Adding Comments on a Board

Boards are a great way to have a clear overview of your Tables and charts. They help you visualize your data, emphasize a point and collaborate with your team. In this article, you will learn how to comment on a Board whether it is on a widget or on the content of a cell, edit your comment, tag someone and resolve a conversation.

Table of contents

Conversations overview

Members can communicate with each other on Boards by using comments.  To start a conversation members can comment on a widget or cell.  By default, comments are visible to everyone who has access to the Board, however, before posting, they can be set to Private to control access.  Conversations are Board specific and can be viewed by opening the Conversation panel.  Members can tag other members so they receive notifications of comments made within that conversation. 

Post a new comment on a Widget or Cell

A widget can be a KPI, chart, grid or even text. When you comment at the widget level, you’ll see the name of the widget at the top of the conversation side panel. To post a comment on a widget in any Board, hover your cursor over the widget, click the “...” menu, and select Add Comment.
There will be instances where you want to comment at the cell level. Right-click on the cell where you want to comment.  The conversation side panel will open, similar to comments at the widget level.  Commenting on a cell is only available for grid widgets.

Sending Notifications to other Members by tagging 

To notify a team member, type "@" in the comment and enter the first letters of the person’s name. The person you tag will be sent a notification in the notification center, along with an email with a direct link to your comment.

Create a private conversation

By default, all conversations created are public, meaning that everyone will be able to see the content of the conversation, assuming they have access to the board.

You can restrict the people who have access to a given conversation by setting it as Private before you post. The user who creates the first comment is the owner of the conversation. They can add any member of your application to the private conversation, during the creation step or even after.

Step 1. Click on the comment icon to post on a widget, or right-click to post on an individual cell.   Step 2. Click on the comment visibility dropdown and select Private.
Step 3. Add members to the conversation by using the @ symbol and entering their name, or by clicking the Members dropdown below the title of the comment. This dropdown will allow you to add members without tagging them. Step 4. Write your message then hit Post when you are ready to send. Tagged or added members will get notified.

Adding Members to Private conversations

The Member that posts the original comment in a conversation is the conversation owner.  They control who can access private comments.  Using the member dropdown from the conversation, they can add new members. 

If a Member in the private conversation tags someone not in the restricted group of users allowed to see the conversation, they will see an inline message after sending the comment stating that the mentioned user is not in the conversation.  If the user is the conversation owner, they will have the ability to invite them by hitting “Invite them”. Otherwise, they will need to ask the owner of the conversation.

View all open conversations in a Board

You can click on the number of comments displayed on the top right-hand side of the board to see all the open conversations.  

Once you click widgets with comments at either the cell or widget level, they are highlighted in yellow. Comments made at the cell level are highlighted with a blue triangle in the upper-left corner. If another widget or comment is selected, the blue triangle will turn gray.

Within the conversation side panel, you can also find details on the location of comments. If a comment is made at the widget level, you will just see the name of the widget. If a comment is made at the cell level, you’ll see the name of the grid, along with an icon next to it. If you hover over that cell, you’ll get the information on the specific dimensionality where the comment is located. This is important because depending on the page selection, the comment might not be visible.

Look at the example below.  The top comment was made at the cell level, you can see all the specifics on which cell was commented in.  The second comment was made on a grid widget so you will only see the widget name.

What happens to comments when a widget changes 

Comments at both the widget and cell levels are linked to a specific widget of a Board and not to a specific cell of a block. Here’s what happens to a comment when a widget changes:

• If a widget is deleted and added again, the comment won’t appear on the new widget.

• If a widget’s view changes so that it no longer shows the same cell coordinates, the blue triangle indicating a comment won’t be shown on that view. Clicking the comment in the conversation panel will trigger a message indicating that the cell can’t be shown.

• If the commented cell no longer exists because its coordinates are not compatible anymore, a message indicating the comment can’t be retrieved will be displayed instead of the cell’s coordinates.  For example, if you delete an item and there was a comment related to that item, you will get an error message. 

• A comment on a deleted block will display a message indicating that the block was deleted.

Resolve a comment or conversation

While it is not possible to delete a comment, you can resolve comments or conversations to have them hidden.  To resolve a conversation, click on the checkbox next to your comment. No need to worry about losing the conversation thread, it’s possible to see resolved conversations in a Board and also re-open a conversation.

Edit your message or copy link

To edit your comment, click on the 3 dots next to your comment and click "Edit message".   You can also use the "Copy link" feature available in the 3 dots next to the title of the conversation at the top.  This can be used to send to someone in Slack, Email or any other collaborative tool.

See also:

Create and Edit a Board in an Application