Add connections via a group

[Dan Munns]

HI all, 

It is possible to add request connections via a group rather than individually? 

We have a group of people who we need to add as interested to a number of request types but the group will change quite frequently and it would be easier to manage a group rather then having to amend the BPMs everytime.

[Dan Munns]

@Steven Boardman dont suppose you know if this is possible? 

If not could it be raised as a requirement ASAP please?

[Steven Boardman]

@Dan Munns it is not currently possible to add more than one connection at a time.

We can take a look at the requirement to add connections as groups, what we would need to consider in this scenario is the use case for adding groups of connections - could you provide some context / example of when adding groups of connected users would aid you?

Adding connections by group would require quite a few amends to existing logic:

* Ability to remove groups of connected users from requests  (currently one at a time)

* Ability to automatically email groups of connections from the business process nodes (currently one at a time)

* Ability to cater for manually emailing groups of connections from the email action on a request (currently the users are added as individuals)

Of course all of this is doable but it is not a quick turnaround and needs to be prioritised alongside other requirements.

In the meantime we are also working on a feature which will allow a find and bulk replace in your  business processes, so you will be able to search in all nodes in all business processes and find say a User you would then be able to replace the user in all required nodes, in all or selected processes in one go, so this would be a lot quicker than it is now, but i appreciate not the same as managing membership to a group.

  

We'll post back once this feature progresses, but if you can help with the use cases for the adding connections in groups that would be much appreciated. 

 

[Dan Munns]

@Steven Boardman so at the moment I have a few cases. 

1. I have a request in my stack for all users to be able to see all the current open calls in the Facilities stack to reduce duplicate requests from people reporting the same issues. My plan was to add the All Staff group to the connections to allow this whenever a request is logged. I want to keep them as SRs or INs and not go down the KE route.

2. SRs and CHs which relate to a project will need to notify a group of people when they are completed. (PM, Sponsor, other teams) but the staff working on the project may change a number of times a month.

3. Escalations can go to a number of different groups depending on what they are about. These groups can change quite often as people gain / lose responsibility for certain things due to job changes / promotions / moves etc.

If there is a better way of doing what we need then please let me know. I was thinking maybe a setting per CI for portal visibility (much like the service one) that I can add groups into to allow the requests to be visible only (no comments or other actions taken) if not add connections by group. As even more teams outside IT are using the software I keep coming up against "We were able to do this at A N Other place I worked" (though I am sure this was all done via sharepoint). 

Or maybe the ability to show widgets from advanced analytics on the portal? Or a board? I am sure some of these things will come with the new portal but I am not sure the business will be willing to wait too long for these things. Otherwise is there an integration you can think of that will allow me to post to / delete from a board or similar that I can hyperlink to from the request page? 

Apologies if I am being a pain  

[Steven Boardman]

Hi @Dan Munns 

1. I know you say you don't want to go down the KE route for this but for me this would be an exact use for for doing so.  If all staff are subscribed to the facilities service it will be easy for them to see the ongoing KE's which are active against the facilities service, i am not sure connections was intended to associate all users to an INC or SR.  Obviously if the original Inc or SR is raised,  i know you know a KE can be manually or automatically raised off the back of it.  These would then also be visible in the knowledge centre which they would not be if the Inc's and SR's belong to another customer and you are only a connection to the request.  I appreciate this does require the facilities team to manage KE's over and above other ticket types.

With the new portal on the facilities pages you will be able to add links to external boards etc if this is needed / desired, but i appreciate it is not available today. 

2. Yep i get this, and as you say connections on the originating SR or Change needing to be updated once the related project shuts down seems valid to me 

3. In regards to escalations i can see this also if we are not referring to support lines of escalation, but more the interested (if you like non operational users).  

In terms of other options, am i right in thinking most of your staff are now platform / collaborator users? if so have you considered workspaces for some of this?

So in the case of the facilities example:

Each Inc / SR can use the option to post the issue to a facilities workspace, as the Inc / SR progresses  or is resolved the supporting business process automatically adds comments to the original post to let the members of that workspace - i.e all staff know it has been reported, being investigated and is resolved all under the same post, and the users will get Hornbill notifications on updates to these workspaces

In the same way, if a project is auto created from an SR / Change, it too can also create a Post in an Projects workspace, and again use the business process to auto create the post, and auto add comments and ultimately close it off as the project is closed and SR / Change closed down (no manual actions in the workspace as the business process will do this all) 

In my example below i am doing this for major incidents and the process is posting and commenting and adding the MI report for me, and all workspace members are kept informed, with the ability for them to join / leave workspaces as needed. 

 

The escalations one is a little more tricky i think but again if your users are collaborators / platform users then they should also have access to boards, and you could manage board membership via groups and roles - this way if a users moving roles they would only have access to the boards which are relevant to them, but you could have:

Facilities Current issues Board  - accessible to all collaborator / platform staff, and your Inc / SR's can add, move and remove as the issues go away

Project Boards - Created for all or one per project again by the Business process of the originating SR / Change and added / moved and closed by the process

Escalations - Issues if you will which are added / removed from such boards as the Inc's / SR's progress and the moves on the boards governed by the needs for groups of users to be informed.

All governed and managed by a users membership to a board based on group or role 

  

Something like my Hot Topics Board below

 

Now granted some of this is workarounds, and only an option for collaborator / platform users. I will pursue and ask re the following:

1. Connections by group 

2. Widget content for the new employee portal to allow things like Advanced Analytics widget / boards - i am assuming you thinking lists of active facilities issues etc 

But as you say if time is against you maybe the known issues / workspaces / boards will give you something to work with

Steve

 

[Dan Munns]

I think by the sounds of it connections by group will be the way to go. Or a third party platform.

Only about a third of our main business users are collaboration users and I doubt I will get approval to add another 800 licences. That isnt including the other businesses in the group. 

We kind of want everything in one place for the users and the portal makes sense for this. Hopefully I can leverage some new functionality when it is released but for us that will likely be a long way off (maybe early next year) I fear. 

As for using KEs, we use them exclusively for IT issues and I doubt that I will have any uptake if I suggest to change that sadly.

I may have to look at something like Trello boards to show a Logged, Working on, Complete type board.

Oh well, I suppose I cant use Hornbill stuff for everything.