I'm working for a company where I develop systems purely for internal use. There are only a few developers but we use redmine for issue tracking & feature requests. However, the only people with access to the issue tracker are team leaders, everyone else is meant to feed their suggestions through their team leader.
The idea is that this will reduce developer workload and give management more control over the features being developed. The reality is that we get emails sent directly to us from people experiencing small bugs, or feature requests.
Is this a sane way to manage user feedback or a known bad practice? I've not seen any articles which discuss managing internal issue tracking, so thought I'd ask you.
You can allow your users to access Redmine and create them a special role where they can only create new issues with a new status then the project managers or the team leaders can priorize the issues and assign them to the right people.
It will imply that your users have to be trained to use the tool to create efficient reports and search before creating a new one. But if it's an internal project it will be "easier" because you can train everybody.
It sounds sane to me. If you have end-users giving you feedback then that's a good thing. I've no experience with redmine but if there's a learning-curve associated with it then end-users may be reluctant to bother giving feedback at all. Also, you may end up with defect targets such as 'it has to triaged with X days, and fixed by Y days'. By having such an informal feedback process you avoid this. Also, your team could take a somewhat Agile approach and write bugs/feature requests onto scorecards and stick them on a wall so everybody can see them, including managers - who get to see how end-users are really using your product, and choose to fix/implement them as your team sees fit, with the priority that you choose yourselves.
Of course, your source control system will have the history of all fixes and new features!
Related
I would like to ship some new features just for a specific group of users to better test it in production and then release it progressively to everyone, should i put IFs in my code and assign specific policies to users in the database?
Is there a better way to do it?
The normal way to handle this is have two versions of your software. The "main" version is the one most people are on, but you also release an "experimental" version which has the new features.
There are various ways to manage the software, but you should look to use strong version management practices in your source code repository, perhaps using some good branching techniques. You should avoid the two versions from diverging too much.
You can choose to invite certain users to the "experimental" version, or have them opt in but give the necessary caveats that things might not work as well, and if you have any SLAs then you might want to caveat them. If you are hoping users will provide you with feedback then make sure there is a good mechanism for that and that the users are aware of it.
If you have client software then uses will need to get hold of the new version themselves. If your software is purely server side (eg a web application or SAAS platform) then you might look at a routing layer eg in the load balancer which automatically sends users to the normal or experimental version depending on whether they are part of the relevant group.
This is a common scenario in software and you should be able to do some good research. I suggest you start by looking into A/B testing.
I need to create an intranet portal in Drupal 7.
What will the required contributed Drupal 7 modules to accomplish a complete Intranet Portal.
The answer to this question will be different in each individual instance and will depend on the needs of the users.
Research the needs by speaking to the intended users, but don't ask them what they want. Instead, ask them about the problems they have. Ask which tasks they have trouble completing and find out the underlying cause. This will give you an idea of the applications they need.
Start with up to six of these problems and plan a schedule of work for the coming year with, say, quarterly releases. Develop a prototype and test it with your users. Listen to their feedback and continue to make improvements.
Don't think of this as a technology implementation, but as an ongoing process. You will find this helps with your stakeholder management: setting the six focus areas sets their expectations and listening to their feedback includes them in the process. This is valuable for adoption as you will spend less effort getting people onside since you already have advocates in place in the business.
I am in the process of creating a payment gateway for drupal / wordpress / magento. I already have clients who want to use my plugin. Because this is a paid piece of work, I want to protect it from being used on other websites.
I have also seen that many vendors who sell themes, modules and plugins are required to put in the API key.
How can I do the same. What do I need on my server side. I know how to create modules, but I don't know to sell them securely and deliver regular updates.
If there is a book regarding this please let me know.
I'm not familiar with any books on the subject, but I'll tell you what I've seen as one of a founders of a component / plug-in marketplace that has many such plug-ins.
