Introducing »Prompts« to the Comment-Service

1 Initial Problem

• Comments are used to support the editorial process of content creation.
• Comments are used as a low-key option for participants to ask tutors for clarification of a piece of content or assignment. 

2 Conceptual Summary

We want to introduce a new type of entry to the Comments Service:

• Notes are only visible to self. 
• Comments are visible to all with Read persmission to the commented object.
• Prompts are visible to all users listed in the Settings-tab of the respective object type.

• Prompts are gearded towards and only visible to the target group set on the settings-tab.
• Prompts trigger a Notifcation sent to the target group. 
• Prompts are presentes at the object they were made to.
• Prompts are presented in the Task List of the target group in the un-appointed tasks list (which could be re-labeled to Prompts).
• Prompts can be set to done by any member of the target group. 
• Prompts set to done, will disappear from all target group members' Taks  Lists.  

3 User Interface Modifications

3.1 List of Affected Views

• New entry for calling the Modal for Comments via Top-Actions
• Comments above footer
• Display of comment 

3.2 User Interface Details

3.3 New User Interface Concepts

None.

4 Technical Information

{The maintainer has to provide necessary technical information, e.g. dependencies on other ILIAS components, necessary modifications in general services/architecture, potential security or performance issues.}

5 Contact

• Author of the Request: Tödt, Alexandra [atoedt]
• Maintainer: Killing, Alexander [alex]
• Implementation of the feature is done by: {The maintainer must add the name of the implementing developer.}

6 Funding

If you are interest in funding this feature, please add your name and institution to this list.

• FH Aachen

7 Discussion

Killing, Alexander [alex], 18 Apr 2018: There are still a number of open conceptual questions:

• Now that we have Introducing Task Service and Queuing Derived Tasks these "task" like comments would need a) a responsible target user (group) and b) a flag that says "needs to be resolved" or something. Then they could appear in the task list as well (without deadline). Is this what we want?

Kunkel, Matthias [mkunkel], 20 APR 2018: I see a conceptual mix of comments and task, too. @ Alex Is triggering a task from a comment what you mean? Sounds for me like a reasonable approach.  A task could be resolved, a comment not. 

JourFixe, ILIAS [jourfixe], 07 May 2018 : We reject the current suggestion as we see a mix of task and comment in this feature. We prefer to have a workshop first before making further decisions on this feature. A workshop would allow us to clearly distinguish what we understand as a task and what not and. Discussing the already suggested feature of a task manager should be done in such a workshop, too. A prompt as described above could also be seen as a manual task who needs a manual setting to "Done" by a user unlike the already scheduled tasks in the Exercise object.

Killing, Alexander [alex], 7 May 2018: I just want to share my disagreement with this decision.

• Other tools, e.g. Word, allow to resolve comments directly. So having a "done" like status as a comment property is nothing unusual. If naming is an issue we can use the term "dissolve" or "resolve" instead of "done".
• Distinguishing between comments that should be resolved and comments that do not need this additional status would just be a simple yet powerful typification within the comments service that allows to use this feature purposefully. Again if naming is an issue here we can keep "comment" instead of "prompt" and add a property "needs to be dissolved" or something similar.
• Defining a derived task on the base of comments that need dissolving is a simple step on top of the already accepted derived task feature. Like assignments that need to be handed it, comments that need to be dissolved define a derived task.
• The only missing thing is a defined target group that can use this feature. Since notifications should be included as well the suggestion is to use a similar setting like for other notification settings.

This whole proposal only adds little additional complexity to existing or already accepted features. The task manager on the other hand is a huge feature request that asks for the implementation of a new repository object, which would not be of any use for the underlying requirements of this request here (support authoring workflows e.g. for learning modules on the page level).

AT 2018-05-08: Setting Comments to "resolve" to support editorial processes is also done in Google Docs. 

Erkens, Jochen [j.erkens] 2018-05-08 Confluence is using "resolve" as well.

Thank you Alex for your constructive suggestions. I can't add much to that. It will hopefully not fail because of word choice. The feature request was already the output of a workshop. That the Task Service was included in our considerations seams to be the problem now (a bit frustrating).
I am a little concerned that we will have to give back the funding available for this, because it is taking to much time.

I assume a complexity in managing all the tasks we would produce during content creation. Generally, we support the idea, but would also prefer something lightweight instead.
Can’t we just go on without a complex task management? Resolving a comment seems to be a reasonable compromise. That would really improve our editorial work.

8 Implementation

{The maintainer has to give a description of the final implementation and add screenshots if possible.}

Test Cases

Test cases completed at {date} by {user}

• {Test case number linked to Testrail} : {test case title}

Approval

Approved at {date} by {user}.