[Moved from WHT] Re: Why Cerb4 was a rewrite.

[jstanden]

(There was a conversation going on WebHostingTalk (http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showpost.php?p=5161412&postcount=59) that the moderators started to censor because they felt it contained self-promotion. To talk about about why things change, and to address the poster's rant stating we don't care about our customers, it's hard for me to avoid talking about our ethos entirely. I'm reposting my deleted reply from that forum here so we have the option of continuing the discussion.)

At some point, a new version will be released that will strip the functionality that was previously provided to you - functionality you PAID FOR [...] They did this when they released version 3, and they've managed to do it again with version 4.

Hey there,

We've been very upfront with the community that 4.0 is a quickly evolving app from a completely fresh starting point. We spent the bulk of our early 4.0 development time building a foundation inspired from everything we learned (and did wrong) architecturally in the first three major versions since 2002.

Beyond the things we learned about our own approach, our dependencies (primarily PHP and MySQL) have also radically evolved over the past 6 years. There is a much more vast and specialized ecosystem in the LAMP world today. That means after several years of divergent development we ended up with tons of overlap that specialized projects gave their full attention and did better (e.g. 'mailparse', SimpleXML, the bulk of PHP5, on and on.)

That overlap went right to the core of our app like terminal cancer. Beyond that, we weren't ever going to take full advantage of PHP5 or MySQL 4.1+ while we retained compatibility with 5 year old versions of everything. That's not even getting into things we learned about designing better software over the same time period (especially when the original code didn't intend to serve as many purposes as the project does today).

It truly would have taken us far longer to try and cure all the ills of 3.x without fundamentally changing it, if that was even possible, than it has taken us to get this close to parity on 4.0. Now we're at the point that all our hard work isn't just going into invisible platform work.

If you feel you're missing a critical feature, I know I can't placate you by dancing around talking about the (invisible) new platform. You'll just have to trust me that we really do pay attention to all the feedback coming in. If good ideas haven't been reintroduced yet, then they're on the way. If it's hard to fathom why something is missing, there's probably a rational reason for it. You're welcome to ask about it -- you know from this thread or our forums that I love to talk about the project.

[...] Everything they do in terms of designing their software [...] is based on their own perceptions of how they think people should use their software, with little to no regard for how people are actually using it.

Subjectively, for the relationship between you and us lately, that may very well be true; but I think it's intentionally misleading to say we have no regard for how people use the software. There wouldn't be any users if that was actually true.

We talk to thousands of people. There are large segments of those people who want, use, or disregard the same things; but there's never been a "planetary alignment" where everybody suddenly wanted the same things, or where everybody simultaneously felt that pre-built software was secretly built just for them.

Realizing that, one of our major goals with the 4.0 design was to make it adaptable in almost every way from our very first line of code. That's an area where we spent a huge amount of time to help out the people, like you, who have very specific needs that should be met but shouldn't clutter the project for everyone else.

That's one of the most overlooked things about the core project's "simplicity" at a first glance. What you see isn't advertised as the "end-all-be-all", it's the starting point. As more groups emerge with common needs from the community, we can help them very specifically without anchoring the core project to a single group like techies, web hosts, sales centers, outsourced support companies, schools, or government agencies.

Case in point was in a recent email from them to us stating something about "it's usually not important to do __________". Funny how they could make that determination, when no one from their team is employed here. They more or less said that in regards to 2 separate features we asked about that had drastically changed in the latest version.

I believe you're talking about when you wrote in about discontinuity between ticket notes and comments. Realize I based my "usually" in that reply to you on a strong pattern we found from talking to users -- not "usually" as in I have clairvoyance about how you personally go about your day.

I'd rather we never run into a situation where somebody feels like their opinion is lost in the crowd's; but the flip side of that is if we're instantly rolling over for every strong solitary opinion, we'd have a pretty erratic, pandering application that wouldn't help anybody or inspire any poetry or vitriol.

Ironically, I believe the build that went out yesterday implemented the main things you were talking about in your e-mail to us: inline comments, comments/notes sorting in different orders, date format inconsistencies, etc. Have you looked at it?

It's a lot to demand that pre-built software always meets all your own needs while never changing. That ignores the fact we also have an opposing contingent of paying users who expect us to use their investment to learn, experiment and improve everything.

In my opinion, they don't have a care in the world about their customers as long as the money is rolling in.

I'm very sorry to hear that's how you see us; but paradoxically I'm flattered that you think we're so flush with cash and success that we've sold our souls. I'd still trade that for an opinion that we're dirt poor custodians of a project that a lot of people enjoying using and participating in.

