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Feature Push
The purpose of this page is to collect suggestions from ETs about changes to the PMT that would improve user experience, efficiency, work-flow, etc.
- better visualizations of various multiple project views
- Ex: A timeline of milestones dates of selected projects for a selected date range (so we could look for crunch times)
- Ex: A timeline of selected people’s associated project milestones for a selected date range (so we could make good choices about making assignments)
Generally staff are requesting ajax-like features that would allow one to update certain aspects of project mgmt without having to go into the detail page of any particular item:
- from project page level, be able to change item owner, status, priority, date, milestone w/o being taken to the item detail page
- for any items that inherited their due date from a milestone – auto update due date when milestone date is changed (maybe prompt user?)
- ability to change the milestones of multiple items at once
- ability to merge items from one milestone to another in bulk
- Improve searching of tags to allow multi-tag search
Then, there are some who would like to improve the project team functions and views. Staff would also benefit from a little education/documentation on the various roles available in the PMT as well (caretaker, manager, developer, guest):
- easier functionality for assigning various collaborator roles
- ability to see competing deadlines that collaborators have on other projects (ideally as a visual overlay onto a given project’s timeline)
Finally, we could delve into the idea of dependent items and/or milestones:
- task-dependency functionality so that items and milestones can be dependent on others and viewed as such so that staff can see visually which items are the key items in a chain of tasks.
Most of the improvements at this level focus on small changes
- Landing page after making a change to an item should be the page that allowed you to find the item, not the item detail. for example, if I clicked through to an item detail from a milestone page, after i’ve submitted changes to the item, i’m sent back to the milestone page.
*Expand fields so we can have a Priority & Difficulty rating (http://wiki.ccnmtl.columbia.edu/index.php/Development_Tickets-_Tibet) - Increase the number of supported file formats for attachments.
- Allow users to upload multiple files at one time.
- You should be able to assign a ticket to Someday/Maybe from the get go, not have to create the item and then edit it (this is weird as/is because it’s a status that becomes a milestone. Perhaps every project should automatically have a Someday/Maybe milestone affiliated with it as is the case with Final Release).
- We should be able to add UNIs to an action item (beyond the current functionality).
- User should be prompted to confirm when a newly created item’s scheduled date goes beyond the assigned milestone’s target date.
- Comments area stops sending email notification after about 10 comments are submitted between the owner and person assigned to the action item.
This one a little more challenging to consider but is in response to a common phenomenon where an item that requires multiple roles is “hot-potatoed” around the project team. Some would say items should be more granular to avoid this but managers point out that this is often not practical in real practice, as it requires them to create multiple items for the same task which end up overlapping:
- We should consider a model where a single PMT can be assigned to multiple people, which would then require opt outs or multiple sign off to be resolved.
The first set of issues are workflow:
- Often when you add a new client, it is in order to track an interaction with him/her. Upon submission, this page http://pmt.ccnmtl.columbia.edu/home.pl?mode=add_client_form should not refresh to itself, rather it should go to http://pmt.ccnmtl.columbia.edu/home.pl?mode=client;client_id=[NEWCLIENTID#] so that an interaction can be recorded.
- it would also be nice to be able to affiliate new clients with projects if that’s appropriate, e.g., the EDC
- when adding a new item, add interpretive client lookup field to item form
Then on the Add client page:
- ensure that ldap is in sync with our list of ‘departments’
- at add client window, allow non-cu emails here… we sort of have to fudge to get around it.
Most of these are an attempt to make hourly tracking more efficient or provide alternative pathways for doing the same thing:
Multi Tracker page http://pmt.ccnmtl.columbia.edu/home.pl?mode=add_trackers_form:
- add/allow backdating (how far back is reasonable?)
- adaptive tracker: select project once, all dropdowns below that item autoselect to that project
- ajaxy client/directory UNI lookup (name)
Regular Tracker page http://pmt.ccnmtl.columbia.edu/home.pl?mode=add_services_item&client_id=554&pid=132&type=TRACKER:
- add a calendar widget so any date can be applied
- back button returns one to the project page (you can’t back button into a “templated” form).
- allow backdating of any individual tracker to any date
Alternate Tracker Input ideas:
- form, widget tracker additions (toolbar, twitter, facebook update… goes right to PMT)
- batch file/job upload. Formatted document with project and work info. Ical export—>import.
These are wide-ranging. Some are a simple interface tweak. Some are more of an overall performance or workflow changes:
- The Add Item or Update Item buttons are mostly only at the bottom of the page (i.e. below the fold) and always require scrolling – it would be better to also have this button at the top of the page.
- A way of differentiating long overdue items on the My Items page. The current “orange text” is too pretty. We should consider a more aggressive reminder (for e.g. if Item > X months old, the recipient is forced to deal with that item before he/she can proceed with any new actions).
- “Turnbuckle” inline editing for tasks from the project page (and thus the removal of individual task pages) or a hybrid model where at least some task info is available via a turnbuckle or pop-up/hover.
- Can loading time be improved?
- Preference settings to customize views and workflows (depending on your project role and user prefs for how you move from page to page performing various actions).