View Cell History not supporting Comments

FazalurRehman

Hello All 



We frequently use the comments cell in rows to register and monitor a line items progress over time. 

This means that some comment threads would have participation by a number of users and over longer periods of time...so far so good

However,  while it is possible for the comment writer to edit/delete the comment, other users can not trace back any changes the user made to his/her comment if the comment is edited.

To illustrate the missing feature, notice in the attached image that first I wrote a comment on 25th August. Then I updated it on 26th August. The update is the only comment visible and there is no way to find out what was the comment before the update.



The above is only an example to illustrate the issue. On a bigger scale, in real life, this is pretty unsafe. For example if the comments are used to progress an approval, the lack of ability to trace back the changes can encourage misuse of the Edit / Delete feature.



How can history be viewed? in comments?

Kind regards

Fazal   

 

 

Andrée Starå

Hi Fazal,

Unfortunately, it's not possible at the moment to view it in the cell history, but it's a great idea!

Please submit an Enhancement Request when you have a moment.

As a workaround, you can see the changes in the Activity Log.

Would that work?

Hope that helps!

Have a fantastic week!

Best,

Andrée Starå

Workflow Consultant / CEO @ WORK BOLD

FazalurRehman

Thanks Andree for the Activity Log tip. Did not know about this feature until you shared. 

HOWEVER, it would be a very very tedious exercise to trace back.

The sheets we use, at present are vulnerable in the sense that we use the comment sections to progress approval of items under development and free form text is input by cotributors who share there updates....sometimes the updates are consequential,,,,meaning based on the update given by a person "Mike", another person "Tim" may make a decision and do something....now if tomorrow (or one week after for that matter), if Mike edits his comment, updating it in a manner that would not have permitted Tim to do what Tim already did based on one week old comment, such action of Tim (previously done upon conditional approval, now becomes "done without approval" - and that is just one example of the vulnerability. View Cell History is one right click of the mouse and bingo - the XRay of changes is right in front of you.... not at all so in Activity Log .



Thanks for sharing the Enhancement Request link, will use that

You have a good week end too.

Fazal

Andrée Starå

Excellent!

Happy to help!

Maybe you could have specific columns for this kind of important comments about the particular approval? If you export the Activity Log, it's much simpler to see what you need in the way that you need to view it.

Would that work/help?

@CollabMeganPMP

I, too, would love to be able to see comment edit history.  It's another way for transparency!