The truth, though, is I'm here posting a reply after-hours *because* of the passionate response the project has had over its history. There's nothing else I'd rather be doing.

As for "not a care in the world about their customers", how do you reconcile that with the fact we give away so much to our customers without any strings? Community licenses, free personal support to everyone, completely open source code, etc. It's not all driven by marketing -- it's driven by wanting to help real people and hear their thoughts.

I realize you're completely entitled to your own opinion, but that doesn't make it any less delusional.

[...] it's sufficient for me to say that if you enjoy banging your head against the wall, use Cerberus.

And if you enjoy being damned if you do or if you don't, write off-the-shelf PHP software. ;)

With respect, is this coming from catharsis or capitulation? Do you want me to spend the time talking about your concerns (like I mentioned how our latest release incorporated feedback directly attributable to your e-mails), or do you just want to post "Buyer Beware" signs everywhere about your experience?

If the former, you're welcome to contact me through any channel to talk. If the latter, I'll stay out of your way and let you say whatever you feel you need to (even though I believe your current approach is pointless bridge-burning).

At any rate, sincere thanks for your involvement, regardless of the tense we use to refer to it: past, present, future.

[jpetersen]

Hi Jeff,

I was replying to your first email already when you sent the second one informing me of the post here, so my reply is below. I've omitted a few lines here and there only so that I meet the character limit for posting this reply.


WebGroup Media LLC wrote:
Hey Jeff!

I did manage to read your reply before the moderators deleted those posts on WHT.


I too had replied. I don't know if the issue was with the mods removing the posts for
their own reasons or if it was due to recent database issues they're experiencing:


http://www.inetstatus.net/announcements.php

June 13th 2008 10:58
In Progress - Database Server Data Corruption

Currently Web Hosting Talk is experiencing intermittent data corruption issues. We are
investigating the issue further and will post an update soon!


My reply, which I saved because I know how their mods can be (I know a number of people that
have made posts within their rules and has them edited or removed), is below:

WHT REPLY START
I've read (and re read) your reply in its entirety. I can't help but feel you're still missing the point
(and it's entirely possible I am the one missing the point). You and your team make software. You then
sell that software to people based upon the features it provides. Then, you release a new version of your
software that doesn't have certain features that were in previous versions. You've done this twice now.
These were not trivial features for us that were removed.

As someone who helps run a business that pays for your software (and keeps it updated for security and
stability purposes as recommended by your team), I've voiced my opinion to you and yours, and then once
on these forums, per the topic of this thread. It is of no interest to me to post "Buyer Beware" signs
everywhere. My time is better spent redocumenting your software for our internal purposes, retraining
employees that use it, and figuring out the best solutions for workarounds for functionality that has up
and disappeared or heavily changed again with a new release.

I/we don't expect anyone to pander to just one customer. If 17,999 of your customers said "we don't need
this feature, please remove it", and if we were the only ones that did not agree with a feature being removed,
I would still be disappointed with your software. A great deal of your customers that have been with you since
version 2 have already learned the pitfalls that will inevitably show up when upgrading, however:

Version 3: the integrated knowledge base was removed (and yes, I know it's back in Version 4, but in my mind
there's no assurance that it won't disappear again with a new release. Besides, some of us that were using it
have already dumped money into other solutions).

Version 4: can't import comments from version 3.

Those are just a couple of examples, and the rest we've already communicated to you previously via email.

My opinions represent only myself, and not that of my employer. I am glad that I could contribute to this
thread, and have no interest in posting my experiences everywhere, to answer your question. Someone in an
industry I am a part of asked a question about something I have a few years of experience with, and I gave them
a brutally honest answer based on both facts about the software, and opinions on how I perceive the development
of your software. The opinions are just that - my opinions. They stem from frustration and a feeble attempt at
rationalizing the changes your team continues to make. I respect and appreciate your reply, and I am sure my
opinions are largely, if not entirely inaccurate. In retrospect, I wish I'd just stuck to the facts, as
the point being made would have probably been more powerful.

I have not looked at the build that went out yesterday, as I was not aware that a newer one was released.
Quite frankly, I didn't expect that anything that you removed or drastically changed in version 4 would be
re added or fixed, and certainly not that quickly. I will ask the powers that be to install the latest
build and we'll see what's up.
WHT REPLY END

We've updated today and the notes are now inline (Sticky Notes) which is a plus.

The more I use Cerberus 4, the more I find things that were removed. If you want feedback, I'll provide it.

