About managing subscriptions

Subscriptions allow users of a Web site based on SharePoint Team Services from Microsoft to be notified when there are changes to files and folders that they specify. For example, if a member wants to know when a new file is added to a document library, he or she simply navigates to that library and subscribes to it. When a library file is added, he or she is notified with an e-mail message. Team web site members can either choose to be notified immediately when there's a change, or they can receive a daily or weekly list of changes. By default, members can subscribe to individual files or folders, such as discussion boards or document libraries.

Managing subscriptions involves enabling or disabling subscriptions for the team web site and specifying what members can subscribe to. You can also specify the interval for immediate notifications (between 1 and 59 minutes) and when members receive daily and weekly notifications.

When enabling or disabling subscriptions, keep the following in mind:

• If you're making major changes to your team web site, you may want to temporarily disable notifications and then re-enable them when you're done.

When specifying what members can subscribe to, keep in mind the following:

• If you allow subscriptions to folders and documents, members can be notified whenever there is a change to any file in a folder (including document libraries) that the member subscribes to.
• If you allow subscriptions to documents only, members cannot be notified when new files are added to document libraries or other folders. They can only be notified when there are changes to documents that they have already subscribed to.

When specifying the interval for sending immediate notifications, keep the following in mind:

• If there are frequent changes to documents and folders, setting a longer wait interval will reduce the number of e-mail messages that members receive.
• If your team web site only has only a few changes per day, you may want to set a short interval (such as two minutes) for immediate notifications.
• If you're making major changes to your team web site, you may want to temporarily disable notifications and then re-enable them when you're done.

Tip

As the number of site users using subscriptions increases, so too does the amount of server resources required to send the e-mail notifications. To increase performance, consider using Microsoft SQL Server as the backend mail server. See your network administrator or Internet service provider (ISP) for more information.