New Request Tool Options: Clan Related Requests: The Discussion Thread

[Cutthroat]

I think it's a good change to the request tool.

However, can we have formatting in the Character Report request, like when you submit an Original Submission? I (and probably others) use bold, underlines, italics, coloring, sizing, etc to help organize ideas a bit better, and hopefully it'll help on staff's end too.

[valeria]

Please please please.

[WWYD]

Please please please.

[X-D]

My char reports were already anemic at best.

And the only reason I ever sent any is because I could lump everything into 1 email.

I'm afraid this system will make such things nonexistent.

Oh well, I don't like doing them anyway.

[mansa]

Maybe a "Weekly Report" option, too?

[netflix]

I have a few concerns that, unless addressed, will make this system, from my standpoint at least, difficult if not impossible to use.

The formatting, as mentioned, is a small thing. The most important thing is the lack of an ability to back and forth in the submission system. Almost -every- time I send in a report, it involves the staff sending back group responses to the various sections of the report. Which will often result in me then sending back responses to their responses, be it answering questions they have, or clarifying a point, or what have you. From what experience I've had with the current system, this sort of thing will be impossible. If this is so, this would make it a -very- effective tool for weekly reports.

The second the lack of a user friendly archive system. Right now, I use Gmail, which is nice as it groups all e-mails of the same subject together. I can easily look back via subject and see all relevant information to that particular thread of discussion. If each response in this submission system is going to have its own entry, then looking up archive information will be a complete nightmare. Especially with the lack of a search capability, and the fact that all these submissions are going to be mixed into other submissions. And I know if it's going to make it that hard for us, then it's going to be even worse on the staff end.

I know that the staff both like and need our reports and such, to keep track of what we're doing. But as the submission system stands now, I know the utter lack of usability, from the player end at least, will cause cut down reports to as slim as possible, and not include things that I otherwise would in an e-mail report. Because the scale of having to keep track of it all through such a disorganized system isn't a nightmare even worth facing.

Perhaps this submission system could simply be pinged as a preferred method of submitting reports, while leaving the e-mail option open?

[Nyr]

There is the ability to do back and forth in the existing request tool.  A staffer can mail you on any questions with a link at the bottom of our tool.  You get an e-mail with what the staffer replied with, plus a link back to the request tool so you can add more information.  Once a request is completely done, it is closed, and you get a copy of that in your e-mail, too.

You can also log into your My Account page to see your previous requests without going to your e-mail, all organized by date, clan, character, type, etc.

I would suggest e-mailing Morgenes / CCing MUD if you notice bugs though.

[Nyr]

Maybe a "Weekly Report" option, too?

There is a Character Report option; did you mean something else?

[netflix]

There is the ability to do back and forth in the existing request tool.  A staffer can mail you on any questions with a link at the bottom of our tool.  You get an e-mail with what the staffer replied with, plus a link back to the request tool so you can add more information.  Once a request is completely done, it is closed, and you get a copy of that in your e-mail, too.

You can also log into your My Account page to see your previous requests without going to your e-mail, all organized by date, clan, character, type, etc.

That's really an ugly and nearly impossible to use system, though. It makes responding to multiple questions in one "report" very difficult. And the very limited ability to scan through prior submissions, as I mentioned, is staggeringly poor. No search capability, no subject lines.

I'm not trying to be a pain in the ass, here. But it's bad enough system that I'd probably steer away from leadership roles in the future just to keep from having to use this system, unless some severe modifications were made to give it the archive ease and back and forth ease as allowed by e-mail type reports.

[Morgenes]

I have managed to get the formatting from the submission tool into the request tool.  You can how do whatever formatting you would like to all your requests.  This is still a work in progress, and I imagine their will be bugs, please bear with us and report anything you find to morgenes (at) armageddon.org and I'll fix it ASAP.  I know that for instance the staff's response is still going to be in plain text, and so it formats badly with the HTML.  I'll have that fixed this evening.

Every step of the process is still sent through emails, from your original submission to the resolution.  We have been doing work to make sure that all of the subject headers are the same so that mail systems (such as Google's) will handle threading the emails properly.  Yes this is important to us as well, and was part of the mandate to go to such a system.  You should be able to search your emails as you do today, the difference is any submissions and responses you make should be through the tool, not through email.

We can look at giving better search options to the archive tool, the one we have as staff has many more options that we can push over to you guys pretty easily.  I will be reviewing this thread for suggestions and implementing them ASAP.

[Cutthroat]

Netflix, you should be able to check "E-mail me a copy of this request" before you submit a report to get all the reports you send into your e-mail easily. And the news about formatting is great, thanks.

[jstorrie]

Morgenes, is there any way to add 'read receipt' functionality? Some staff have a habit of not sending 'got your request, it'll take a while' responses; it'd be nice to know if something's been received and read.

