Mention

A mention names a person on the page, such as @Sam Okafor. It shows who you mean without any doubt, and it tells them: when you publish the page, they get a notification that you mentioned them, with a link to it. Use one to ask someone for something, to credit their work, or to say who owns what.

Insert it

Type @ at the start of a line or after a space, then a few letters of the person’s name or email address. Choose them with the arrow keys and Enter, or click them. Mentions are not in the + menu. An @ in the middle of a word does nothing, so email addresses stay ordinary text.

Typing @ and part of a name lists the people who match.

Where to use one

In a sentence

To credit someone, or ask them something:

In a task

In a task list, the first person mentioned in a task is the one it is assigned to. The Task report can then list everything assigned to them, from every page:

• Task item checkbox for confirm the migration path for large accounts

  @Sam Okafor confirm the migration path for large accounts

• Task item checkbox for draft the pricing page copy

  @Mei Chen draft the pricing page copy

• Task item checkbox for brief the support team

  @Priya Natarajan brief the support team

In a table

A column of mentions says who owns each row:

Comments take mentions too: type @ in a comment box in the same way.

Who is told

• People newly mentioned, when you publish or update. Someone already mentioned in the previous version is not told again, so fixing a typo does not notify everyone the page names.

• Only people who can see the page. Someone without access is not told, so a mention never reveals a page’s title to them.

• Not you. Mentioning yourself sends nothing.

Changing and removing it

A mention is one piece: Backspace just after it removes the whole name. To mention someone else, remove it and type @ again. A mention keeps the name the person had when you mentioned them; if they change it later, mentions made before still show the old one.

Good practice

• Say what you need. “@Sam Okafor, can you check the numbers by Friday?” gets an answer; a name on its own gets a puzzled look.

• Mention sparingly. Every mention is a notification someone has to read.

Related elements

• Task list assigns tasks to the people mentioned in them.

• Task report collects tasks by who they are assigned to.

• Date says when, as a mention says who.