You are here: Comments > Specifying Whether New Comments Need to be Reviewed

Specifying Whether New Comments Need to be Reviewed

As the author, you have control over whether new user comments should be reviewed before they are displayed in the online output. If you specify that all incoming comments require review, those comments will have Pending status until you take action on them (e.g., accepting, discarding, hiding). If you specify that reviewing comments is not necessary, all incoming comments will automatically move to Accepted status and become immediately visible in your online output. You can always change the status of a comment, thereby affecting whether it is visible and to whom.

How to specify whether new comments need to be reviewed

Open the Feedback file.
In the Feedback Admin, select the General tab.
Click the check box labeled Require new comments to be reviewed so that it contains a check mark.
Press CTRL+S or click to save your work.

Note: To understand the way that users enter these comments, see How End Users Submit Comments.

Note: If you want end users to be able to enter Feedback comments in the online output, you need to enable comments. This is done by opening the skin in Flare that is associated with the target, selecting the Feedback tab, and clicking Display topic comments at the end of each topic. For more information, see the online Help in Flare.

WHAT'S NEXT?

Other tasks to be performed when it comes to reviewing comments include the following:

Accept pending comments If you set up MadCap Feedback so that new comments require approval before being added to the online output, those comments move to Pending status by default. Therefore, you must accept a comment before it is added to the online output to be viewed by everyone. Even after you accept a comment, you can later change your mind and assign a different status to it (Hidden, Pending Review) or discard it any time you want. See Accepting Pending Comments and Discarding Comments.
Add administrators You can specify individuals, called administrators, who should be emailed when events such as the following take place: users submit new comments that require acceptance before they are published , the status for a comment is changed, searches are performed with no results, topics are rated, and context-sensitive Help (CSH) calls are made. Administrators can also be subscribed to an email manifest, which automatically emails summaries of Feedback activity periodically. An administrator might be a writer on the documentation team, or even an individual such as a manager or documentation leader who will not necessarily take action on user activity but still needs to be kept informed. Each administrator can be set up to receive different types of emails. See Adding Administrators.

Note: It is not mandatory that you add administrators. It is simply an activity that helps speed the process of accepting new comments because it notifies the appropriate individuals when action is needed for pending comments. Anyone who has Feedback Explorer installed with the appropriate Feedback license key will be able to take action on pending comments, even if they are not added to the administrator notification list.