SOLVED

Alerts on Comments in Modern Pages?

Iron Contributor

So now that we are beginning to take advantage of Communications Sites, Modern Pages and News, we are starting to get comments on our pages - which is awesome, but... Nobody knows there are comments on the pages. Is there currently a way to get alerts/notifications (like most other modern Social Collab Tools) that a comment was made on a page? Maybe by email?

49 Replies
best response confirmed by Drew Madelung (MVP)
Solution

Hi Rob,

I had a similar task: send the email notification to the author of the modern page in SharePoint online if the new comment added.

I have done this using MS Flow and MS Graph API because standard SharePoint actions in MS Flow didn't help me. 

 

I've described the solution in step-by-step instruction on the public blog of my company.

 

Hope, it helps you.

 

UPDATE: This solution was implemented for teams site. We found new challenges for brand new communications sites.

 

Famous!

The iterative development that MS is taking for the O365 environment is great on one level, but why would a comments feature not have alerts baked in? Having to play around with APIs and Flows for this kind of feature is just not realistic.

 

I'll wait until they get it sorted out.

Hi @Daniel Staps

 

What tool did you use to get this list of lists (Specifically the Comments list).  I have tried and failed to find this list using SharePoint Designer, REST calls and CSOM.  I am the global administrator for the tenant I am using so I should be able to see all lists.

 

Regards

 

Nigel

Hi @Egor

 

I think the comments are not held in a list for modern Communications Sites, but in some datastore in the cloud.

 

You can get hold of them using a REST call so :-working with page comments using the REST API 

 

I cannot see any list on my communications site starting with "Comments".  I tried using SharePoint Designer, but no list showed.  I am the Global Administrator on the Tenancy and the site collection administrator as well as the Communications Site Owner.  Are you using Yammer by any chance ? is that why you can see the "Comments" list ? - what am I doing wrong not to get the "Comments" list in my Modern Communications Site ?

 

Regards

 

Nigel

Hi Nigel,
If you didn't post any comment, then Comments.* list doesn't exist. SharePoint creates it automatically during the posting of the first comment. I hope, this is a reason.

Hi @Egor Tsvetkov

 

I have two comments on the home page and I can access them via a REST -> 

${currentWebUrl}/_api/web/lists/GetByTitle('Site Pages')/GetItemById(1)/Comments
 
Before Get SIte Pages
After Get Site Pages
Comment Number 2
0
Comment Number 1
0
 
but no comments List
 
Regards
 
Nigel
 
 

Where did you search this list in SharePoint Designer?

It should be under "All Files":

Capture3.png

 

Hi @Egor Tsvetkov

 

THis is my SharePoint Designer output :-

 

sd20131.pngRegards

 

Nigel

Hi @Egor Tsvetkov

 

I have now tried with a second Communications Site.  Same result no Comments list.

 

I have created a new Communications site, created a page on it and added a comment to the page.  Same result no comments list.

 

I have also tried opening SharePoint Designer as an administrator - same result.

 

Regards

 

Nigel

@Nigel Price,

 

I had similar issues at first.  But, if you look back in this thread @Daniel Staps posted a comment on 11-22-2017 that, if followed step-by-step will absolutely work.  Use SharePoint Client Browser found here: https://archive.codeplex.com/?p=spcb and refer to his screenshots.

 

I was able to get this working with Flow after following Daniel's instructions.

 

 

Hi @Meg Simmons

 

I downloaded the SPC and ran it against two of my sites which have got comments and this is what I got :-

 

clientbrowserpic1.png

No comments field !

 

I am beginning to wonder if I have a different version of SharePoint Online !

 

Regards

 

Nigel

Hi All

 

I have now tried trying to find the Comments list on two different tenancies  and 6 different site collections including Communications sites and Team sites.  All have got one or more comments on a site page.  In every case I can use REST calls to find the comments (see my other posts for details).  In each case I am the global administrator and the site collection administrator and the site owner.  I am running out of ideas on how to see the Comments list. @VesaJuvonen can you help here ?

 

Any ideas on what property I have to modify to get the Comments List to appear would be very gratefully received.

 

Thanks for your help in advance

 

Nigel

Hi Nigel,

My solution is written for teams site. I try to repeat it for Communication site and notify you when having some results. 

Any News ?  I have created a Teams Site (via the App) and still no comments list (I have created a comment)

Bad news, unfortunately. I created a new O365 trial subscription with latest releases and checked Comments list for Communication and Teams sites (private and public). Everywhere result is the same: no Comments list in SharePoint Designer, Client browser, Graph API or Native SharePoint REST API.

 

I checked on the customer's tenants: comments list available because target release was not applied.

Looks like, hidden Comments data source is a new feature from MS.

Thanks @Egor Tsvetkov back to the drawing board for trapping Comments.

This is a must fix. My recommendation is to have this setting turned off for the entire tenant. This is an impossible situation where I can't understand why not Yammer is a bigger part of it. A site could have an open Group in Yammer, or a hastag in a Group. The root site could send out to All Company. 

 

The framework for all solutions on Office 365 for my customers are to have so Close to standard as possible where it is something related to the company's USP that breaks the mold, not standard functionality that should be there.

 

Imagine the impact of a lot of employees thinking someone cares about their opinion and then nobody replies to them ever because they can't see it? 

 

Bad design. 

It seems like MS have changed their Comment behavior, at least on Communication sites. I can find OLD comments but when I add new comments, they doesn't show up in the Comments.30017244-8B12-4607-9D41-89A859BD352D list