Request for Clarity (documentation and removal of contradictions) on Timeline Visibility behaviours and defaults

[Berto2002]

There is a lack of clarity / documentation about how Visibility works. Could I please ask HB to update Wiki or this forum to make it clearer?

A. The pop-up Visibility help seems to have FOUR contradictory entries (that I have found), each giving different advice: default is customer or team or application option or not defined!

1. SM>Entity>Requests>Update Request>Request Category. Visibility help: "The request timeline post visibility. If not specified, the application option value will be used" [BTW, great, this is what I expect]. This approach is supported by various "Visibility" entries on this Wiki age: Service Manager Business Process Workflow - Hornbill.
2. SM>Entity>Requests>Update Request>Service: " This parameter determines the visibility of the post to the Request." (no mention of default)
3. SM>Entity>Requests>Update Request>Custom Fields. Visibility help: "This option determines the visibility that will be applied to the update in the Request's Timeline. If not specified, 'Team' visibility will be used" (in direct contradiction to 1 above)
4. SM>Entity>Requests>Update Request>Timeline: Visibility help: "The timeline visibility that will be applied to the request update post. If no value is specified, the visibility will be set to customer (trustedGuest)" (in direct contradiction to 1 above). I believe I have found examples of this where I set the app setting to "Public" but the node to "Ignore" and the default for Update Timeline was "Customer" (see F below)

The above gives great concern that Visibility is either inaccurately documented or, worse, actually coded to have different behaviours per node which is an admins nightmare.

B. Some nodes have this field as "Visibility", others as "Timeline Visibility" but it's not clear what the difference is.

C. I have seen that my customers do see "Public" posts so it is not clear the difference between Public and Customer. All my IT analysts can already see posts set to Customer so what is the benefit of "Public"? I think this is partially answered here by Victor but it would be good it have it confirmed:

D. It is also not clear what the setting should be for when I want "all my Full Users to see it and no-one else". Is that "team" (as in all Full Users, Co-workers) or "team" as in assignment teams (service desk, infrastructure, etc). If so, does that mean there is no setting where I can say "all my Full Users to see it" and no-one else"? Here in relation to (Buzz - Hornbill) it mentions "Public" as "All Co-workers) but not sure if that's related to Requests (but does set a precedent for what "Public" is).

E. It is not clear, when the guidance says, "If not specified..." whether that applies to both "ignore" and "auto" settings.

 F. I have a support ticket open specifically about when I set default in the app settings for Request Updates to be "Public", they default to "Customer" in the UI. but that many be because the node is configured to not use the app setting but default to Customer as per A4 above.

G. Doing a search on "Visibility" on Wiki produces no results so I've been struggling to understand this feature. I know there will be something there but I suspect it is behind a "Read More" filter which means it's not found on searches unless expanded...

If a Wiki article can be please created or updated with this information I think we'll all be better off.

Please help get this all bottomed-out.

 

For reference, the application settings/options I believe should be used in the absence of a spec (ignore or auto) are:

guest.ui.app.com.hornbill.servicemanager.operation.defaultVisibility.schedule  
guest.ui.app.com.hornbill.servicemanager.operation.defaultVisibility.linkDocument  
guest.ui.app.com.hornbill.servicemanager.operation.defaultVisibility.link  
guest.ui.app.com.hornbill.servicemanager.operation.defaultVisibility.hold  
guest.ui.app.com.hornbill.servicemanager.operation.defaultVisibility.authorisers  
guest.ui.app.com.hornbill.servicemanager.operation.defaultVisibility.assign  
guest.ui.app.com.hornbill.servicemanager.operation.defaultVisibility.assets  
guest.ui.app.com.hornbill.servicemanager.operation.defaultVisibility  
guest.ui.app.com.hornbill.servicemanager.operation.defaultVisibility.escalate  
guest.ui.app.com.hornbill.servicemanager.operation.defaultVisibility.update

[Berto2002]

I have found a 5th different help text for node "SM>Entity>Requests>Authorisation Decision>Approved" which states: "This option determines the visibility of the post to the Request. When not supplied, the setting "guest.ui.app.com.hornbill.servicemanager.operation.defaultVisibility.update" is used to determine the visibility." This is in line with A1 above.

[Steve Giller]

@Berto2002 All of our documentation is currently being reviewed, and updated and improved where necessary.

If this specific area was not already on the list it will have been added now, as we've flagged the post internally to the review team.

[Berto2002]

@Steve Giller are you able to point me to the area of documentation where I might find details of the visibility, please?

I was hoping to see something but I am not sure what I am looking for.

A search for "visibility" brings up a bunch of platform technical responses like this:

Method - activity::activityPostCommentImage (hornbill.com) which has a "visibility" row entry stating "default=undefined

Method - activity::postMessage (hornbill.com) which has a row entry stating "default=following"

I am trying to find where it will be listed how these app settings affect things:

guest.ui.app.com.hornbill.servicemanager.operation.defaultVisibility.schedule  
guest.ui.app.com.hornbill.servicemanager.operation.defaultVisibility.linkDocument  
guest.ui.app.com.hornbill.servicemanager.operation.defaultVisibility.link  
guest.ui.app.com.hornbill.servicemanager.operation.defaultVisibility.hold  
guest.ui.app.com.hornbill.servicemanager.operation.defaultVisibility.authorisers  
guest.ui.app.com.hornbill.servicemanager.operation.defaultVisibility.assign  
guest.ui.app.com.hornbill.servicemanager.operation.defaultVisibility.assets  
guest.ui.app.com.hornbill.servicemanager.operation.defaultVisibility  
guest.ui.app.com.hornbill.servicemanager.operation.defaultVisibility.escalate  
guest.ui.app.com.hornbill.servicemanager.operation.defaultVisibility.update

 

I am also trying to find out what the defaults are for each type of node if they are left as "Ignore".