Work Groups

[Gary Lewis]

I just discovered a feature of Nabble that I didn't know is there - work groups.  I'll include the detailed info from Nabble on how this works down below, but I want to try it out as I think it could be very useful.  For instance, many times we've known who has answers to questions but don't have an easy way to alert them.  But I think this will allow us to do it.

For testing purposes I've just set it up so that only our admins/moderators can be "assigned" something.  For instance, we have a question that Bill/85lebaront2 knows the answer to, so we "assign" it to him and he gets an email that, hopefully, has a link to the post.

Let's give this a try.  I'm going to assign this to Jim, meaning I hope he will reply and assign it to another admin, and so on.  Let's see if this will work.

Now you can use Nabble to manage your team work.  You can assign topics and set the priority of threads.  Each topic is a work unit that can be assigned to individual users while the discussion grows. For example, you can post a new topic with something that must be implemented in your software. Then you assign it to a colleague to ask his opinion. Your colleague can reply with more ideas and assign the topic back to you. This process goes back and forth while the work is open. When it is completed and tested, you can remove the assignment and turn it into a normal topic in the forum. You can always search the forum to find old tasks or find past solutions. The Nabble team has been working with this system since 2005 and it works just great!

To use this, select the "Workgroup" option (Options > Application > Add-ons).  Then go to the forum that you want to use as a workgroup and go to [Options > Users > Change permissions].  Look for the Assignment permission and select which types of users can be assigned threads.  Now when you post to this forum, you will see the following controls at the bottom of the message text area:



Assignees receive an email when someone assigns a topic to them.  Priorities and assignees are displayed on the forum page like this:



Priorities range from 1 (highest) to 5 (lowest).  You can filter the list of topics by clicking on the header of the priority / assignee columns.

[Gary Lewis]

Well, like a kid with a new toy, I'm going to assign this post to Bill.  But he may not notice that it has been assigned to him as the notification email doesn't make it obvious.  At the very bottom of the email you'll see something like this:

[Gary Lewis]

And this one is getting assigned to Scott.  And I'll give him the lowest priority.

[Gary Lewis]

It is interesting that while I've assigned this to three different people, at the top of the thread it just shows the last assignment.

Anyway, I'll assign this to John.

[kramttocs]

Email received.


Reassigned to John at level 2.

[kramttocs]

So it is assigned thread-level rather than post-level?

[kramttocs]

Will non-admins see the 'assigned to...' note at the top of the thread?
It's a shame it doesn't work at the post level. That would be better for things like Project threads where a specific topic is just a part of the whole. Still, this shows promise. Good find!

[Gary Lewis]

Yes, but it sends a link to the post in the email notification.  So from what I can see while it says at the top of the thread to whom it was assigned, which we know will only show the last assignment, it does direct the person to the right post.

But I think it is of use only for a limited set of people.  I've not figured out yet who can assign, but I think anyone can.  However, I think if we were able to assign things to any member the list would be unusable.  

Also, notice that when you reply the Assignment dropdown says Assigned and it shows it is assigned to John/Machspeed.  So really you can only assign things to a single person, and when I posted assigning to other people it was actually re-assigning.  And if I set it to Unassigned when I post then it takes the assignment away.

So, if I leave it at Assigned and Machspeed and John come along he could answer the question and mark it unassigned.

Right?

[Test User (Gary)]

Yes, they will.  I think.  I'm signed in as Test User (Gary) and I see it.  Now I'm not sure that this ID is a regular member, but it must not be an admin as I don't have the ability to assign it.

[Test User (Gary)]

Yes, this ID is an Assistant Admin, and I didn't say an AA can assign.  So while it can see that the thread has been assigned, it doesn't have the ability to assign nor be assigned to.

[Gary Lewis]

Well, I just noticed that we have two new columns, as shown below.  And, there are dropdowns so you can filter by priority or assignments.

[Gary Lewis]

I'm going to mark this thread as Unassigned and see how it shows on the main page.

[Gary Lewis]

Yup, no longer is there.  Here's what it looked like and now the stuff in the circle is gone.

[ArdWrknTrk]

I definitely got all the post notices in my email, like I had subscribed to this thread.
And I do have the 'assignment' box above Post Message.
But it doesn't seem to be assigned or have a priority anymore, like Johns booster thread does.

[Machspeed]

kramttocs wrote

Email received.


Reassigned to John at level 2.

Received at level 2. I clicked on the bottom link and it took me right to the assignment post that Scott sent me quoted above. Not the thread starter at the top, his very post.  

[Gary Lewis]

Jim - At 10:48 CST last night I "unassigned" it, which took the notice at the top of the thread and on the main page away.  But you'd already gotten the email(s) calling your attention to the thread and the specific post.

John - Yes, it takes you to a post, but marks the whole thread as assigned.

[Gary Lewis]

Ok, sports fans, to this point all of the discussion has been from the admins.  But I'd like to see comments from all of y'all, inc admins, on the questions below.  However, let me first state what the feature is and does:

The work group function allows those who are allowed to use it, which is right now just the admins, to assign an "issue" to someone else in the work group.  That does three things: First, it send that person an email that they've been assigned that issue; second, it marks the whole thread assigned by placing a notice at the top; last, it shows on the main page that it has been assigned and to whom and at what level.

The thinking is that there are times when we see that a certain person probably knows the answer or needs to see this post, but we aren't sure he will so if we "assign" it to him he'll get an email notification.

So the questions to y'all are:

Is it workable to have the whole membership list in the dropdown?  That's the only way I can see to allow all of you to use this function.  See below for more on that.

Does it bother you that there are now two additional columns on the main page for Priority and Assignee?  We MAY be able to remove those, but aren't sure and it would take some work.  And, by the way, having those columns appears to take away the "Views" column, although I doubt that's an issue.

I set work groups up on the TEST Forum and then took this screenshot.  As you can see, you'd have to use the slider to find the person, but it isn't too onerous.  I could turn it on here to all members if we want to have a play with it.

THOUGHTS????

[Gary Lewis]

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Scott suggested that we might want to remove the priority and assignee columns from the main page.  So that seemed like a challenge to me and I think I did it.  And I put the Views column back.

So, tell us what you think, please.  Do you like the main page the way it is now?

And, if you want to know what it looks like with those two work group columns, here 'tis:




Or, we could have all three:

[Gary Lewis]

Ok, apparently there is no interest in this function.  I'll give it another 24 hours and then turn it off if we aren't going to use it.

[Machspeed]

Gary, I'm not so sure we really need it. And, unless I'm missing something, it may be a lot of time consuming work for very little usage.