When comments are important it can be useful to notify the user that a comment exists so it cannot be missed. This can be particularly important in areas like sales order entry where a user could easily miss a comment inherited from, for example, a customer or item.
Within Clever Comments it is possible to set a Display Type policy for each Comment Type.
Display Type has the options shown below. When a field is entered that triggers the inheritance of a comment (for example, entering a Sell-to Customer No. on a Sales Order could inherit comments from the relevant customer) the display type determines which sort of notification is displayed:
- None - No notification is displayed. This is the default option.
- Notify - The user is notified of the comment via a pop-up as shown below. The user can acknowledge the pop-up and proceed with the data entry.
- Notify and Acknowledge - The user is notified of the comment via a pop-up as shown below. The user must acknowledge the notification and if they answer negatively the field triggering the notification is cleared.
Notifications When Using the New Document Function
Comment Notifications are also supported when using the New Document function in Business Central. This includes scenarios such as converting a Sales Quote to a Sales Order, or creating an Order from a Blanket Order.
When a document is created using the New Document function, any comments that are inherited as part of this process will trigger a notification if the associated Comment Type has a Display Type set to Notify or Notify and Acknowledge.
This ensures that users are made aware of important comments during the document creation process, even when comments are being inherited from the source document rather than from a master data record such as a Customer or Item.
Note: if a comment is inherited as part of a background process, i.e. creating a Warehouse Shipment from a Sales Order, then the Display Type field will be disabled and no notification will be shown.
Comments Factbox on Card Screens
Card screens throughout Business Central include a Comments Factbox that displays a preview of pinned comments associated with the current record. The factbox renders the full rich text content of each pinned comment directly within the factbox panel, separated by divider lines. A summary line at the bottom of the factbox shows the total number of pinned comments being displayed alongside the total number of comments for the record (e.g. "Showing 3 of 12 total comments"). A Show all comments link is also provided to open the full "Comment Sheet" screen. If there are no pinned comments, the factbox displays "No pinned comments".
The Comments Factbox is available on the following card screens:
- Customer Card
- Vendor Card
- Item Card
- Bank Account Card
- Contact Card
- Campaign Card
- Fixed Asset Card
- G/L Account Card
- Opportunity Card
- Resource Card
- Stockkeeping Unit Card
- Employee Card
- Machine Center Card
- Work Center Card
- Service Item Card
- Production BOM
- Routing
- Job Card
The visibility of the Comments Factbox can be controlled via the Show Comments Factbox field on the "Comments Setup" screen.
The Show Comments Factbox field has the following options:
- Always - The Comments Factbox is always visible on the card screen, regardless of whether comments exist for the record. This is the default option.
- Only if Pinned Comments - The Comments Factbox is only visible if there are pinned comments that fall within a valid date range for the current record. This option helps to reduce visual clutter on card screens when there are no relevant comments to display.
- Never - The Comments Factbox is hidden on all card screens.
In addition, some key screens, including the "Warehouse Shipment" and "Warehouse Receipt" screens, contain an additional factbox showing the number and type of comments associated with the record:
Clicking on the count of comments field displays the associated comments.