In Cerberus 3, there was a "Requesters" section when you were viewing a ticket. Here, requesters could easily
be added/removed. In version 4, we're now back to version 2 style where you have to click "Properties" in the
ticket and add/remove Requesters. Not a big deal, but I really liked the version 3 way.

In version 3, there was a "Last Viewed" ticket line from the main view (the view you get when you log into
the helpdesk). It doesn't seem to exist in version 4. Again, not a big deal, but I really liked this feature
in version 3.

In version 3, when you logged into the helpdesk, all of the tickets were displayed per your view.
In version 4, when you log in, the queues are listed under the "Waiting" section on the left side, so now you
have to:

1. click the name of the queue (e.g., "Support")
2. click the tickets you want to see (e.g., "-All-", or "Inbox").

Again, very trivial, not a big issue, but all these little things you gave to your customers in past versions
that keep disappearing are annoying (to me).

I will admit that I have not fully played with Cerberus 4 yet, and the things I mentioned above very well may
still exist or have workarounds that I have not yet come across.


I'm not insensitive to the potential headaches caused by things changing (or temporarily disappearing); and
I understand what you were saying about not being able to hang back at 3.x because of security updates, etc.


In all honestly, we don't necessarily want to hang onto 1 version forever. We *like* upgrading things, because
that's often where performance improvements are made, and a number of other highly positive benefits. We're not
anti-change. It is exciting to see new versions of software released and what new things there are to play with.


The 2.x to 3.x transition is a bad example compared to 4.0 though [ ... ]


I definitely understand your point here, and of course it would be highly irrational for anyone to think
that they know their software better than you guys. You know what works and what does not, and you know
what's critical to ensure the stability of your software and what needs to be done to make sure it's working
properly for everyone.

However, I can't help but feel that just because a newer version was developed, that certain features that were
removed couldn't still exist in the new version. Some of these are little things that have existed in versions 2
and 3, and some were little things that were added in version 3. Other things were not so trivial for our operations.


On that WHT thread, I was just trying to make the point that there are a lot of things (speed, scalability,
maintainability, extensibility) that take an enormous amount of time to do right; far more time than writing straightforward
features where people know what they want. That foundation is practically invisible, but it serves to make everything else easier.


Understood, and I can understand and appreciate that.


I know that ends up sounding like rhetoric if your mindset is "Why can't you just sit down and code feature XYZ
and make it all better? It's so simple, how can you not see it!"


I'm not a developer myself, but I've dabbled in a number of things and I definitely also understand that it would
be highly irrational for someone to think along those lines. Coding is not a trivial task, especially when designing
complex, feature rich software. Again, my only point is regarding the removed features that we came to know and love
in past versions.


[ ... ]In fact, far more people had feedback similar to that about
3.x than have complained about 4.0 having fundamentally changed to address it.

I'm curious to hear, outside your general frustration that things change, if you also feel we're flat out going in the wrong direction.


In all honestly, I don't really have an opinion on the overall direction of your software. As long as it does what it's supposed to do - which is be a helpdesk - we're happy. I keep going back to the same point, which I think I may not be putting across properly or clearly, and that is with removed, or drastically changed functionality that existed in previous versions. Some of the things that were removed, changed, or crippled, were things that we were using in our day to day operations, and were very important to us. The little things that go away, we'll mutter under our breaths about not having them any longer. The big things, however, we've been vocal about, and surprisingly (to me) this has been beneficial since there are now Sticky Notes.

That is my one and only point and the source of my frustrations in version 3, and now version 4: features that you gave us once (some of which existed in your software for 3+ years) are or were not present in the new version, or are heavily changed. Some of these things were heavily used by us. Now, they're just up and gone or perform very differently.

[jpetersen]

Hi Jeff,

I was replying to your first email already when you sent the second one informing me of the post here, so my reply is below. I've omitted a few lines here and there only so that I meet the character limit for posting this reply.


To clarify: the only lines I removed were from the email you sent to me earlier. My response on WHT as posted above is there in its entirety.

[jpetersen]

One final comment that may help to understand our viewpoint better:

We are vocal and frustrated because we really really like the Cerberus helpdesk software. What we do not like is only having 3/4ths of the same software we were previously using. I hope this helps to clarify the issue.

[jpetersen]

I can't seem to stop replying, but really, this is the last one.

Comments were sent out via email in version 3. Now that comments are notes,
I think it would be fair if they too were sent out via email. I understand that this
may or may not be possible to do, or may not be something you guys want to do.
However, in the interest of maintaining consistency, I think having this feature
back would be wonderful.