[netflix]

A small step in making the system more usable is to make it closer to a standard trouble ticket system, where you submit the initial item via the request tool, a staff member can then respond to it, said response showing up both in the request tool and via e-mail. But then have the option of -responding- to that e-mail, instead of having to scrounge your way through the request tool.

If there's room for a Subject in the request tool, the e-mails can be subject based. The e-mails are set up so that the reply-to isn't to the staff, but to the request tool itself, which will them absorb the response and incorporate it into the ongoing trouble ticket.

Another downside is having these tickets closable. Quite often when a topic discussed via e-mail seems like it's found closure, something else comes up. If the trouble ticket gets closed, that means an entire new offshoot thread will need to be created. Perhaps include the ability for the end user to reopen a trouble ticket.

Netflix, you should be able to check "E-mail me a copy of this request" before you submit a report to get all the reports you send into your e-mail easily.

And I'm aware of that, but that doesn't address the concerns I've raised. And even if it did, since it's an opt-in selection, if you forget to click it, no e-mail. And no way to ever get an e-mail from it.

Morgenes, is there any way to add 'read receipt' functionality? Some staff have a habit of not sending 'got your request, it'll take a while' responses; it'd be nice to know if something's been received and read.

This also brings to mind cases where a report or such may include more then one clan.

[brytta.leofa]

Morg, I've several times CCed character reports to additional clans, or even been enrolled in several.

What's the right way to handle this now?  Send in multiple reports, one to each clan?  Or send a single update to the Most Primary Clan, and count on y'all to route stuff as needed?

[Morgenes]

For now route to the one that is 'most' your clan.  I will figure out how we'll do other clans being notified of reports.

[jcarter]

We are also hoping this will help with recent issues we've had with receiving emails due to issues with Google's bulk email policy.

Since I don't want to open another thread, I'll just ask here: What's the deal with this? Was this the cause for e-mails getting bounced?

[Morgenes]

We are also hoping this will help with recent issues we've had with receiving emails due to issues with Google's bulk email policy.

Since I don't want to open another thread, I'll just ask here: What's the deal with this? Was this the cause for e-mails getting bounced?

We don't know why Google occasionally bounces email.  When we dig into the documentation that is provided from the link in the bounce message it basically says either tough it out or pay for premium service.  As we don't have any funds for a premium email service, we're going to tough it out.  To do this, we're looking to minimize the chance of your email bouncing and/or being missed by storing it in our request tool.

[Twilight]

Since the request tool seems to be able to access your character data on some level, why isn't the distribution determined by the current clan flags and such that would determine affiliation of your living character?

Only downsides I can see are where you might belong to multiple clans with the same email address (I would think easily addressable) or if you want to send in your last report after you die (which if you did it before you created another character, as characters seemed to be ordered, I would think it could be made to pull from the most recent dead character?).  Am I missing something?

[Lizzie]

Not everyone needs or wants to send a clan report to their -own- clan..plus it is possible for a single PC to be a member of more than one clan.

Having said that, I think it'd make sense for the list to default to the primary clan you're in, before having to click on the drop-down box. So if you're a Sun Runner who is secretly a member of the Guild, and you want to make a clan report, when you get that window to make the report and select the clan it would already have Sun Runners showing up on the drop-down box. If you need to change it to the Guild you'd have to click on it and scroll down to the G's.

[Agent_137]

it's great. I'm happy to see progress away from managing everything in email. It's gone on too long.

also, i'd just ignore netflix. he/she just cares more about his/her own precious seconds with an extra step than your precious hours spent administering a game for free.

that said, i think what netflix is trying to say, is that it's interesting a seemingly custom solution was built instead of a free open source one like bugzilla or something.

[Chettaman]

I've always been so lazy. This makes it easier.

[valeria]

I have managed to get the formatting from the submission tool into the request tool.  You can how do whatever formatting you would like to all your requests.

Thanks so much!  My reports tend to be verbose, and so I like to do a table of contents, followed by bolded headings, with main points in underlines so that things don't get missed.

The only other suggestion I would have would be something similar to a 'save as draft' function.  This would allow me to work on my report over the course of several days, so I'm not jamming my entire week's worth of crap into two hours at the end.  However, for the time being I can just do this in a word document so it's not that big of a deal.

[Twilight]

Why would you email one clan you are in, and not the other, as far as a character report?  It makes sense if you are ordering items or such, but to me, makes no sense when emailing updates about your character, which it would seem all your clan immortals should have access to?

Also, I imagine there is a way for immortals to pull all the reports at once?  When I change clan (like independents->clan) or when a new clan immortal comes on, I have begun to email them all the past reports so they know the history of my character (because I don't use the bio command and probably never will).

[X-D]

So, I was checking my email today, thought, Huh, I really should file a report on something...Oh wait, I'd have to log into the request tool...Meh, log off and take a nap instead.

[Cutthroat]

Really? I used this today and it was really easy. I checked "E-mail me a copy of this request" and got it with all the formatting I had used.