Watching a process item

 

Watchers can stay informed about a process item without participating in its workflow. As an item initiator, if you need someone to have visibility into an item's progress but don't need to approve, reject, or take action on it, you can add them as watchers.

Use case

An employee submits a purchase request and wants their manager to stay informed about its progress and final outcome, but the manager doesn't need to participate in the approval workflow.

By adding the manager as a watcher, they can track the item's progress, receive outcome notifications, and participate in comments without being assigned any workflow tasks.

Adding and removing watchers

Before users can add watchers to an item, process admins must enable initiators to watch items under Security settings.

Only users who are already part of the process in any role can be added as watchers.

The following users can add or remove watchers for an item:

• Item initiator (add and remove)

• Watcher (only remove themselves)

Adding a watcher

As an item initiator,

1. Open the process item.

2. Click the Watchers  () button on the item form.

3. Search and select a process user.

4. Click Add.

Note:

A maximum of 10 watchers can be added to an item.

Removing a watcher

As an item initiator,

1. Open the process item.

2. Click the Watchers () button.

3. Hover over the watcher’s name.

4. Click Remove.

 

If you are already a watcher, you can stop watching the item at any time. Open the process item and click the Stop watching button.

You will be removed from the watcher's list and will no longer receive notifications for that item.

What can watchers do?

Watchers can:

• View fields in read-only mode

• Track workflow progress

• View item history and status

• View and add comments

• Mention item participants in comments

Watchers cannot:

• Edit the form

• Approve or reject items

• Reassign tasks

• Perform workflow actions

• Mention users who are not participants in an item

Notifications for watchers

Watchers receive notifications when:

• They are added as a watcher

• They are removed as a watcher

• The item completes its lifecycle (completed, rejected, and withdrawn)

• They are mentioned in a comment

• Someone reacts and replies to a watcher’s comment

Watchers do not receive notifications for assignments or intermediate workflow events.

Viewing watched items

As a watcher, you can access items you are watching from:

• The Watchlist tab within the process

  

• The Watchlist tab in My items

  

These views help you track items across processes without needing to participate in their workflow.

Limitations

• Watchers cannot be added to draft items.

• Restarted items do not retain their previous watchers.

• Users removed from the process are automatically removed as watchers.