[gglynn]

I can't seem to stop replying, but really, this is the last one.

Comments were sent out via email in version 3. Now that comments are notes,
I think it would be fair if they too were sent out via email. I understand that this
may or may not be possible to do, or may not be something you guys want to do.
However, in the interest of maintaining consistency, I think having this feature
back would be wonderful.

Comments are not "out." In fact, they're back in, as of yesterday (finally). That is, there's now a per-worker preference to thread Comments in with e-mails in the ticket conversation; until yesterday, Comments were still there, but they were always displayed on a separate tab.

"Sticky Notes"--which were just called "Notes" until yesterday--do not serve the same purpose as "Comments." "Sticky Notes" are meant to be temporary callouts attached to e-mails in the ticket thread (like sticking Post-Its on the pages of a book you're reading for research), and they're removable.

Unfortunately, Comments still aren't imported during a migration, and you can't submit a Comment via e-mail, but those are both "coming soon," too.

[jpetersen]

Comments are not "out." In fact, they're back in, as of yesterday (finally). That is, there's now a per-worker preference to thread Comments in with e-mails in the ticket conversation; until yesterday, Comments were still there, but they were always displayed on a separate tab.

"Sticky Notes"--which were just called "Notes" until yesterday--do not serve the same purpose as "Comments." "Sticky Notes" are meant to be temporary callouts attached to e-mails in the ticket thread (like sticking Post-Its on the pages of a book you're reading for research), and they're removable.

Thanks for clarifying all of that, gglynn. I do see now that comments are now able to be placed in the ticket, so we won't have to rely on Sticky Notes as I thought we would. The comments being moved to a separate tab, and the design and implementation of Notes wasn't something I cared for at all. I'm glad enough people felt the same way.

Unfortunately, Comments still aren't imported during a migration, and you can't submit a Comment via e-mail, but those are both "coming soon," too.

Those things are what's currently keeping us from upgrading. It would be pointless for us to upgrade without being able to import comments. Now, the big question I'm left wondering is, how will the emailing of the comments work? It has been different in every single release, perhaps with the exception of version 1 which I have not tried. I really preferred the way they had it in version 2, in that you don't get your own comments via email, but all other Watchers do. In version 3, for some reason I have never understood, you get your own comments sent to you via email. And of course, now with 4, they aren't even emailed out.

I'm hoping for some consistency with this, in that all Watchers get comments via email by default. I'm also hoping that the redundancy of getting your own comments via email (as in version 3) goes away. It's pointless, to me at least. You don't get your own ticket replies via email, why should you get your own comments via email? We'll see.

As an addendum to this post: having to click a separate tab to enter a Comment, then go back to the Conversation is annoying. Sticky Notes would be a good alternative, but if they're not ever going to be emailed, it's pointless. The Comments tab should be Sticky Notes, and Comments should, well, work the same way they did for the past 3+ years.

Another huge annoyance is having to click "maximize" for every entry in a ticket so you can actually, you know, SEE it. "Here, have a helpdesk where by default you can't see what anyone has written except for the last reply, which probably won't have any context whatsoever without the previous replies, which you can't even see unless you manually click a link for each one". Does that statement sound asinine to anyone else? I wonder if there's not a Jira report on that as well or a configurable option for that somewhere. I'm going to poke around and see what I can find. Creating all these extra steps to do the same tasks we've been doing for years is getting more and more ridiculous as I play with version 4. Every time I use version 4, I'm finding more and more functionality that has been altered in a way which requires more and more effort to use this software. At least comments are actually fully displayed without requiring any extra steps to actually view. I wonder how long it will be before those are hidden from view as well. My annoyance and disappointment levels with this software about double every time I sit down to use it. Just my opinions and observances. Also: conversations being backwards now (bottom to top). sigh.


edit: wow. http://forum.cerb4.com/showthread.php?t=882

[jstanden]

WHT REPLY STARTI've read (and re read) your reply in its entirety. I can't help but feel you're still missing the point (and it's entirely possible I am the one missing the point). You and your team make software. You then sell that software to people based upon the features it provides. Then, you release a new version of your
software that doesn't have certain features that were in previous versions. You've done this twice now. These were not trivial features for us that were removed.

Hey jpetersen!

In my e-mail to you earlier, I tried to be clear that the things we wanted to do with Cerb3 were inherently flawed and confusing *because* we attempted to adhere to the spirit of 2.x, while still introducing some new ideas. The result was a mess. I don't think 3.x is a fair comparison to what is going on now with 4.0.

