Channels: issue with invitations and notifications

Has anyone else run into issues when using Channels and the “New Invitations and Subscriptions” Widget? We recently ramped up our usage, only to quickly find out our notifications were not sending all the time and the new items were not consistently displaying in the “New Invitations and Subscriptions” widget as we wanted.  

It has taken me weeks to figure out the issues, but I think I have finally wrapped my head around what is happening.

There are two ways to invite/share an asset with someone, both have different results:

This process ends with no notification sending but the employee being enrolled to view the asset.  

1. Click the Gear Icon
2. Channels
3. Select a Channel, click Content, select an asset to assign
   1. or go right to Assets Tab, then select an asset to assign
4. Click Shared with
5. Share, add individual or group, click share
6. Name will be added to the “Shared with” list, but no notification will send. 

The other way to share/invite. This process ends with the notification being sent, but the employee not being enrolled to watch the asset. 

1. Navigate to any asset within the platform
2. Click invite to watch button in upper right portion of screen
3. Add user/group
4. Click Invite
5. Notification will send, but go back to the asset in your platform and you will see the employee is not enrolled into the asset or listed on the “Shared with” list. 

I have a ticket in (with video) to explain this process, but my question is. Am I misunderstanding the use case here? Or do you have to do both processes to get the notification and enrollment?

We want to make sure that our staff are “trackable” so not having them enrolled is an issue, but on the flip side, if the notifications doesn’t trigger, they have no idea they have been invited to watch an item!