Activity Stream on Workspace
Is there a way to remove the Activity Stream on the Workspace and move tasks there? That's just a total waste of space for our needs. Thanks!
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Official comment
Hi everyone,
No current plans to include a feature to remove the activity stream but we are considering to make the stream more flexible in the future. Just not planned at this point.
If you are not already doing this, I can recommend spending some time to hide the updates not relevant for you personally - this makes the stream more relevant and creates a faster way to get overview of the activity in your company.
We see notifications on things you actively follow as what you need to know, while the stream is a way to discover things in your business you might not know (nice to know) and enable you to follow and participate in discussion, even if you are not directly involved.
Thanks for the feedback, please keep voting.
/Sara - Podio
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This comment, and hundreds like it, have been consistently ignored for three years at least. So let's try a different tack.
Dear Podio, please could you suggest a single use for this activity stream that your users have ever shown any interest in? Nobody actually wants it, and on a tablet (which many people use), the activity log occupies 100% of the visible screen, so rendering the software unusable.
Why not share your reasons for wanting to persevere with it ?
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From a previous Citrix employee's post it seems like the activity stream is integral to their vision of how the software should work. Basically, they are forcing their own use-case on the user, which I think they do at their own peril. I've seen folks admit to ditching the software because of the Activity Stream. It really seems like some developer's pet feature... is it so hard to make it hide-able or able to be resized? Obviously not. Frustrating to have such a customizable piece of software with this feature that is so obstructive and immutable.
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Upvoted.
There are people in my company who don't get any use out of Podio really and for whom it's just an extra bit of admin. If we got rid of the activity stream then the front page would be so much more customisable: there'd be much more space for people to design their home screen so that they're presented with loads of USEFUL information, and I think people would be much more engaged with it.
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As well as upvoting there is multiple questions with the same ideas in the help centre. Because I have no use for the activity stream in the way I run Podio, using the right side for a dashboard is too cramped and doesn't make it a usable space to get an overview which it would do if I could make it the full screen. So not only do I not use the activity stream, but the activity stream makes the entire landing screen of no use to me, :( I would love to use it for a big task list and notepad view, being the only place I can show things from multiple apps, but on the road on a smaller laptop this half a screen view is horrible! Why not have the activity stream in a docked popout you can minimize, this would allow people who use it to quickly check their stream from any of their apps without returning to the home screen!
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+1
It be good to have this feature as I too have some workspaces where we would not really need the activity stream, so a turn on or off mode would be goodAlternative idea, if a workspace can be set to automatically go to the first app in the workspace straight away, rather than clicking on the workspace and then the app at the top.
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Adding my voice in support of making the activity stream either removable or much, much smaller. I appreciate that Podio is trying to increase transparency, however the way the activity stream is currently set up creates an information overload. Rather than successfully feeding me information about my colleague's use of the space, I treat that part of the page as if there is nothing there and just go directly to my apps - and as many before me have mentioned, I wish I had more space for them.
It is quite redundant to have an activity stream overview on the homepage and then again in every single workspace. I'd be happy and more likely to utilize the feature if it were just on the overview page and then the workspaces were left for working.
My final issue with the activity stream is that it mixes conversation and activity updates. If I or my colleagues were to "share something," new and important such as a general announcement or question, it would very quick be buried with "Jenny edited this 1 hour ago. Jenny edited this 2 hours ago. Jenny edited this 2 hours ago," etc.
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its been 8 years!!! can you guys listen to your audience some of the most basic requests have been ignored for so long why are you ignoring these requests with the most upvotes? the new skin UX does little to nothing differently. so many requested features are beeing ignored. i was looking to see if certain requests ive been having for a year maybe have been picked up. the oldest comment to date on a few of these top voted features is over 8 years old. and they are super easy to make!!!!! this should just be available. it is super weird, why force unwanted functionality make it optional
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Full agreement here !
It takes up 50% of the useful screen and adds a pointless stream of dates. I just want the data, not the history. A simple (greyed-out) date against a document or other contribution would suffice, in case I need to check on the status of a document.
The full activity stream might be useful in an organisation which thrives on a blame culture, but not otherwise...
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Sara, that is exactly my point. There are times when I want to construct a screen that maximizes the use of the real estate based on how I need it to work, and I don't care (for that dashboard view) whether Podio wants Podio to work in a more Facebook-like or Twitter-like fashion. My whole reason for choosing Podio over other tools and platforms was the flexibility that I could built things in Podio to support my workflow and my team's workflow, rather than having to learn the "built-in" workflow required by other more structured systems and platforms.
I think the "value of the feed" is a Millennial-centric way of approaching the interface design. That is probably very useful to some users, but very off-putting to others. I think that there is something a little bit disingenuous about having a system that is so flexible in every other way, but then tries to force users to use or interact with one component of it in a certain way.
There are some screens and views where I do find the stream to be useful. However, it is clearly (for me) not universally more valuable and useful than every other piece of data or summary report in my workspace, and there are some screens where it does not "deserve" 50% of my screen real estate when I am trying to monitor other things.
That is why I think so many people feel that it is a reasonable thing for the Stream to be available just like any other widget, and to be able to turn it on and off as needed for different screens and views.
Clearly the Activity Stream is not such an all-powerful dashboard and activity monitor that no other information is needed, right? Obvious straw man here, but why not just make the Activity Stream the only thing visible on the home screen if that were the case?
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@Sara - I came looking for a way to get the Activity stream out of my way. I find posts starting four years ago with many different people asking the same thing. And the response I basically see from you is "No - we know better. just learn to use it better." I actually do know what I want to see in in my personal dashboard and can create the reports to easily get to what is important and get a quick view where things stand. Please, after four years, start listening to your customers and treat the activity stream like any other app - able to be removed, moved and/or minimized.
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The activity stream is overwhelming for my not very technical collaborators and it doesn't give them any useful information. It's also pretty obnoxious being full column left.
Things that would make it easier:
- Choose a home screen for a workspace with a separate Activity Stream panel.
- Have the Activity Stream be a moveable tile that I can then move to bottom right.
EDIT and I've just found out that the Activity Stream is out of kilter with the grid that tiles works to, so it's extra obnoxious as it ends at a different level to the tile column.
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