Showing Updates in Reports

[SaraJa]

I am setting up a dashboard to use in meetings. Included in this dashboard are overall project updates as well as task updates. Task Updates: we want only the latest update on the task to appear. Currently I have the “condition update” field showing so we can see updates to individuals’ tasks. However, if someone comments on a task that they are not assigned to, they do not have the ability to assign a condition to their update (as such the update will not show up in the dashboard). We do not want to have two update columns next to each other as it could cause confusion (for example: “condition update” and “status update”). Ideally, we want to set up a shared column with some kind of IF statement that makes it so the latest update appears (regardless if it was a conditional update or just a status update). Project Updates : only the latest project update is appearing and we would like a handful of recent updates to appear (something along the lines of last 5-10 updates and/or updates made in the past two weeks). If anyone has any insights on how to set up these rules/IF statements that would be greatly appreciated! Thanks, Sara

[EricLu2]

Oh gosh, consuming the note text is going to be fun. A brute force way to pick up certain notes and ignore others is to preface important notes with an asterisk as the first character of the note. Then, you can look at the first character of the note, and the entry date of the note, to know if it’s important to report on or not. Trying to logically determine which notes to report on and which to ignore is going to be dicey and involve some complex text mode code. Sorry I don’t have elegant solutions, however there are some people smarter than me who keep an eye on this forum and enjoy a challenge. Let’s see what they say. Thanks! Eric

[SaraJa]

Thank you for your input, Eric! I figured it would likley involve text mode. Hopefully there is a managable work around for this. For the task updates the ideal statement would be something along the lines of "IF the update in the condition update column was made more recently than the update in the status condition column THEN show the udpate"...just need to figure out how to reflect that in code!

[BarryBu2]

We've got a slightly different way to get around this Sara. We've added two custom text fields ('Project Commentary' and 'Items for Management attention'). We have a status report dashboard that has everything senior management looks at (issues going through an approval flow, a number of custom RAG status updates etc) that the project manager can edit, and the text fields are there. We have 'display field changes in updates' for these two fields turned on (so they do go in the updates) but for senior exec reports we query the custom fields rather than trawling the notes updates. Hope this makes sense, and is of some help.

[EricLu2]

{{Barry}} I like not trawling the notes. I also like the way you worded that - such an accurate image of what you have to go through to find anything. If we could put a custom attribute on a Note, then boy it would be easy to pick off notes by type. Right now, it is either a note or audit text and that’s it. I like your idea and am going to talk to people about doing something similar for our reporting. Thanks! Eric

[SaraJa]

Hi Barry, That's helpful. Thank you for suggestion. We've been pushing team members to use the updates fields, so it would certainly be changing the way we do things -- but could be a great option!

[MichelleMc1]

Sara, We built a report that pulls in updates for our projects, using the Note Text field. People can choose to see all updates for the projects based off the entry date or they can choose to only see updates from the last 2 hours, 4 hours or 6 hours. The text for that is: entryDate=$$NOWb-2h&entryDate_Mod=gt entryDate=$$NOWb-4h&entryDate_Mod=gt entryDate=$$NOWb-6h&entryDate_Mod=gt Those were built as Report Prompts but you could probably use it in your report as well. Hope this helps. Michelle

[Doug_Den_Hoed__AtAppStore]

Hi Sara, Noting that I'm getting a bit more comfortable with the spooky correlation between "Questions On The Forum" and "Stuff I'm Already Working On This Week", I have another option for you. Last year, I tackled this conundrum of "dedicated custom comment field" vs "natural flowing updates". Both have pros and cons: Technically, the Last Update Note Text will always contain the text of the last update, regardless of who entered that information -- easy, but quickly replaced by any other Update, regardless of how trivial. Similarly, the Task's Condition Update (as you mentioned) records the Primary Owner's last comment -- prominent, but quickly stale dated unless attended to in a timely fashion. And from a Task list view (for Tasks, or similarly, a Project list view, for Projects), Updates are not easily editable unless you "go into" them, which (even if opening in a new tab) slows the flow of conversation That final point is one of the biggest advantages for storing comments in a designated field (as Barry suggested): quick editability. However, in my opinion, and as per your current process Sara, the contextual advantages of using the Update feed makes it "worth the effort" to go into the Task (or Project) to enter an update. But that still leaves the overriding concern unanswered: how can you "escalate" the most important Update(s) up to the Task or Project? The solution I came up with was to add a calculated Text Field (on our standard Tasks Custom Form) called Task Owner Current Update. In its description, I wrote "This field is populated with the latest note entered in the updates section by the Task Owner (default assignment) that has been flagged with an asterisk (*)." Practically speaking, when the Task Owner was entering something within the flow of updates that she wanted it to appear at the Task Level (e.g. for Official Reporting Purposes), all she need do is preface the comment with an asterisk. To me, it offers the best of both worlds: the flow of the updates can continue contextually as the discussion unfolds, but the Task owner can easily escalate a particular comment "up" to the Task Level for summary consumption. The magic, of course, is in the formula, which I'm happy to share here: IF(Assigned To ID=Project.Owner ID, Project Manager Notes, IF(Assigned To ID=Last Note.Owner ID, IF(Left(Last Note.Note Text,1)="*", RIGHT(Last Note.Note Text,LEN(Last Note.Note Text)-1), Task Owner Current Update), Task Owner Current Update)) Note that to use this technique, you'll have to create the Task Owner Current Update calculated text parameter to a Task Level custom form, SAVE the form, and THEN copy in the formula, since it is self-referencing -- namely, if the Latest Update.Note Text was entered by the Task Owner AND starts with an asterix, overwrite the Task Owner Current Update contents with that Note Text, but otherwise, leave it alone. Effectively, it's "as if" notes could have custom data, as Eric proposed. My homework, to get back to the spooky factory, is to expand on this concept by: adding separate audit fields (who said this) adding aging (how long ago did they say it) adding "staleness" (e.g. making the text lighter and lighter as it gets older) to encourage more frequent updates) to allow other one-character prefix functionality (e.g. * = overwrite, - = clear all, + = append, effectively allowing several important comments to "roll up" until cleared, etc.) to repeat these concepts at the Project level, too I hope this gives you some ideas, and if anyone's interested on how my homework turns out, please leave a comment here and I'll add an update another time. Regards, Doug

[EricLu2]

{{Doug}} What a great response. You added the text mode code that makes the whole asterisk idea work. Wooo, good job. Eric

[KarenRu]

Of course I'm interested in how your homework turns out! Please come back and post your progress :) Karen