In a collaborative set-up, you'll need to create updates on your progress and your team's towards an objective or a measure or project or action, so that it can be shared across with your colleagues, managers, and everyone else in the workspace.
While you can make progress updates and comment on them just about from anywhere - home page, sidebar, goalhub, MS teams (if integrated), you can make written updates from the Sidebar or from the Team's page. These comments and updates will keep everyone informed of the work, provide feedback, and to remain aligned and focused on the big picture.
The "progress or team updates" are intended to be a snapshot of a goal or team's progress or update at a moment in time. As such, the update is frozen at the time of posting and you can look back and get an insight or understanding of a goal or team's status at a moment in time when compared to the present.
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If you've set reminders to your goals to notify on when a progress is due, then you'll receive notifications both in-app and in mail. See Set-up Reminders for Goal Updates for details.
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And, if you've set reminders in bulk from the Update schedule field while creating custom templates to post updates from the Admin > Scheduled templates, then too the notifications will be triggered. See Create Custom Update Templates for Goals and Teams for details.
Updates and comments allow to keep you and everyone else in the loop on what’s happening, and to keep a record of all progress.
Post updates from Sidebar and Goal-hub:
Admins, Owners and collaborators of a goal and those with edit permissions on a plan can post updates. However, a "viewer" cannot post updates.
Wherever you see an action tracked manually or with milestones, or a measure that is tracked manually, you can just scoot the slider to update progress, attach quick and concise updates, and click Save. This can be done from the Home page, Goal-hub, and Sidebar or inline in Planner page from within Cascade, and if you've enabled integrations with Outlook, then you can also make progress updates there within those apps. These updates will also be available in the Updates tab.
The updates made on an action, measure or project will be available only in their respective Updates tab and will not be rolled up and available in their parent objectives.
If you've set reminders to make goal updates, then the owner of the goal would receive both email and in-app notifications of when the update is due. They can also see when is the next update due in the Reminder schedule section or the Updates tab of the goals' sidebar. See Set-up Reminders for Goal Updates for details.
In the My upcoming goals and the My upcoming work sections of the Home page, you'll see the Update reminder against those goals that you own.
All the update reminders are set up in "Sydney, Australia time zone", i.e., if the reminder is set up as every Friday, then the notification will be sent out in the morning of Friday in Sydney, Australia time zone. And, if you are in US or Europe region, you'll get the notification either on Wednesday or Thursday of your time zone depending on where you're.
Click on the notification, or Update in your mail, sidebar or Home page, and you'll be directed to the Updates tab of the goal's sidebar. Click on Post an Update to make your update post and provide more context.
You can view or post updates from the Updates tab of the Sidebar or Goal-hub. Click Post Update to make an update on an objective/measure/project/action to keep the team informed. You can add text (apply styles, bullets, alignment), attach links or embed videos. You can tag person(s) or team(s) to notify them.
If there're customized templates created in your workspace for posting goal updates, you can choose to either select those templates to post updates or use the "Standard" one. Also, note that if you had set update cadence in these templates, then the notifications will be triggered to post updates. See Create Custom Update Templates for Goals and Teams for Goals and Teams for details.
A snapshot of the objective/measure/project/action is taken when an update is posted, so that you can view them anytime and analyze the progress or updates at a later time. This update will also be posted under the Recent Updates area on the Home page of every user in that workspace.
However, an update made on a "private plan" will be available for viewing and commenting only for Admins, and those with "can view" and "can edit" permissions on that plan.
Post team updates in Teams page and Home page:
Admins and all the team members (other than users with the Viewer role) can create an update for their team.
The Updates tab in your Team's page lets you to create updates so that everyone in your team are aware of the progress. You can post short messages and videos here. Click Post an Update and in the Post an Update dialog box, give a title and write your message (use headlines, paragraphs, apply styles and bullets), attach videos (insert or copy-paste the video link here), and click Post Update. The update gets posted.
(Applicable only to Admins and team members) If you're posting a team's update from the Home page, click Post a team update, and select your team from the Select a team dropdown list, and post an update.
If there're customized templates created in your workspace for posting team updates, you can choose to either select those templates to post updates or use the "Standard" one. Also, note that if you had set an update cadence in these templates, then you'll be notified to post updates. See Create Custom Update Templates for Goals and Teams for details.
Anyone in the workspace can add comments to your updates, and if the notifications are enabled, you'll receive notifications that someone has commented in your update.
You can view the teams' updates from
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Team's Update page (Shows only the specific team's updates made by its team members)
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Team's Home page (You can also post updates from here.)
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Recent Updates area of Home page (Shows all the recent updates posted in your workspace)
If you wish to see a specific team's update, then you need to navigate to that team via the Teams tab of the Plans and Teams page, and click the Updates tab of that team.
The updates are posted under the Recent Updates area of your Home page. You can filter them either to view all the updates in your workspace or to view just the team updates posted by different teams.
On integration with Slack (Integrate Slack with Cascade), you can receive notifications on team updates when the Cascade bot is added to the relevant slack channel.
