# Subscriptions
Subscriptions keep you up-to-date with all the latest changes to your favorites, dashboards, and alerts. The updates are sent from Phocas to the email address recorded in your account settings.
You can only subscribe yourself to these content items (unless you're an administrator). You aren't automatically subscribed to them when they are shared with you. When you share content items with others, remind them about setting up their own subscriptions.
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Administrators: You must configure the [subscription settings](https://app.gitbook.com/s/vQCmtGTR7MsjcI62Vdki/subscriptions-administration) before users can subscribe to favorites and dashboards. You can subscribe or unsubscribe all users to content items and determine the subscription types (file formats).
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## Subscribe to a favorite, dashboard, or alert
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User permissions: To subscribe to favorites and alerts, you need **Favorites** > **Subscribe**. The available subscription types (file formats) depend on your **Query** > **Export** permissions. To subscribe to dashboards, you need **Dashboards** > **Subscribe**.
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Access the **Subscribe** window in one of these ways:
* Open the item, click the blue arrow next to its name, and click **Subscribe**.
* Go to your homepage, locate the favorite or dashboard and click its menu button, then click **Subscribe**.
* If you're in the process of creating an alert, click **Create & Subscribe** in the **Create Alert** window to open the **Subscribe** window.
In the **Subscribe** window, select the required subscription options:
1. (Favorites and alerts only) Select a **type**. This is the format of the file that's attached to the email, such as PDF, CSV, XLSX, or HTML.
2. Select the **frequency** of delivery. This is how often you want to receive the emails:
* On scheduled database build. Subscriptions are sent every time the underlying database is built.
* Daily, weekly (specific day), or monthly at a specified time. All monthly subscriptions are sent on the 1st of each calendar month at the specified time, regardless of whether the database has been updated in the preceding month. There is no way of altering this behavior. If you select Monthly and the day you select doesn't exist for that month (such as 31 for February), the subscription is sent on the last day of the month.
* The default time is 9 am. In some cases, subscription emails may arrive slightly later (up to an hour) than the time specified. The subscriptions are sent at the time specified in your timezone, as opposed to the timezone of the user who updates the favorite or dashboard.
3. (Favorites only; optional) Restrict subscriptions to only when changes are made: Select the **Don’t send if there are no results** checkbox.
4. (Alerts only; optional) Restrict the subscriptions to a specific alert by selecting the applicable checkbox: **Red alert**, **Yellow alert**, or **Green alert**.
5. Click **Test Now** to send a test email to your email account.
6. Click **Save**.
## Update or stop your subscriptions
On your homepage, locate the item and click its menu button, then click **Manage Subscription**. In the **Subscribe** window, proceed as required:
* Update the subscription options and click **Save**.
* Click **Unsubscribe** to stop subscribing to the item.
