Make notifications work for your team

Learn how to set up Stack Overflow for Teams notifications so that they're surfacing the knowledge you need, when and where you need it.

We continuously improve Stack Overflow for Teams so you can access the knowledge you need—when and where you need it—to be more productive. However, we also offer notification settings that put your team in control of when, where, and what knowledge they’re notified of. To ensure notifications are helpful and not causing unnecessary interruptions, we suggest asking questions like the following:

  • What projects do I own or actively participate in?
  • What projects and tools impact my team?
  • How often do I visit our Stack Overflow for Teams site?
  • What notification channel do I prefer: email, chat, or both?
  • Am I a subject matter expert at my company?

How you answer these questions should inform your notification settings. For example, your projects will inform the tags you use to filter notifications. Also, how frequently you visit your site and whether or not you’re a domain expert will inform notification cadence and channels.

Reference the tables below for the various notifications options and visit our Help Center to learn more.

Email notifications

Notification Trigger activities Cadence Configuration
For You Inbox
  • You were asked a question
  • You were mentioned in a comment
  • New answers or comments on your question
  • Edits or suggested edits on your post
  • An accepted answer was changed
  • Content Health notifications (Business and Enterprise plans only)
  • When you’re assigned as a Subject Matter Expert (Business and Enterprise plans only)
Can be configured to be sent weekly, daily, every 3 hours, immediately, or never Configure by selecting Account settings and clicking Edit email settings under Email settings
Tag subscription activity
  • New questions and articles for the tag(s) you’re watching
Can be configured to be sent as soon as possible, daily, or never Configuration options:
  • Edit your watched tags via the right sidebar
  • Select Account settings and click Tag watching & ignoring under Email settings
  • Hover directly over a tag to watch it
Team digests
  • Top answered questions
  • Top unanswered questions
  • Top contributors
  • Unaccepted answers
Can be configured to be sent weekly or never Configure by selecting Account settings and clicking Team digests under Email settings

*Subject Matter Experts are automatically subscribed to their assigned tags.

Slack and Microsoft Teams notifications

Notification Trigger activities Cadence Configuration
Personal (sent as a direct message)
  • You were asked a question
  • You were mentioned in a comment
  • A user group that you’re a member of is asked a question (Business and Enterprise plans only)
  • Questions, edited questions, answers, updated answers, accepted answers, and comments for tags you care about
Immediately

Microsoft Teams: Within the personal Stack Overflow for Teams app under Notifications, click Create new notification and select the activity type and tag filter(s).

Slack: Within the Stack Overflow for Teams app, click Create a notification and select activity type, description size, and tag filter(s) and specify that the notification should be sent as a direct message. Alternatively, type /stack notify and make the same selections.

Team or group (sent to a channel)
  • Questions, edited questions, answers, updated answers, accepted answers, and comments for tags relevant to the channel
Immediately

Microsoft Teams: Within the team channel, click the + sign on the channel tab to add the Stack Overflow for Teams app. From the app, click Create new notification and select the activity type and tag filter(s).

Slack: Within the Stack Overflow for Teams app, click Create a notification and select activity type, description size, tag filter(s), and the channel. Alternatively, type /stack notify and make the same selections (the Slack bot will need to be in the channel for notifications to work).

*All users can configure notifications on the Free, Basic, and Business plans. Permissions are configurable on Enterprise and there are additional admin configuration options.