There are a few approaches -
Some plugins do not require an API key at all. Either the plug-in is only available after purchase, or has some limitations on the free downloadable version that encourages people to pay for the commercial version. This approach relies more on people's integrity and low motivation to try and hack the free version into the commercial one, especially if they are not technical users (as many CMS users are).
Set up a check against your server that happens periodically. You do not need a full blown API for this, just set up an endpoint on your server that the plug-in can send the API key and according to the response allows the use of the plug-in. You need to plan it so that this check doesn't happen every time the plug-in is run, especially if it a plug-in that runs on the public site and not only in the administration panel - it will seriously degrade the performance of the site using it and create unnecessary load on your server. Use some kind of time based checked - either absolutely or from the time of the last check.
In addition to or instead of doing an API check, some people will obfuscate their code to make it harder to modify and bypass the check. This often requires that the server has a module installed that can parse the obfuscated files - this requirement often makes it less viable for most people. You can see some examples of obfuscators in another question.
Personally, I lean more toward the first option, as someone determined enough will break whatever protection you put (people break much more complicated solutions in no time). This is one of the problems of delivering source-code instead of binaries (and those are broken just as easily by more experienced hackers). Let those who are willing pay, and the others just let them do what they want as you won't be able to create something truly secure anyway.
We're looking into implementing an issue tracker for our web agency. The problem is that most issue trackers seem to revolve around the assumption that an issue is a bug, whereas in a web agency environment, a lot of the issues (request, or whatever you want to call them) are about changes and additions to a current web site.
It also seems to me that a lot of issue trackers assume that you're working on one main software project, and uses that project as the focus of the tracker. A good issue tracker for a web agency would be one which puts each separate client and their issues at the heart of the system, making it easy for them to track and report issues.
Does anyone know of a good issue tracker for the web agency workflow? What are other people using?
In my experience, issue trackers are so closely coupled to the workflow of the organisation that what works in one place may be a complete misfit in another. That said, could basecamp work for you?
We are using Gemini very flexible with the ability to have workflow at the project level.
But where Gemini really helps us is the cross project views. You can view your work across all projects with really good fitering.
Have you had a look at fixx at all? Obviously, being the developer of fixx, I will want to plug it but I know from first-hand experience that a lot of our customers are web agencies who work in a service-oriented environment and need to track more than just "software development" projects.
With fixx, you can define custom issue types (for example "change request" or "Copy changes") and track work against that type.
Unfortunately, fixx still does suffer from the "project-centric" view but a lot of our customers work around this by defining a project per client/website. So, if you were doing web/maintenance on stackoverflow.com, you would have a project called "stackoverflow.com maintenance" and would assign all your users from that company to that specific project. From there, using notifications and filters, it would be very easy for clients to keep track of progress on their specific issues.
FogBugz – it's simple by default, but extensible; it's got an integrated wiki, charts, tags, and you can even tie it to your source-control system (and they also offer their own integrated source control system, Kiln, which is pretty amazing with FogBugz).
Are you using other applications to manage the rest of your business' operations?
I ask because WORKetc has great issue tracking software, and this software is combined with other aspects of business management which can simplify the management process. So not only could you manage all support inquiries and responses in one place, but also your projects, finances, and contacts. Most importantly, it would allow you to use one central contact base for your entire company, while allowing you to reference that contact information (as well as lead information) while working on support inquiries, projects, invoices, etc.
WORKetc's support system works around email integration and simple ticket system (as well as prioritizing) and directly integrates with projects, contacts, and other aspects of the system so that you can save time while responding and managing tickets.
I think especially for the use case of a web-agency, where it's not really about bugs, but mostly (visual) feedback and all of it happens on the web, a visual feedback tool might be the thing you're looking for. Most of these tools will create a screenshot of the webpage and include the given feedback on it.
Some of them also have some kind of dashboard where you can discuss further, or have integrations to other tools like Basecamp (and some them do both).
Here's an article from smashing magazine, which describes a lot of them, e.g.: TrackDuck, BugMuncher. Another great tool the article doesn't mention, maybe because the article is a bit dated, is Usersnap – this one even includes browser extensions.
