Work Groups

[Gary Lewis]

Thanks for responding, John.  Let's take your two comments separately:

Need: Only Scott and I've seemingly been interested, so there doesn't appear to be much "need".

Work to maintain: Actually, I don't think there would be much work.  I turn it off or on with the tick of a box and then determine what group can use it.  Right now that's set to Admins, but we could set it to Members so everyone could use it.  In either case, after that there's nothing more for me to do.  The forum software does the rest.

Trust me, I'm not pushing for it.  But I just wanted to make sure everyone knows the situation.

[grumpin]

My response is I don’t know. I was watching to see what others thought. But really don’t have a thought either way, so didn’t respond.

[86 1/2 Brutus]

I actually think it is a good idea.  I know with me anyway, sometimes i miss things in posts, and if it something you know that I know about, i would like to know so that i can help in any way.

[85lebaront2]

I agree with you on that, I don't go digging into every thread unless the title looks either something I can help with or am interested in. If it wasn't Gary doing the writeup on the RSK install, I probably would have just skipped it. I do not own a 4WD nor do I have a burning desire to (I like being able to turn around in Darth without having to back up most times).

I do find some things quite interesting and try to contribute when I can.

[Ford F834]

Gary, I’m still trying to wrap my head around this whole work group function. If it is easy to do and does not take up much browser real estate then it wouldn’t hurt to have it in place. I do have a couple of thoughts or questions though.

If someone is assigned or tagged, it would still make sense to me to leave the thread open for anyone to respond, not just after the assignee weighs in and re-assigns or unassigns it.

It might be useful to be able to assign or tag a post to more than one person if there are multiple good authors that you would like to notify.

Perhaps I missed it, but is this something that will be available to all members? If so, who all could manipulate the assignment? The original author, assignee and admins? Or? I’m just curious, say I’m reading a thread and I think this would be a great question for so-and-so... but the author didn’t know to assign/tag them... could any reader attach a tag?

The one benefit to this tool is it could help keep discussions on the forum instead of migrating to private e-mail. If I have a question for a specific person my knee jerk response is to email them directly instead of posting a thread and hoping they will see it. This prevents others from reading it or finding it in searches in the future.

[Gary Lewis]

Dane - That's ok.  Thanks for responding.

Bill & George - I agree that it might be helpful to call someone's attention to a particular thread or post.

Jonathan - I'll answer your questions/comments, but please then read on down to mine.

It is easy and takes up almost no real estate.

Just because someone is "assigned" doesn't mean no one else can respond.

You can assign to more than one person by assigning in the first post, editing the post and assigning to another, etc.  Yes, if we leave the "assigned to" tag at the top it'll look like the last person is "it", but...

It hasn't been decided who can use it.  But it has to be an assigned group, and right now we have Admins & Members.  Admins aren't enough, so Members seems the way to go.   And that would mean that anyone that replied could assign someone.

And I fully agree that keeping the discussion in the forum is FAR better than emailing since no one is going to find it in an email by searching.

And now for what I think is a much better approach!  We don't really need to "assign" people.  Assigning means that the various "Assigned" columns or rows will show that person's name until someone un-assigns it.  And until that time each poster will see that the "assigned" dropdown has Suzie's name pre-loaded in it.

All we really want to do is to cause them to get an email that suggests that they come see this post.  No records are kept, no "assigned" column, etc.  Basically it would be like tagging someone in Facebook.  So, maybe we should call it "tagging"?

So I'm looking through the macros that drive this place to see if I can figure out how to do that.  What I'd like to find is where someone currently "assigns" someone and let it send the email but not set the flag that it has been assigned.  If I can do that then I think I can set up tagging.

Y'all: Is that better?  Please give me your comments on that approach vs  the current one.

[Ford F834]

I think that a tag system that simply generates an email is what we would want as far as grabbing the attention of the desired person. That is the main goal.

Additional wish-list might be to have the post show if anyone was tagged and whom. Also the ability to add tags to someone else’s post if you don’t know the answer but have a good idea who could help.

[Gary Lewis]

I think I can set it up so that when you post you can tag someone(s) and they'll get an email.  But I don't think I'll be able to show that has happened as part of a post.  And there's no way I'm aware of to tag someone in another person's post.  (You can't do that in Facebook either as tagging is effectively posting.)

So I think the key will be to say in your post something like "That's a question that I think Jonathan can answer so I'm tagging him."  And then below the post use the dropdown and tag the person so when you hit Post s/he gets an email.

[86 1/2 Brutus]

I read where you can get email notifications by subscribing to a thread.  How do you do that?

[Gary Lewis]

George - There is a writeup on that in Bullnose Forum/Forum FAQ's.  But the main bit on subscribing says:

You can subscribe to get email notifications, either individual emails or rolled-up summaries for the day, and you can do so at any level.  I've subscribed at the top level and get individual emails for every post, but you can subscribe to any and all of the forums.

Let's say you are interested in any posts that are made in the folder/thread called Projects.  Open that thread/folder and on the left side you'll see an Options selection, and within that a Subscribe Via Email option.  If you click that you can sign up for that thread/folder.  Or, you can do the same any of the threads/topics in that folder and get notifications for any post made in it.  Or, as I've done, do so at the Bullnose Forum level and you'll get notifications for anything that goes on.

But let me say it slightly differently.  Here's an example of different levels:

Top Level/Main Page
          Projects Folder
                    Salans 1980 Something

In this example you could subscribe to the top level, which I call the main page, and you'd get a notification for every post made.  Or you could subscribe to any one of the next levels down, like the Projects Folder and get an email when anyone posts there.  Or, you could subscribe just to Shaun/Salan's thread about his "1980 something" truck.

Basically any level that has an "Options" dropdown on it can be subscribed to.  But if you've already subscribed to the level above that then there's no need to subscribe.  As an example, if you've subscribed to the Projects folder you don't need to subscribe to any of the threads in it.  You are covered.

Does that help?

[Gary Lewis]

I'm just posting to assign this to me for testing purposes.  I think I changed the text going out in the email from "This topic is assigned to you at priority" to "You have been tagged to come see this post at priority:".

We can modify this easily, once I figure out what does it....

[Gary Lewis]

Nope, that didn't work.  And for keeping track, here's what I did, although I'll put it back.  Or, more accurately, take the override out.

[Gary Lewis]

Next test.  Changed this macro as shown:

[Gary Lewis]

Ok, that worked so I've now, hopefully, taken the priority bit out, as shown below:

[Gary Lewis]

That worked nicely, although we may want to make the "You have been tagged" bit more prominent.  However, we can sort that out down the line a bit.  For now it is enough that it works.

Here's what the email looks like with the tag text highlighted:

[Gary Lewis]

Ok, I think I made the text bright red.  Let's see.  I'll edit this post and put the email I see in here.  Opps, got the wrong text.  

[Gary Lewis]

Another try:

Nope, that's not it.  Sorry, folks.

[86 1/2 Brutus]

Ok, got it Gary.  Thank you.  Sorry i ask to many questions :-)     I really do like that feature and think it will come in very handy especially for me.  When i'm away from home, i really dont go to the forum on my phone, its just to small for me to see and i miss things alot of times.  I subscribed to my broken bolt thread and going to see what happens.

[Gary Lewis]

No problem, George.  The way this forum works is sometimes obtuse.

But, I don't think you need to subscribe to your own threads.  I believe that is automatically done for you when you create a thread.  In fact, I believe that when you post in a thread you are subscribed.  But I've not tested that, come to think of it.