Follow vs. Share
The Follow and Share features look really similar on the surface, but I learned a bit about them today that I thought I'd share with others:
- Share - this sends a one-time email notification to the requester making them aware of the request, though it does not send any follow-up notifications for correspondence or if the request is updated.
- Follow - this sends an initial email when they are added as a follower, and then it sends additional notifications when the request is updated or if the technician or requester send replies. However, followers can only access the request link if they have permission to view either all requests for their department or site or all requests for everyone.
Our instance uses the Azure AD user sync to create requesters, and by default all new requesters can only view their own requests, and there's not currently a way to configure that differently that I can tell. This setting can be changed for individual users, but only manually by a sys admin, and I'm trying to avoid that headache where possible. What this means is that the Follow function is essentially causing users to receive ticket links that they can't access. The Share function gives them ticket link access, but does not keep them in the loop on any ticket developments.
My suggestion would be to either a) modify Share so it has more configurable notification options like Follow has, or b) remove the limitation on Follow that requires the requester to have access to all department, site, or organization tickets.
For now, I'm advising my technicians not to use Follow and instead use Share and then manually cc the user on request replies so they stay in the loop. Not ideal, but it makes the function usable for us.