Using Collaboration, Notifications, and Dashboard Activity

Start with the notification bell

Use the bell in the top bar as your personal queue for workflow alerts and mentions addressed to you.
Keep unread-only on when you are triaging fresh work, then switch back to the full list when you need recent context.
Open View from the notification item to jump back into the related record instead of trying to remember which site, inspection, or work order changed.
Mark individual items read when you have handled them, or mark all read when the queue has genuinely been cleared.

Open Dashboard → Activity when the question is broader than one notification. Old Activity Feed links redirect to this section.
Filter by resource type when you only care about sites, inspections, defects, quotes, or work orders.
Filter by event type when you want to isolate creation, assignment, status changes, comments, or thread changes.
Filter by user when you are trying to understand who changed a shared record during a busy operating period.

Treat the feed as the shared record of what changed across the workspace, not as a replacement for the live record itself.
Use the linked resource to move back into the underlying site, inspection, or work order once you know which event matters.
Pair the event summary with the actual desk that owns the workflow, because scheduling, inspections, and commercial desks still remain the source of truth for the live job.

Use the page-level collaboration controls when a site, inspection, quote, schedule, or work order needs another person's attention.
Check presence before making a competing edit so the team can see who else is active on the same resource.
Use comments and mentions for internal follow-up, then open the linked record from the notification or activity item.
Use share links only for the intended resource and audience; they do not replace workspace role checks or customer-facing delivery controls.

Notification items belong to the signed-in user, so one person clearing their queue does not clear the queue for someone else.
Dashboard Activity is an admin-facing section, so use it for office triage rather than expecting it in every field account.
Access to Dashboard Activity is enforced at the server level, not just in the UI. Organisation admins and owners can query it within their own organisation. Engineers are not permitted to access it and receive a permission error from direct requests.
If collaboration controls look incomplete, check role and workspace before treating it as a broken history surface.

Problem	What to check
The bell is empty but someone says they mentioned you	Confirm the mention targeted your account in the current workspace and refresh the page after the event lands.
Dashboard Activity feels too noisy	Filter by resource type, event type, user, or date before reviewing the stream.
The notification opened the right record but the context still feels unclear	Use the linked desk itself to verify the current operational state after you identify the event that matters.
Dashboard Activity returns a permission error or is inaccessible	Confirm the signed-in account has organisation admin or owner role. Engineer accounts are not permitted to access it.
A shared link or comment does not show what someone expected	Confirm the recipient is in the right workspace and has permission for the linked resource.

Use Common Issues when collaboration controls are missing or a notification does not arrive.