# Shared drafts are not Watched
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/shared-drafts-are-not-watched/242577
**Category:** Support
**Tags:** shared-drafts
**Created:** [October 21, 2022, 10:23am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/shared-drafts-are-not-watched/242577 "2022-10-21T10:23:42Z")
**Posts on this page:** 12
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Chandra](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Chandra)
#### Post date: [October 21, 2022, 10:23am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/shared-drafts-are-not-watched/242577/1 "2022-10-21T10:23:42Z")
It appears that when a shared draft is finally published after team edits, it is not considered a new topic.
No emails are sent out to members who are watching first post for the category.
I believe it should trigger emails when the publish happens.
Thoughts please.
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### Author:  [@Chandra](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Chandra)
#### Post date: [October 23, 2022, 2:07pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/shared-drafts-are-not-watched/242577/2 "2022-10-23T14:07:54Z")
Tagging it as a bug now. Thanks.
Watching does not also happen when a new topic is created by splitting messages from an existing topic.
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### Author:  [@JammyDodger](https://meta.discourse.org/u/JammyDodger)
#### Post date: [October 24, 2022, 1:42pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/shared-drafts-are-not-watched/242577/3 "2022-10-24T13:42:02Z")
Sorry @Chandra, I haven’t had a chance to test this one out yet, but I don’t want you to think I’ve overlooked it. 🙂
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### Author:  [@Chandra](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Chandra)
#### Post date: [October 24, 2022, 1:52pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/shared-drafts-are-not-watched/242577/4 "2022-10-24T13:52:38Z")
Many thanks @JammyDodger
Most appreciate your update.
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### Author:  [@JammyDodger](https://meta.discourse.org/u/JammyDodger)
#### Post date: [November 3, 2022, 11:25am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/shared-drafts-are-not-watched/242577/5 "2022-11-03T11:25:17Z")
Just to check before I dive in - is this using the [shared edits plugin](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-shared-edits/167583), or the shared drafts admin setting?
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### Author:  [@Chandra](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Chandra)
#### Post date: [November 3, 2022, 12:41pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/shared-drafts-are-not-watched/242577/6 "2022-11-03T12:41:15Z")
> [@JammyDodger](#):
>
> the shared drafts admin setting
The shared drafts admin setting:
Edit: I realized I used shared-edits tag, removed it now but don’t see one for shared-drafts.
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### Author:  [@JammyDodger](https://meta.discourse.org/u/JammyDodger)
#### Post date: [November 3, 2022, 2:56pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/shared-drafts-are-not-watched/242577/7 "2022-11-03T14:56:36Z")
I don’t think I can replicate this?
My step-by-step:
- Set `shared drafts category` and `shared drafts min trust level` both to `staff`
- Set `email time window mins` to 1 (optional 🙂)
- Set test user A as Watching First Post for `#general` category
- Create topic as ‘Shared Draft’, destination category `#general`
- Use another test staff user to make edits
- Publish draft
- Topic is published to the correct category
- Test user A receives notification about new topic
- Test user A also receives email about the above notification
> [@Chandra](#):
>
> I believe it should trigger emails when the publish happens.
It generates notifications, though the emails would be controlled by each user’s [Preferences](https://meta.discourse.org/my/preferences/emails), as well as if they’ve seen the forum within the `email time window`.
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### Author:  [@Chandra](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Chandra)
#### Post date: [November 3, 2022, 3:12pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/shared-drafts-are-not-watched/242577/8 "2022-11-03T15:12:33Z")
Did your workflow change the saved topic’s category from staff to a watched category at publish?
I have all members set to watch first post of destination category but no emails were generated.
I will be publishing a shared draft in a day or two and will trace it stepwise to review.
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### Author:  [@JammyDodger](https://meta.discourse.org/u/JammyDodger)
#### Post date: [November 3, 2022, 4:15pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/shared-drafts-are-not-watched/242577/9 "2022-11-03T16:15:49Z")
> [@Chandra](#):
>
> Did your workflow change the saved topic’s category from staff to a watched category at publish?
It did indeed. 👍 There’s also a bit more info on the feature in [Shared Drafts: Allow staff to collaborate on posts before publishing](https://meta.discourse.org/t/shared-drafts-allow-staff-to-collaborate-on-posts-before-publishing/83493) if you need an overview.
I’ll slide this over into #Support for now, but if you can replicate your issue we can always move it back again. 🙂 👍
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### Author:  [@Chandra](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Chandra)
#### Post date: [November 12, 2022, 3:53pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/shared-drafts-are-not-watched/242577/10 "2022-11-12T15:53:54Z")
Hello @JammyDodger
Not to “bug” you but wanted to let you know I have PMed you some screenshots I captured recreating the issue. Please review at your convenience, thank you.
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### Author:  [@JammyDodger](https://meta.discourse.org/u/JammyDodger)
#### Post date: [November 13, 2022, 7:53am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/shared-drafts-are-not-watched/242577/11 "2022-11-13T07:53:34Z")
Having a quick look over your PM, it seems like at least one email was sent out as ‘Watching First Post’ for that shared draft, which suggests that it’s working.
In your notes, you refer to setting that category notification as a default for your users, but are you sure the default has been applied correctly? If you have the data-explorer installed, you could run a query to check your users’ category notification level for that category to make sure that they’re set as you expect:
(‘4’ is the code for ‘Watching First Post’, ‘3’ for ‘Watching’)
```sql
-- [params]
-- int :category_id
SELECT cu.user_id,
cu.notification_level
FROM category_users cu
WHERE category_id = :category_id
ORDER BY cu.notification_level DESC
```
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### Author:  [@Chandra](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Chandra)
#### Post date: [November 13, 2022, 10:22am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/shared-drafts-are-not-watched/242577/12 "2022-11-13T10:22:58Z")
> [@JammyDodger](#):
>
> Having a quick look over your PM, it seems like at least one email was sent out as ‘Watching First Post’ for that shared draft, which suggests that it’s working.
Yes, worked only for 1 email of ~8000. Not sure what was special about this id 🤔
> [@JammyDodger](#):
>
> In your notes, you refer to setting that category notification as a default for your users, but are you sure the default has been applied correctly? If you have the data-explorer installed, you could run a query to check your users’ category notification level for that category to make sure that they’re set as you expect:
I don’t have data-explorer installed but can try at next build.
Here are additional thoughts on what I think is the issue:
1. Email sending to all works correctly in the same category for new direct (non shared-draft) topics. I will try to capture screenshots for that as well. So, the watch for all on the category should be good.
2. I also noted notification emails are sent out to Staff email ids **right at the first save**. I believe this means the topic is triggering off the notification process right at first save and not after completion of multiple staff edits and actual ‘publish’. At the point of first save, the topic is in staff category and hence only staff members get notified.
3. If `shared drafts category` is set to a non-staff category, I suspect this may email out incomplete posts to all watching members of the `shared drafts category` instead of the destination category.