New AaE Release: Widget Group Notifications for Incoming Questions

eXtension has added a new feature to the Ask an Expert widget. Now, you can select to have your Ask an Expert widget notify everyone who is signed up to get questions auto-assigned to them when a question is submitted. Previously, just the person who was assigned the question got notified. The question is still assigned randomly among the people signed up to get questions auto-assigned for that widget, but now, you can select to have everyone notified when a new question is submitted. The announcement is on the About eXtension Blog along with instructions for changing your widget's options.

In the past, I've recommended the county secretaries be the only ones in an office signed up to get their county's widgets questions. Then, they can assign it to the appropriate person. My assumption is that the secretaries are more likely to be at their computer day in and day out and would know who a question needs to be assigned to and if they are available that day. The problem I've seen with counties that have agents signed up to get questions auto-assigned, is that most of the questions an agent gets assigned to them from the county widget are not in their area of responsibility and they have to assign it to the correct agent. By having the secretaries routing the questions, they can get assigned to the best person in a more timely manner.

If your county widget is being auto-assigned to the secretaries, then you will probably want to enable this feature. If there are multiple people signed up for the widget, and one of them is on vacation, the others will know that a question was assigned to that person. This way, you don't have to remember to go to the AaE Widget Preferences and indicate that you are unavailable, every time you take a day or two off - and then remember to change your status back to being available when you return.

If you have questions or would like to learn more about managing your AaE widget, contact your Information Management Agent.