Add comments in the Sidebar:
Everyone in the workspace, including Viewers, can add comments in the comment section of the Sidebar, provided the plan is set "public". Also, to add comments, you need to have a "can view" or "can edit" permissions on that plan.
You can add comments by clicking into the comment box visible at the bottom of the Sidebar. Type in the desired comment, tag teams or users, then click Comment. You can view the comments posted too.
If you wish to see all the comments made on a goal, then go to the relevant Goal-hub, and view them under the "Activity > Comments" tab.
Add comments to team updates:
You can also add comments by just typing in the text into the comment box section of a team update. Remember that:
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You need to have view or edit permissions to view the update and leave comments. Even a "viewer" with view permissions can add comments.
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If you're tagged in an update or comment made in a private plan, then you'll not be able to view or comment on it unless you've view or edit permissions to that plan.
Add comments in Dashboards and Reports:
You can add comments to a dashboard or report if they're public, and you've "can view" or "can edit" permissions (including viewers) to these dashboards and reports.
Click the (comment icon) in the Dashboards and Reports pages to post your comments or feedback (with rich text editor), and tag teams or users using "@" to collaborate.
Edit or delete updates and comments:
Only the Admins and the author who posted the comment or update can edit or delete them.
Once posted, if you wish to edit or delete the updates or comments, you can click the three dots against them, and click the relevant options for editing and deleting.
Getting notified on comments and updates:
If you're the owner of a goal or team, then you'll receive notifications both in-app and via mail
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if a reminder is set on the goals that you own from the Set schedule or Update reminder sections in their sidebar (See Set-up Reminders for Goal Updates)
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or, if a reminder is set in bulk in the Update schedule field of the custom templates that're created in the Scheduled update tab of the Admin page (See Create Custom Update Templates for Goals and Teams).
Anyone who is tagged in a comment or update, including View-only or Viewers will be notified on the comments or updates:
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If someone has tagged you in the comment or update, you'll receive notification either in-app, or in mail, or both, depending on the notifications you've set in your profile.
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If someone has tagged you in a dashboard or report, you'll receive a notification either in-app, or in mail, or both, as well as, see an orange dot on the comment icon to notify you of a new or unread comment.
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If you've integrated with Slack, then you'll receive a notification on the relevant Slack channel when a team update is made.
FAQs
Who can post team updates?
Anyone with "Admin" access and anyone who is a member of that team can post updates to that team.
Can I customize the update?
Yes, if you're an Admin, you can then create templates to customize the way you want. See Create Custom Update Templates for Goals and Teams for details.
Can I receive notifications on when my update is due?
Yes. If you're the owner of a goal or team, then you'll receive notifications both in-app and via mail
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if a reminder is set on the goals that you own from the Set schedule or Update reminder sections in their sidebar (See Set-up Reminders for Goal Updates)
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or, if a reminder is set in bulk in the Update schedule field of the custom templates that're created in the Scheduled update tab of the Admin page (See Create Custom Update Templates for Goals and Teams).
When to post updates and comments?
Updates are posted at a team level or at an initiative level to do a check-in or provide an insight to everyone into what's happening. It can be a weekly or monthly check-in of a team, or something about the progress or performance of an initiative that you wish to notify everyone on.
Comments are posted to share your notes or feedback and can be written wherever the option to comment is available.
While updates are restricted to a team or initiative, comments can be posted on progress updates, team updates, initiatives, dashboards, and reports.
Can I pull the updates and comments information in Reports?
Yes. In an Objectives table, the Activity column lists the comments and all the other activity like changes to progress, owner/collaborators, due dates, and so on. The Last Update column lists the updates made while making progress changes or those detailed ones made from the Updates tab of a goal.
In a Measures table, the Last Update column lists all the updates made on a goal (while making progress changes and also detailed ones from the Updates tab), while the Last Comment displays the comments made in the Comments section of the Details tab in the sidebar.
Who can edit an update?
Only the Admins and the author of the update, i.e., whoever posted that update can edit it. This can be done by clicking the three dots against the posted update, and clicking Edit.
Can I add videos as updates?
Yes, you can add or embed links to videos in the updates. Once posted, you'll see the thumbnail view of the video in the home page updates.
How can a update be deleted?
Only the Admins and the author of the update, i.e., whoever posted that update can delete it. This can be done by clicking the three dots against the posted update, and clicking Delete.
I've posted an update in the measure and added some comments on it but I'm not able to see it in the parent objective. Why?
Updates will be available in the goals where they're posted and will not be rolled up to the parent goal. Any updates or comments made on a success criteria will not be available in the Updates tab of the parent objective; only the updates pertaining to that objective will be displayed.
Who can post comments?
Anyone who is an Admin or has a "view" access on a plan, dashboard, or report can add comments. Even a "Viewer" role user can add comments unless they do not have access to the plan, dashboard or report.
When a Viewer or view-only user is tagged in a comment or update, will they be notified?
Yes, they'll receive notification either in-app, or in mail, or both, depending on the notifications they've set in their profile. They can also leave comments there.