Channels Panel
Summary: 
What are Channels?
Selecting Channels controls what you see in the Activity Stream.
- Like almost everything in Runcible, a Channel is a type of Page
- Channel Pages contain different Subscriptions to Runcible Pages.
- The Channels Panel displays a list of Channel Pages.
- You can subscribe to many different Pages in the same PRIVATE Channel.
- You can subscribe to only one Page in a PUBLIC Channel.
But What’s the Point of Having Channels?
Do you know how you might wish you could design your own cable-tv package, and get only the channels you want?And if you could get only the channels you want, only the commercials you want?
Well, its sort of like that.
Channels allow you to customize your subscription to activity on nearly everything in Runcible. Examples
- A Close Work Friends’ Pages
- A My Bosses Pages
- My Payroll Page for announcements
- The Industry Gossip Group Page.
- The #inAppropriateHumor Page
- The #Company Announcements Page
- My most important project page
- The Bug Reports Page on the Internal System software I use every day.
- My favorite customers list so that if they say anything I’m “in on it”.
- The #Sales Announcements so that I can feel good about my company.
You can subscribe to any Runcible Page:
- Public Hashtag Channels
- People, Groups, and Organizational Nodes
- Clients, Customers, Contracts and Invoices
- Programs, Projects, Deliverables, Tasks – and all the many task types.
So you can subscribe to pretty much everything in Runcible that has a Profile Page.
How to Subscribe to, and Unsubscribe from Pages
Try it
- Search for anything using the Main Search bar.
- Open a page.
- At the top left of the page, in the Workflow Bar (Button Bar) Select “Subscribe” (Or unsubscribe to unsubscribe)
- Select the Subscriptions Tab
- You will see a list of your channels
- Notice that all the boxes are checked next to the ‘Everything’ Channel.
That’s it. Now, let’s modify that subscription:
How to Customize Subscriptions
Once you’re Subscribed, you can modify which events you’re notified of.
- Uncheck the boxes for Worklogs and Instances, so it matches this image:
- As you select each box you’ll see a notification in the upper left that the change has been made.
- All activity on the item will be displayed in the Everything Channel in your Activity Stream.
That’s it.
What do each of these events mean?
- Action required: you are a member of the current workflow state, and MAY need to do something.
- Assigned to you: responsibility has been assigned to you.
- Reference to you: someone has used @mention to mention you.
- Thread you participating in: Someone has left a comment involving you.
- Comment: Someone has left a comment on a page.
- Worklogs no risk: Someone has entered time against the page, and marked it ‘green’ or no risk.
- Worklogs low risk : Someone has entered time against the page, and marked it ‘yellow’ or low risk.
- Worklogs high risk : Someone has entered time against the page, and marked it ‘red’, or high risk.
- State Change: someone has changed the state of the page.
- Change: Some data has changed – does not refer to comments, only data.
- Attachment: Someone has added a file attachment.
- Instance creation: Someone has created the page. (we always log it)
- Instance deletion : Someone has deleted the page.
Usually you’ll want to know if you’re responsibilities change using the first four events. The rest are optional depending upon your role.
What Types of Channels Are there?
You can use four different
Channel types
:
- My Wall Channel – Is Private and Permanent – no one else can subscribe to the Channel, but everyone can still subscribe to your profile page. And you cannot delete the channel. The My Wall Channel lets you post directly to your profile page’s wall, and read that wall, without opening a your profile page as a sliding page.
The Everything Channel (Default or ‘General’ Channel) – Is Private and Permanent – no one else can subscribe to it. And you cannot delete the channel.
- The Everything channel serves as the ‘default’ or ‘general’, or ‘public’ channel. By default that’s where all Subscriptions are placed. SeeSubscribing and Unsubscribing
The Page Channels – Are Private, and Removable – no one else can subscribe to them. And you can delete the channel.
- Subscribe to any Page
The #Hashtag Channels – are Public and Removable. Others can subscribe to them. Runcible does not allow for the destruction of data, so you cannot delete a hashtag Page. You can only unsubscribe and delete the channel from your workspace.
- When you post in a Public channel, everyone in the channel will be able to read it.
Possible Point of Confusion: “Talking to Yourself” on Private Channel Pages.
There is a big difference between a
Channel,
a
Channel Page,
and the Channel Page’s
Subscriptions
(The pages it’s subscribed to). Example;
- My “Breakfast Fruit” Channel. Includes My Posts to this CHANNEL’s Profile Page: “Breakfast Fruit”.And:
- Includes the posts from the pages I’ve used this channel to subscribe to: Page Orange: An Runcible Page that I subscribe with this channel. All Activity I am subscribed to on this page.
- my posts and replies to this PAGE
Page Banana: Another Runcible Page that I subscribe to with this channel
- All Activity I am subscribed to on this page
- my posts and replies to this PAGE
Page Grapefruit: Another Runcible Page that I subscribe to with this channel
- All Activity I am subscribed to on this page
- My posts and replies to this PAGE
So, if I post to “Breakfast Fruit” I’m only posting to myself, NOT to the other three pages: Orange, Banana, Grapefruit. For this reason, it’s best to think of your private Channel Pages, as a place to keep notes on that channel. No one other than you can see them.
- Why? We are uncomfortable creating the ability to create channels that act as ‘broadcast stations’ across many pages, because we think it might lead to abuse.
What Does the Counter Mean?
The counter displays the number of unread messages in that channel.
Tip: Runcible can, and should, generate a lot of activity. Once you gain experience you will ‘tune’ your channels to inform you of activity you want to see, and ignore activity you don’t. Our advice is to just work with it for a few weeks rather than to try to guess what you might want to know.
What actions can I perform on the Channels?
- Select a Channel Selecting a channel displays the contents of that Channel in the Activity Stream (News Feed)
Select Multiple Channels
- Select one channel
- hold the CTRL key
- Select more channels
- The Activity Stream will display the contents of the selected channels.
- Use CTRL click to deselect channels, or Select a single channel to unselect all others.
Mark all Activity as Read in that Channel
- To mark all activity in a channel as Read, and set the counter to zero Right Click on the channel
- Select “Mark as Read”
- Your request will be placed in the queue, and in a few moments your workspace will be updated to reflect the change.
Open a Channel’s Profile Page
- To open a channel’s Profile Page Double-click on the Channel
- A Sliding Panel will open and display the Channel’s Profile Page.
From a Channel’s Profile Page you can leave posts in the Activity Stream.
Edit a Channel
- Select on the
icon. Runcible will display the editing panel. 
- Select the checkmark to save, or the cancel button to close the editing panel.
Add a Channel
- Scroll to the Bottom of the Channels Panel
- Select the New Item by clicking on it.
- Type the new Channel Name To create a Private Channel Just type away. As long as the first characters is not a hashtag, Runcible will create a private channel.
- Press Enter to save, and create the new channel
To create a Public (#Hashtag) Channel
- if the first character is a hashtag # Runcible will create a Public channel.
- Public (#Hashtag) Channels must consist only of upper and lower case letters and numbers – no special characters, and no spaces.
- Press Enter to save, and create the new public channel.
What filters can I use?
You can filter by text search. That’s it.
Do I need to use the channels Panel?
No. Especially if you’re in a very small group. Select the Everything Channel (it will always default to Everything), close the Channel Panel, and use the Activity panel without the Channels Panel.