I am working in a company with huge DotNet team. We currently have MOSS 2007 license which I assume is a costly one and just one administrator working/maintaining all Sharepoint stuff.
I felt that Sharepoint is not being utilized to its potential. Being interested in Sharepoint Development for past 1 year (I am a .NET Developer with 6 years of exp) I offered my help to our Director, his first question was
"Why do I need a Sharepoint Developer?"
Now I need help in selling a "Sharepoint Developer" to my director.
I would be glad to provide any more information you need about the company or current utilization.
EDIT: Just want to elaborate more on my company's scenario. We have sharepoint being used mostly for Internal use like Raising Service Tickets, Maintaining Networking Stuff ( Servers, Sites, clients details), Document Sharing with Clients.
If you want the official “value proposition” of SharePoint, it goes something like this; the product already has a lot of common application behaviours built into it (doc management, access control, search, etc) therefore it streamlines development by being able to build directly on top of these features rather than building them from scratch. It’s a .NET based environment so your current developers can leverage existing skills.
However, it’s not all that simple. There’s a very solid learning curve, you need to develop directly on a Windows Server and the lifecycle and deployment of apps if very different to ASP.NET. Have a read of What are your biggest complaints about Sharepoint? and also The hidden costs of building on enterprise software platforms.
Ask him how much time your team spends coding/planning/worrying with:
Authentication
Security
Document Management
Versioning / Change History
Records Management (on a very light sense)
Backup / Restore support
Load balance
Multi domain support
Separated Content Databases
Content Collaboration and user-created structures
Theme support
Syndication
Outlook integration
??
And how much time you ACTUALLY worry/code/plan implementing your BUSINESS RULES
SharePoint is far from perfect, but in a .NET world it is a hell of a good start to get things done without reinventing the wheel.
Why do you think you need a sharepoint developer? What can more/better sharepoint development offer from a business perspective? Does it do thinks either faster, cheaper or better than you currently do them? You need to be able to verbalize this for management to buy-in.
Does the existing administrator have a technical background? Perhaps as a developer? If not, then yes, there is value in having a "Sharepoint Developer" handy as soon as you want to do anything even remotely outside the box in SharePoint.
Want to extend the functionality of your lists/libraries? You'll need to know how to create a CustomAction in .NET, or know how to combine JavaScript/JQuery with ASP.NET webservices to do so.
Want to create some custom rollups for reporting? Do you folks track tasks/project information in SharePoint? You'll need to understand ASP.NET server control fundamentals, and possibly XSL so that you can whip something together using SharePoint designer.
Maybe you want to standardize your content (calendars, tasks, etc.) through custom content types. You'll need a development background to understand how to provision this using SharePoint's solution/feature mechanisms.
Or perhaps your director would be interested in reporting? If you pick up a third-party reporting tool such as Dundas Charts, good luck making anything remotely complex without having a development background.
These are just some things off the top of my head..
Point out the business benefits that your company would IMMEDIATELY derive by doing / going Sharepoint. In your spare time at the office, create a proof of concept perhaps that you could parody with your director in able to get his/her nod.
As someone who once was a sharepoint developer, it is hard to add value to that product. It will mostly be cosmetic changes or something you find to be really cool, but at the end of the day SP already provides the functionality. Also if you do something amazing with it M$ will eat your lunch.
I worked on MS CMS (which preceded MOSS) and the people who stuck with MOSS are earning good money - but proving business benefits to the skeptical is very difficult.
To sell yourself to your director you need to demonstrate that MOSS will either save the company money or help generate extra cash. From your brief company description I would reckon that cost focus is the way forward.
So ask your boss what are the three biggest cost savings that your company wants to make in the next year (there is always a focus) and (if you think it is worth asking) the three areas where the company is looking to expand.
Then go away and work out how MOSS (or any enterprise level CMS for that matter) can support and possibly improve the chance of meeting these objectives. If you can do that and present the director with some focused, manageable projects then you may be on the way.