Table of Contents
Subscribing to an Initiative
By default, all Initiatives will have the Subscribe button enabled on the Homepage banner after the Initiative is created.
However, if your Subscribe button is disabled and you would like to enable, you can turn on your Widget Editor and click the edit icon within the Homepage banner.
Underneath the banner a configuration menu will appear allowing you to toggle the Subscribe button on/off.
Subscribing to a Submission/Category
As a user, you can subscribe to receive updates on Submission(s).
- Go to the View Submission page by selecting an idea from the “Idea List” or "Browse Ideas" pages.
- On the View Idea page, you will see a green subscribe button on the right-top corner of the page.
- If you've already subscribed to this idea, this button will then say unsubscribe.

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After you subscribe to an idea, you will receive an email every time -
- Status of the idea is changed
- A comment is made on the idea
- A comment is edited on the idea
- WebStorm of the idea is changed
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If you subscribe to an idea category, you will receive updates about -
- New idea has been submitted to that category - will trigger the 'New Idea Category Alert' template
- New comments to ideas under a category. - will trigger the 'New Comment on Subscribed Idea' template
Enabling the Option
- To enable Submission and/or Category Subscription, the administrator must make sure the option is enabled first in WebStorm Setup:
- Site Setup > Ideas > Ideas > Category and Idea Subscription
Administrators subscribing other Users to Submissions
- If the option "Enable admin ability to subscribe other users" is enabled, then Admins have the ability to Subscribe other Users to Submissions. Admins will see an updated Subscribe option which allows for them to search for specific Users.
Additional Subscribe Options
Site-Babysitter
- Enable site babysitter so user can be cc'd on all emails being sent out from the system
- See this article for more information
Subscribe through Mobile App
Our Mobile App allows for easy subscription to Initiative's by clicking on the Subscribe to Activity button in the center of the Initiative Homepage
Following Users
- Follow all users so their activity reflects in the Updates feed (no email triggers)
- See this article for more information

Rules Engine
- If the administrator wants to be automatically notified based on specific conditions, they can setup an rule to trigger to be notified.
- See this article for more information.
image enclosed shows the choices offered
Thanks for the addition andre!
A user can subscribe to categories?
"You can subscribe to idea/category alerts by clicking on the "Envelope" icon on the idea page." Just like that?
Hello -
Yes - the user can subscribe to the category right on the idea page.
Best,
Anthony
Brightidea Support
Can a user subscribe to a chosen category by any other means?
Specifically, can a user subscribe to a category before any ideas have been submitted into that category?
Hi Vicky - the end user can only subscribe from the dropdown shown above on the idea list. However, you can (as an administrator) setup the user prior to any ideas coming in through the "Category Alert" feature - which can be found here: http://support.brightidea.com/entries/202803-everything-you-need-to-know-about-category-alerts
Hope this helps, thank you!
Best,
Anthony
Thanks Anthony, this is exactly what I was looking for!
You've been very helpful! :-)
say for example, an end user wanted to be notified to any new idea across any challenge, how would one go about doing that? I was thinking to view all ideas on the enterprise level and save the filtered view for him to visit, but is there a way to have an email triggered with any new ideas added to that view?
Hi Stephanie,
The only way would be if that user manually subscribed to each category across the campaigns or subscribed to the campaign itself.
The list itself has no functionality to trigger emails based on updates.
Please let me know if you have any other questions here.
Best,
Brightidea Support
Ron,
Is there a way to unsubscribe another user from a category? We have a team member out on maternity leave and everything that comes into a category she subscribed to goes to her cover person. I feel like we used to be able to go in the back end and see who was subscribed in the category list under "Alert"? Not sure if there's any way to do this currently.
Hi Rob,
Unfortunately, there is no way to unsubscribe another user from a category at this time. It was not something that was available perviously either.
Let me know if you have any other questions on this topic.
Thanks,
Brightidea Support
Ron Orlovetskiy
Right now, if you want to subscribe to multiple categories, you have to go find ideas in all those categories to click the subscribe button on the idea and then select CATEGORY. What if I want to subscribe to multiple categories? It's a pain to go searching for ideas in every category that I want just to subscribe to those categories. Let me subscribe to more than one category at a time via the category list widget.
Hi Cheryl,
Currently our Product is not built to allow Users to subscribe to multiple categories from one page. If you would like to see this idea implemented into our Product, please submit your feature enhancement to our Public IdeaSpace (https://bi.brightidea.com/ideas). Our Product team reviews all entries that are submitted and will pursue any idea that provides benefit to our platform.