This is the exact opposite situation, though surely you're not alone in thinking we "threw out the baby with the bathwater" when you're looking for a seamless migration from 3.x to 4.0. My initial reply here tried to put that into context -- we weren't building a seamless transition. This is a major version release, and I agree that it could be considered an entirely different product. However, it shares a lineage and a conceptual evolution with all the past versions.

Version 3: the integrated knowledge base was removed (and yes, I know it's back in Version 4, but in my mind there's no assurance that it won't disappear again with a new release. Besides, some of us that were using it have already dumped money into other solutions).

I can't overstate that we warned up-front some things would be missing for a while as we redesigned them: the Support Center, the Knowledgebase, Time Tracking, Translations. The list is quite long.

I'm proud of the things we've brought back in so far -- each piece feels like it belongs in the project and isn't a mere hacky afterthought.

Version 4: can't import comments from version 3.

Build 623 supports importing comments from 3.6. The format is simple XML and I have a script you can use to export. We spent A LOT of time in the latest release improving the comments and notes systems based on the feedback we've been getting in the forums here.

I can't deny that this is all months later from when the request was first brought up. You can look at the raw ChangeLogs (http://forum.cerb4.com/forumdisplay.php?f=10) to see what we've been working on for the past year. It's predominantly usability, stability and performance. Feature completeness and parity with 3.x is important, but it hasn't been more important than making the most out of our opportunity to do things right.

Quite frankly, I didn't expect that anything that you removed or drastically changed in version 4 would be re added or fixed, and certainly not that quickly.

We're past the point that most of our energy is going into designing and building the "invisible" platform from scratch that's capable of supporting a few more years of new development.

Our goal here is to be able to rapidly implement feedback that's healthy for the project. A lot of our changes could happen in minutes or hours on the coding end; it's the planning and design end that takes 90% of the time. Looking at what we did before, and how people used it, and why they liked it or hated it -- and then designing something that takes all that into account.

The more I use Cerberus 4, the more I find things that were removed. If you want feedback, I'll provide it.

I'd love feedback, but I don't need a litany of things that are merely different between 3.x and 4.0. Trust me, we do know exactly what those things are. It's much more interesting to hear how you used the older features, which you miss, so we can find the 4.0 way to give you the same abilities.

In Cerberus 3, there was a "Requesters" section when you were viewing a ticket. Here, requesters could easily be added/removed. In version 4, we're now back to version 2 style where you have to click "Properties" in the ticket and add/remove Requesters.

In our experience, it's uncommon that someone needs to add requesters to a ticket's high level overview for most visits of the screen. Anything on the screen you're not using most of the time is clutter.

In Cerb4 you can manage requesters from the "(change)" link when doing a reply. That's when you actually see who the requesters are that you're replying to as well. That's usually right next to an e-mail where somebody is asking "Add Bob to all future replies, I'll be on vacation."

If a requester change is happening over the phone, or in another exo-helpdesk way, then you have that requesters area in the Properties tab.

Maybe you use the helpdesk completely uniquely; I'd like to hear how often you are actually adding requesters to tickets. You're still just doing a side-by-side comparison.

In version 3, there was a "Last Viewed" ticket line from the main view (the view you get when you log into the helpdesk). It doesn't seem to exist in version 4. Again, not a big deal, but I really liked this feature in version 3.

I agree with you completely. I actually find myself hovering my mouse to the top right looking for that link back to what I was working on.

Cerb4 is plugin based and not e-mail centric, so the header bar doesn't have functionality specific to one piece of the system (e.g. Mail, Calls, CRM, Tasks). Still, it would be very easy to put a "History" menu in the top right to allow you to jump around between the things you'd looked at recently, including tickets but also including other objects (tasks, contacts, opportunities).

In version 3, when you logged into the helpdesk, all of the tickets were displayed per your view.
In version 4, when you log in, the queues are listed under the "Waiting" section on the left side, so now you [...]

That's the "Overview" system, which saves people the work of having to design all their own custom lists and views to start working.

If you want full control, click the next link over to "my workspaces" and you can configure exactly how it behaves and what shows up in your lists:
http://wht.cerb4.com/admin/tickets/lists

I will admit that I have not fully played with Cerberus 4 yet, and the things I mentioned above very well may
still exist or have workarounds that I have not yet come across.

Cerb4 shines when you're actually using it. I can't fault you guys for being confused just glancing at it and doing a side-by-side comparison. It's something completely different.

We're not anti-change.

