confluence can send email notifications, see the administrator's guide to Configuring a Server for Outgoing Mail.

On this page:

Receiving Regular Email Notifications of Updates by Watching a Page, Blog Post or Space
Editing Your Email Notification Settings in Your User Profile
Turning Autowatch On or Off
Receiving Notification of Your Own Actions
Receiving Regular Email Notifications of All New Blog Posts
Receiving Regular Email Notifications of New Blog Posts in a Given Space
Receiving Regular Email Notifications of Changes by Users You Are Following
Receiving Daily Email Reports
Setting the Format and Content of the Email Messages

Receiving Regular Email Notifications of Updates by Watching a Page, Blog Post or Space

You can 'watch' a Confluence page, a blog post or a space. To do this, you need 'View' permission on the page, blog post or space. Once you have added a watch, Confluence will then send you a notification by email whenever anyone updates the page, blog post or space. The updates include editing the page or blog post, adding a new page or blog post to the space, and adding a comment to the page, blog post or space.

There is no daily digest for these notifications. You will receive an email notification every time someone makes a change.
You can choose the pages, blog posts and/or spaces that you want to watch. You can stop watching them at any time.
By default, Confluence will assign you as a watcher of any page or blog post that you create or edit. This behaviour is called 'autowatch'. You can turn autowatch on or off.
When you add a comment to a page, Confluence will by default put a tick in the 'Watch this page' check box in the comment. You can remove the tick before posting your comment.

To set up a watch on a specific page, blog post or space, see:

The above pages also tell you how to stop watching.

Editing Your Email Notification Settings in Your User Profile

In addition to watching a page or space, as described above, you can set up various other notifications and configure the format of your notifications.

To configure the settings described on the rest of this page, you need to go to the 'Email Settings' page in your user profile.

To edit your email notification settings,

Go to the 'Settings' view for your user profile. To do this:
- Log in to Confluence, if you have not already done so.
- Go to your name at the top of the page. (This is the 'User' menu. A dropdown list will appear when your cursor hovers over the 'User' menu.)
- Select 'Settings' from the dropdown list. The 'Settings' view will open.
Click the 'Email' link in the left-hand panel. The 'Email Settings' screen will appear.
Click the 'Edit' button.

Turning Autowatch On or Off

By default, Confluence will assign you as a watcher of any page that you create or edit. This behaviour is called 'autowatch'. Autowatch is turned on by default. You can turn it off and on, as described below.

Turning autowatch on has the following effect:
- You are automatically a watcher of any page or blog post that you create.
- You are automatically a watcher of any page or blog post that you edit.
- When you add a comment, the 'Watch this page' check box in the comment is ticked by default. You can remove the tick before posting the comment.
Even after you have turned autowatch off, you will still be watching all the pages that autowatch has already marked for you to watch (as well as any pages you have 'watched' yourself). You will need to stop watching each page or blog post individually. The links at the bottom of the email notification make this easy.

To turn autowatch off,

Go to the email notification settings page in your user profile and open the page for editing, as described above.
Remove the tick from the check box beside 'Autowatch'.
Click 'Submit' when you have finished updating all settings as you wish.

To turn autowatch on,

Go to the email notification settings page in your user profile and open the page for editing, as described above.
Select the check box beside 'Autowatch'.
Click 'Submit' when you have finished updating all settings as you wish.

Receiving Notification of Your Own Actions

You can choose to receive an email notification about content changes that you yourself have made.

This setting will affect all of your subscriptions and page/space watches.
If you have not subscribed to any email notifications and are not watching any pages/spaces, then selecting this setting will not do anything.
The email message is sent immediately after a change is made.

To subscribe to email notifications for changes that you yourself have made,

Go to the email notification settings page in your user profile and open the page for editing, as described above.
Select the check box beside 'Notify on my actions'.
Click 'Submit' when you have finished updating all settings as you wish.

Receiving Regular Email Notifications of All New Blog Posts

You can subscribe to email notifications for all new blog posts in your Confluence site that you have permission to view.

This includes all new blog posts. It does not include updates to or deletions of blog posts, nor any comments added to blog posts.
The email message is sent immediately after a change is made.

To subscribe to email notifications about all new blog posts,

Go to the email notification settings page in your user profile and open the page for editing, as described above.
Select the check box beside 'Subscribe to all blog posts'.
Click 'Submit' when you have finished updating all settings as you wish.

Receiving Regular Email Notifications of New Blog Posts in a Given Space

You can subscribe to email notifications for new blog posts in a specific space, provided you have permission to view that space.

This includes all new blog posts in the space. It does not include updates to or deletions of blog posts, nor any comments added to blog posts.
The email message is sent immediately after a change is made.

See Watching a Space.

Receiving Regular Email Notifications of Changes by Users You Are Following

You can subscribe to email notifications for changes to content by all users that you are following. You must have permission to view the content that has been changed by the user for it to be included in the notifications.

If you are not following any users, then selecting the setting below will not do anything.
Confluence will only send you notifications if you select the setting described below. If you follow a person but do not select the setting, Confluence will not send notifications of the user's actions.
The content changes that will trigger a notification are:
- Pages being added, edited or deleted.
- Blog posts being added, edited or deleted.
- Comments being added, edited or deleted.
- Status updates by the user.
The email message is sent immediately after a change is made.

To subscribe to email notifications for changes made by users you are following,

Go to the email notification settings page in your user profile and open the page for editing, as described above.
Select the check box beside 'Subscribe to network'.
Click 'Submit' when you have finished updating all settings as you wish.

Receiving Daily Email Reports

You can subscribe to a daily email report showing all changes to content in all spaces that you have permission to view.

The daily report is not a digest of the notifications from pages/spaces that you are watching. You will receive the daily report in addition to those notifications.
The changes in the report include:
- Pages being added, edited or deleted.
- Blog posts being added, edited or deleted.
- Comments on a page or blog post being added, edited or deleted.
- Updates by users who have changed their personal profile.
Daily email reports do not include information about attachments that are added, edited or deleted on a page or blog post.

To subscribe to the daily report,

Go to the email notification settings page in your user profile and open the page for editing, as described above.
Select the check box beside 'Subscribe to daily updates'.
Click 'Submit' when you have finished updating all settings as you wish.

Setting the Format and Content of the Email Messages

You can decide on the format of the email message (HTML or plain text) and the content of the email message (changes made and/or full content of the updated page or blog post).

To configure the format and content of the email notification,

Go to the email notification settings page in your user profile and open the page for editing, as described above.
From the 'Email format' drop-down menu, select whether you want to receive your notifications as HTML or plain text. This will apply to all your email notifications, including your page/space watches.
If you want your notification to include a list of the changes made to the content, select the check box beside 'Show changed content'. This requires HTML format for your emails.
If you want your notification to include the full content of the updated page or blog post, select the check box beside 'Show full content'. This requires HTML format for your emails.
Click 'Submit' when you have finished updating all settings as you wish.

Screenshot: Subscribing to email notifications

RELATED PLUGINS

Before installing a plugin into your Confluence site, please check the plugin's information page to see whether it is supported by Atlassian, by another vendor, or not at all. See our guidelines on plugin support.

The Contributors plugin allows you to display the contributors and statistics from a page or a set of pages.

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