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# Collaborate in ALM Octane

When working on a backlog item or a pipeline run failure, whether investigating, testing, or opening a defect about it, you may want to communicate with other users related to the item. You can discuss new or known issues, find out whether someone is handling the issue, prompt an investigation, or discuss changing the priority of an item.

In this topic:

## Email

You can send emails directly from an ALM Octane item to other users. The email contains information about the item as well as a link to the item in ALM Octane.

You can address the email to workspace users and teams. The item's stakeholders, such as Owner and Author, are listed at the top of the user list to help you select common recipients.

You can select to add the email message as a comment to the item.

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## Copy links

You can copy links for ALM Octane items, and paste the links in any application.

You can also select multiple items in a grid and copy their links. The links will be pasted on separate lines.

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## Comment on items

Users can discuss ALM Octane items by leaving comments.

Also in this section:

- Perform actions on comments
- Quick reply

To comment on items:

1. In the item, in the upper right-hand corner of the ALM Octane window, click .

2. Enter and format the comment.

3. You can tag a user in a comment. Type "@", begin typing the user's name, and then select the user from the list.

   ALM Octane includes the comment in the Comments tab of the My Work module. The user receives an alert in the ALM Octane title bar. For details, see My Work area.

4. You can link to another item in the comment. Click and choose #. Add prefix "w" for work item, "s" for user story, "e" for epic, "f" for feature, "d" for defect, "t" for task, and "r" for requirement. For example, #dtest searchers for the string "test" in the existing defects.

5. Click Add.

Perform actions on comments

To edit, reply, or delete a comment, hover over the ... in the upper right corner of the comment, and click Edit, Reply, Reply all, or Delete.

Action | Steps and behaviors
--- | ---
Edit | Edit your comment and click Save. You can only edit comments that you authored.
Reply/ Reply all | Click Reply to reply to an existing comment. The reply includes a preview of the original comment plus a mention of its author. Reply all does the same as Reply, in addition to mentioning all other users who were mentioned in the original comment. Click the comment's preview to jump to the original comment. Type your reply and click Add.
Delete | Click Delete to confirm the action.

Quick reply

If you are mentioned in a comment, you will receive a mail notification that includes the comment's text. The notification includes a Quick Reply button.

Click the Quick Reply button in the email. If requested, provide your ALM Octane login credentials.

A web page opens listing all the comments on the relevant item. You can reply to the comment that you were mentioned in, or to any other of the item's comments.

Your reply will be added to the item.

Quick reply is supported both on desktop and mobile devices.

Note: Quick replies need to be enabled by a site parameter: EMAIL_QUICK_REPLY. For details, see Configuration parameters.

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## Chat with Slack

If your administrator has set up a Slack integration for your workspace, the Chat w/ Slack button is enabled for backlog items and pipeline run failures. For details, see Set up a chat.

Click Chat w/ Slack to create a Slack channel for an item or open an existing channel. The first time you click this button, Slack requests authentication. This is not required for subsequent Slack chats.

- In a backlog item, click Chat w/ Slack in the Details tab. ALM Octane opens a Slack channel with this item's author and owner.

- In a pipeline run's Builds or Tests tab, click Chat w/ Slack . ALM Octane opens a Slack channel with all the users whose commits were included in the pipeline run.

If the administrator approved publishing ALM Octane data on Slack channels, ALM Octane sends information from the backlog item to the channel.

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## Discuss on Microsoft Teams

The ALM Octane integration with Microsoft Teams allows you to collaborate with others within your organization, by sharing information on a specific entity.

If your administrator set up a Microsoft Teams integration for your workspace, the Discuss in Microsoft Teams button is enabled for all work items: epics, features, user stories, quality stories, and defects. It is also available for pipeline runs. For details, see Set up a chat.

To send a comment to a Microsoft Teams channel:

1. Make sure that you are logged in to your Microsoft account within your organization.
2. In an ALM Octane item, click the Discuss on Teams button . The Discuss on Teams dialog box opens.
3. If the item has already been discussed on Teams, the previous team and channel are selected by default.
4. If this is the first time the item is being discussed on Teams, or you want to discuss the item in a different team and channel, select a team and channel. You can select only channels to which the logged in user has access to.
5. The Message box contains a link to the current entity and a reference to all Related users. Mention users that you want to address, using the @<name> notation that you use in comments. Discuss the item in the message box.
6. Select whether to add a comment to the item in ALM Octane about the discussion on Teams. A link to the message in Teams will be added in the comment, along with the team and channel names.
7. Click Post to send the message to the channel, or Post and Open to send the message and open the selected channel in Microsoft Teams.

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## Handling simultaneous changes

ALM Octane uses optimistic locking to prevent data loss when users make changes to the same entity concurrently. If your changes include a field that was modified by someone else before you saved, you are prompted to refresh the entity from the server and make your changes again. Click Refresh and restore to reload the entity from the server instead of just undoing your changes.

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See also:

- Notifications and emails
- Set up a chat

https://admhelp.microfocus.com ALM Octane 8942
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