I apologize if my reply insinuated that too often. ;) It wasn't really the bulk of my point either. I understand the desire for stability and continuity. There are just times I can't give it to you and still feel I'm doing the right thing for the project.

However, I can't help but feel that just because a newer version was developed, that certain features that were
removed couldn't still exist in the new version.

Those things surely CAN exist. Please do yourself a favor and stop thinking 4.0 is immutable. That's a 3.x mindset. Things were stuck in 3.x because of the fundamental engineering.

Again, my only point is regarding the removed features that we came to know and love in past versions.

Then by all means, let's keep being specific about not only what you miss but how you used it. That is the biggest component in us finding the right (sustainable) way to do it with the 4.0 mindset.

That is my one and only point and the source of my frustrations in version 3, and now version 4: features that you gave us once (some of which existed in your software for 3+ years) are or were not present in the new version, or are heavily changed. Some of these things were heavily used by us. Now, they're just up and gone or perform very differently.

We've tried to get the most important things from 5 years of past development back into 4.0 as quick as possible. Please understand if we simply rushed to have total parity with 3.x on day 1 of 4.0, we may as well have not even started over. This is a very important and crucial opportunity to find a proper, natural place for everything -- and to make each button and blurb justify its existence. ;)

[jstanden]

We are vocal and frustrated because we really really like the Cerberus helpdesk software. What we do not like is only having 3/4ths of the same software we were previously using. I hope this helps to clarify the issue.

I really do understand that. :) I know if you didn't care, or you didn't want to contribute toward finding better solutions, you wouldn't spend your valuable time writing things down.

[jstanden]

Now that comments are notes, I think it would be fair if they too were sent out via email. [...] I think having this feature back would be wonderful.

I see above that the explanation between comments and notes was made. I still agree that comments should be available to the e-mail notification system.

[jstanden]

Unfortunately, Comments still aren't imported during a migration, and you can't submit a Comment via e-mail, but those are both "coming soon," too.

Yeah,

Comments do import through the new universal importer in Cerb4 (in /storage/import). The original migration tools are too disparate in handling each piece of content -- we're rebuilding them to do everything in one pass. In the meantime I do have a PHP script you can use to export your Cerb 3.6 comments to XML, which you'd simply copy into /cerb4/storage/import/new and run the 'Importer' task (next to the POP3 task, from config).

As for comments by e-mail, it's very easy for me to add that. We do have a fairly undocumented feature of being able to issue commands on the subject line when replying to e-mail notifications. I could (and will) add a "[comment]" action in a few minutes of work.

Thanks!

[jstanden]

I'm hoping for some consistency with this, in that all Watchers get comments via email by default. I'm also hoping that the redundancy of getting your own comments via email (as in version 3) goes away. It's pointless, to me at least. You don't get your own ticket replies via email, why should you get your own comments via email? We'll see.

I love seeing feedback that bothers to consider the "how" and "why" of a feature. Thank you! (Thank you!)

It makes perfect sense to me, with you, that watchers shouldn't see their own comments. However, some people use an arbitrary worker account as a watcher to log all helpdesk activity into another place. Sometimes it's a worker/manager who wants a copy of everything, including their own mail; sometimes it's a worker account specifically dedicated to watching and logging everything.

Our e-mail notification (watchers) system just needs to offer that situational flexibility. We need to make less assumptions on our side about how people *should* use it -- I agree with all your comments to that effect.

As an addendum to this post: having to click a separate tab to enter a Comment, then go back to the Conversation is annoying. Sticky Notes would be a good alternative, but if they're not ever going to be emailed, it's pointless. The Comments tab should be Sticky Notes, and Comments should, well, work the same way they did for the past 3+ years.

I agree that the usability of comment entry leaves something to be desired. We already had a good-sized update ready to go, and I implemented the inline comments as the last feature to go out with that update.

Ideally we'd add a 'comment' button next to each reply (to the left of Sticky Notes) that allows inline comments. The way it currently works is still based on the 'tab' way of thinking -- it's in transition (as are a lot of these iterative improvements).

Another huge annoyance is having to click "maximize" for every entry in a ticket so you can actually, you know, SEE it. "Here, have a helpdesk where by default you can't see what anyone has written except for the last reply, which probably won't have any context whatsoever without the previous replies, which you can't even see unless you manually click a link for each one". Does that statement sound asinine to anyone else?

I think you really need to USE 4.0, and consider the concepts and sensibilities involved.

It also sounds asinine to me that you'd trade off each reply on the same issue to new workers. Doesn't it seem profligate and redundant for each worker to re-read the entire history on each new reply?

