Introduction

Note: This article walks through the workflow for comments and internal notes. Help requests are viewable from the activity feed, and you can learn more about requesting help by visiting Working with AROs.

While trying to close an ARO, you may request help and correspond with our analysts to address the issue. The message included in you help request, along with any following correspondence for the ARO, is tracked in the activity feed, located at the bottom of each ARO.

From the activity feed here, you can also leave comments about the ARO for our analysts, and they can reply. You can also leave internal notes, which are only visible to members of your organization with an MDR Portal account.

Along with comments and notes, the activity feed also tracks the ARO’s entire lifecycle: creation date, status updates (Opened, Closed, Resolved, Dismissed), mitigation step updates, and any change to the assignee or watcher.

This article shows you how to use comments and internal notes, as well how to use the activity feed’s sorting and filtering tools.

Comments and Internal Notes

You can leave either a comment or an internal note on an ARO, and the difference between them is based on user visibility:

• Comments can be seen by all members in your organization, and Field Effect analysts.
  • Comments are to be used when you want to discuss the ARO with your internal team, but do not require a response from a Field Effect analyst.
• Internal notes can only be seen by members of your organization.
  • Example 1: a client’s internal notes can’t be seen by MSP users, if the client is managed by a partner.
  • Example 2: Partner internal notes can’t be seen by the client’s end users.

Comments

To leave a comment on an ARO (that will not create a help request), scroll to bottom of the ARO and click Comment.

The dialogue box will open for you to discuss next steps. If the message contains sensitive information, select the “this message contains sensitive information.” If selected, the contents of the message will only be accessible by viewing the ARO in the in the MDR Portal and not shared in any email notifications. After making your comment, click Comment to publish it.

This comment will then be visible in the activity feed, and since it’s a comment, it will be viewable to members of the organization with a ortal account, MSP users if managed by a partner, and Field Effect analysts.

Internal Notes

If you want to create a note that can only be viewed by members of your organization, click Add Internal Note.

Internal notes are designed to allow you to communicate with your organization privately. Note that in the recipient list, only your organization is shown as a recipient. After drafting your internal note, click Add Internal Note to publish it.

Once published, internal notes are marked in grey on the Activity feed.

Changing Drafts between Comments and Internal Notes

If you’ve drafted a message and want to change the message type, you can use the dropdown to change between comment or internal note while drafting.

Filtering and Sorting the Activity Feed

While working on an ARO, the Activity feed will keep a record of every change and update. Activity tracked in the feed includes the creation date, status changes (dismissed or resolved), mitigation step updates, help request comments, and internal notes. The Activity feed supports the following sort and filter capabilities:

• Sorting: Oldest and newest first
• Filtering:
  • All: shows the creation date, every status change, mitigation step update, comment and internal note added to the ARO.
  • History: shows ARO event events logs (creation date, status changes, mitigation step updates).
  • Comments: shows comments and internal notes made to the ARO.

In the example below, the Activity feed filter is set to All, so the creation date, mitigation step updates, help request comments, internal notes, and the resolution time is displayed.

The filtering and sorting tools are found at the top of the Activity feed, and the example below shows the feed being filtered by comments, hiding all status and mitigation step changes.

ARO Activity Notifications

When an ARO is updated with new activity, users watching the ARO will receive a notification via SMS or email, depending on their profile settings.

If you are creating a comment or internal note that includes sensitive information, select the sensitive information checkbox. If selected, the contents of the message will not be included in any notification and the only way to view contents is to navigate to the ARO’s activity feed.