Add the ability to "watch" an idea.

[GISDept1]

One of the best features of the old support website was the ability to "watch" a thread.  It would be great to be able to "watch" an idea to see how the votes are coming along and to see if the idea is being considered or implemented.

I've seen a couple great ideas that I would be able to see if they get implemented.

[HuwGreenhough]

You can - just go to your "My Ideas" page, linked on the left near the top of any Ideas page.

[SanjayLala]

 You can also subscribe to  any idea using the RSS feeds. This helps you get updates on any changes made to  the idea you want to  watch..

ArcGIS Ideas Admin

[danan]

I must be missing something. Could someone post a screen shot of the "My Ideas" page with the item circled for receiving an *email* subscription? Under "My Ideas" I do see a "wall" of some sort showing recent change activity. But that is not the functionality requested by this idea.

It is to receive an email notification when there is change activity of any kind. Not having to log in to see a "wall" of new activity. And not an RSS subscription. Although that could be nice for those who use RSS.

Hoping this is user error on my part. I rely a lot on the "watch" behavior from forums.arcgis.com to know if there's activity on a thread I've either started or am interested in. vBulletin is great COTS forum software. Sorry some others don't like it.

Thanks.

Dana Nibby
http://spatialdba.com

[danan]

Esri, it's ok to say "we can't do that" in response to a request for ideas.arcgis.com functionality.

The underlying engine of ideas.arcgis.com (SalesForce.com's Idea component) seems unable to do anything but provide RSS. Ex nihilo, nihil fit. From nothing, nothing comes. So I went straight to the source (ideas.salesforce.com) and made the following request. If you want email notification as much as I do, consider voting here:

Add ability to subscribe to an idea, receiving email notification on any change
http://success.salesforce.com/ideaView?c=09a30000000D9xtAAC&id=08730000000ZoaJAAS

My argument: RSS is fine. But email notification is the better established pattern for keeping informed without logging in. Not everyone uses RSS. But everyone uses email, right? SalesForce.com itself should add email notifications to its Ideas offering as a courtesy to the user. Sound fair?

Dana Nibby
GIS for DBAs. Database Concepts for GIS.
http://spatialdba.com

[danan]

Sanjay, any comments?

[danan]

Sanjay? Anyone? 

I find the ability to "watch" a thread on forums.arcgis.com incredibly useful. I think others active on the forums would say the same.

You can post an Idea here and vote for an idea. But unless you're a "hip" user using RSS and something like Google Reader, all that stuff goes off into the ether. And the only way one knows there's any change is to log in. Again, the more established pattern for staying up to date without logging in--a method even one's proverbial Grandmother would even know how to use--is email.

If anyone out there wants this functionality, I suggest voting on the idea at ideas.salesforce.com *and* writing some comments about how and why this functionality would be helpful. It seems like an utter no brainer to me. Maybe something so useful on forums.arcgis.com that people almost forget it's there?

Since can't enable a feature in the Ideas module that doesn't exist, vote for it at Salesforce.com (the vendor who created the Ideas module) I don't believe you need to be logged in to vote. But you may need to create an account to comment:

Add ability to subscribe to an idea, receiving email notification on any change
http://success.salesforce.com/ideaView?c=09a30000000D9xtAAC&id=08730000000ZoaJAAS