The "next worker" process in Cerb4 tries to minimize that redundancy by allowing the same worker (when desirable) to handle replies to their responses. They don't NEED to read the entire history of the conversation five minutes apart. Nor do they need to scroll down 10 messages, for much the same reason.

When a worker leaves at the end of the day, it's easy for them to clear out the "waiting" replies that they aren't the only person who should answer it. It's rather situational.

I think a *great* feature would be allowing an expiration when setting 'waiting reply' follow-up worker after doing a reply.

You'd be allowed to simply tell Cerberus, "Send the follow-up on this ticket to me until 5pm, then allow 'anyone' to reply".

That lets the next shift take over so the customer doesn't have to wait until you show up tomorrow morning, but it keeps workers in the same shift from having to read the entire history of each other's tickets which is grossly inefficient (and what we're currently helping to avoid).

If your team is reproducing 90% of the effort to read and research every ticket's conversation history before sending a short reply to move something forward, I think you really need to examine your process before you blindly criticize ours. What you're saying makes much less sense.

At least comments are actually fully displayed without requiring any extra steps to actually view. I wonder how long it will be before those are hidden from view as well.

5.0? ;) Just kidding.

My annoyance and disappointment levels with this software about double every time I sit down to use it. Just my opinions and observances.

I would really, REALLY caution you that you're probably sitting down with the wrong mindset then. I know it's difficult, but at least consider there may be a better way to do some of the things you're used to.

Also: conversations being backwards now (bottom to top). sigh.

Sigh? It ties in with exactly what I said above. If the same workers are logically handling their own replies within a short time period (which for all your talk of 'consistency' -- in this case for your end users' conversation with the same person 15 mins apart -- I'd think you'd be strongly for) then they don't need to read and scroll past every message to read the latest message and write a quick reply. They can just hit the 'R' key on their keyboard and the reply form will open automatically.

If it's been more than a few minutes and that worker needs a refresher, they scroll down A TINY BIT and expand the second most recent message. If they need another refresher, they can read the third latest. It is VERY uncommon that the same person, on the same day, needs to re-read their entire history to append to a conversation.

I really don't think you're giving this a fair shake if something that fundamental confuses you.

edit: wow. http://forum.cerb4.com/showthread.php?t=882

What's so surprising about that? Brenan and Dan are saying 'print ticket' allows people to see the entire history without clicking the link a bunch of times. That's a reasonable "workaround" compared to having nothing, right?

I agree that using 'print ticket' is a poor substitute for having a shortcut to expand every message in the history when it's important. That's something I've had on my list to experiment with.

On that thread, I don't really agree with Brenan's comment that it has anything to do with performance. It's more about efficiency for human beings. However, he's not a programmer, and he's really just trying to help people out.

[netwrkr]

Jeff:

I've said it once and I'll say it again. Give us the option. Thats all.


Option A. Display everything (WARNING: may cause your browser to overheat and your server to commit Sepaku)



Option B. Display just the last reply (We suggest this version)

:)

Tom

[jstanden]

Hey Tom!

There aren't enough references to Seppuku these days, well played. ;)

I agree that adding preferences is often all that is needed for most things. We just really want to have some restraint over making *everything* an option.

I think that's especially true when we're talking about a process like 'next worker' that can really be a big productivity booster for that intra-shift work -- if given a chance.

Surely, smart people out there CAN completely understand the point of something like that and still disagree with it. That's fine. That's where options (even plugins that replace a major part of the system) have to come in.

I'm actually excited by a couple ideas that have come from this conversation already:

Allow 'next worker' follow-ups set during a reply to expire at a certain time: +2 hours, "today at 5pm", "on logout" -- that's the best of both worlds, in my opinion. Faster intra-shift replies, but still rolling over work when one shift ends. That's how things are intended to work now, but it's more of a manual thing.
Adding a "Review" type button to Display Ticket to re-sort the conversation in ascending chronological order and instantly expand all the messages for easy review.
Some form of worker preference for both of the above. Setting up a default expiration on 'waiting for reply'. Having the option to always show the full history when opening a ticket that's not assigned to you.I wish jpetersen wouldn't talk about "throwing in the towel" over these things. The insight you guys are providing is exactly what we need. I'm here on a Saturday afternoon willing to code this stuff up in real-time!

[netwrkr]

I wish jpetersen wouldn't talk about "throwing in the towel" over these things. The insight you guys are providing is exactly what we need. I'm here on a Saturday afternoon willing to code this stuff up in real-time!


Jeff and myself (much like you) are very passionate about Cerberus. It's our primary communication platform (even more so than email). Its the single most important product we have (outside of our backup software) and the one that sees the most use.

Tom

[jstanden]

Jeff and myself (much like you) are very passionate about Cerberus. It's our primary communication platform (even more so than email). Its the single most important product we have (outside of our backup software) and the one that sees the most use.

I love hearing that. Let's make this work. :)

I'm currently working on some quick options for auto-expanding/sorting a ticket's history.

[jstanden]

Alright! Long day... ;) Myriad feedback is in bold.

Build 626: (usability feedback roundup)

* [Display] Implemented the much requested 'Read All' mode on the Display Ticket screen. This expands all the messages in the conversation history and sorts them in chronological order (opposed to showing the newest message first). There's a new keyboard shortcut of 'A' on the Display screen to enter this mode at any time. Workers can now permanently turn on 'Read All' mode from their preferences.

* [Reply] Added the ability to set an expiration on the 'next worker' assignments on a ticket. You can set the time limit before the worker is returned to the global pool from the Display->Properties screen or while drafting a reply. This helps facilitate the Cerb4 'Next Worker' concept by allowing the same worker to handle multiple followups on a ticket in a short period of time -- which helps reduce the discontinuity and redundancy when multiple workers from the same shift are constantly swapping tickets (as new replies come in). A worker can now set an expiration using terms like after "2 hours" or at "5pm". This gives a worker enough time to handle followups to their own replies throughout their shift, but they don't have to worry about clearing their assignments when their shift ends. The system will take care of it.

* [Reply] Tweaked the 'Next' options when doing a reply so you can change the Group or Bucket a ticket is in even when closing it. Presently you could only change the bucket on the 'open' or 'waiting' statuses.

* [L&F] Switched over all buttons to <button> tags and applied a consistent CSS style to them. This helps with some issues where people were reporting strange looking interfaces because the buttons and form controls in the interface matched their desktop theme (while the rest of our design didn't).

* [Display L&F] Further tweaked the visual identification of comments, notes, inbound and outbound replies on the Display Ticket conversation list. It should be a lot easier now to tell when apart when a long history has a lot of minimized messages.

* [Overview L&F] Similar to the inbound/outbound style on Display Ticket, inbound and outbound replies are now visually indicated in ticket lists to draw attention to them. New tickets are not.

* [Overview] Linked the 'Assigned' + 'Waiting' Group focusing on Mail Overview to reduce fine-control mouse gestures. When you click on a Group in either pool, the bucket subtotals for both pools will expand.

* [Overview] Added the 'all' link shortcut to the right of the 'Waiting' pool so it's consistent with the 'Available' pool. This allows you to list all the waiting tickets in a Group without having to click twice (once to expand the list, once to select '-All-').

* [Overview] Added new keyboard shortcut of 'M' for listing a worker's tickets (My Mail) on the Mail Overview screen. This plays nice with the 'A' shortcut (All Available Tickets).

* [Display] A context-sensitive list of available keyboard shortcuts is now shown at the top of the Display Ticket toolbar. Several of these helpful shortcuts have existed for a while, but almost nobody knows about them.

[jstanden]

You can see the changes in action on the demo:
http://wht.cerb4.com/admin/

Click into something with a few replies, like:
http://wht.cerb4.com/admin/display/BIB-28467-894/

And click 'A' to enter "Read All" mode. That will sort the conversation history in ascending chronological order and expand every message at once. You can turn "Read All" mode on permanently from your worker 'Preferences' in the top right.

[netwrkr]

Jeff:

Question: I did the SVN up

Fetching external item into 'libs/devblocks'
Updated external to revision 221.

Updated to revision 626.


Great - the login page of Cerberus still shows 623 yet your demo shows 626. What am I missing?

Thanks.

[jstanden]

Hey Tom!

I committed to the development branch in SVN and didn't merge it into "stable" yet. I'd like to have Joe and the guys do a Q/A pass tomorrow morning.

You can switch your copy to the development branch with the following command:


shell> svn switch "http://svn.webgroupmedia.com/cerb4/cerb4"
If it complains about the missing 'install' directory, just 'svn up' before switching.

If you'd prefer to stay on the stable branch and just merge the new changes into your code, you could do something like:


shell> svn merge \
http://svn.webgroupmedia.com/cerb4/branches/stable@HEAD \
http://svn.webgroupmedia.com:/cerb4/cerb4@HEAD


If you merge, it may be a slight headache when those files show up in stable if you have other local code changes; but it shouldn't be much of an issue.

Thanks!