Product Idea

Is there a way to have comments from a review be visible on the item's comments tab outside of a review? This is something I really need to figure out.

In short, the answer is No.  You can, if you have access to the review, see the comments that were made within the review back on the project if you find the review hyperlink in question within the activities.  You can click on that hyperlink and then see all the comments that were made within the review. There were some feature requests around this topic on the old support community.

I'll chime in with Angela's comment—yes, there were some feature requests and we're still aware of them! From a support angle we're working on a way to share a report template with you that should help you out with review comments. More info on that as it develops...

Thank you guys for the feedback. The issue is I have a new person on the team and we have been working in Jama on a project for a year or so now. Since he wasn't in any of the reviews before now he cannot see any of the comments that have been made on any of the items. He can just see the revisions and what has changed. For him, the reason why changes were made are lost and we spend more time getting him caught up. He has voiced frustration that he could not go through Jama and get himself up to speed.

This has answered my question. I can point him to the activity feed and from now on make my reviews public so he can access them from the link to the reviews.

I just wanted to circle back on this, Davin. I mentioned we'd have a report to share for review comments. I have learned that our next on-premises release is scheduled for April 7, and in tandem with that announcement Support will make available a handful of BIRT reports. One of those reports is capable of compiling all the comments in a review. So check back in a few weeks for that report. It will help should you come across this again in the future.

Are there any updates about availability of April 7 release and new reports avaialable with it?

We are facing the same issues with review comments as described above.

We have now made available a Review Center Comments report for 2015.1 (with Java 8). That can be found on this">https://community.jamasoftware.com/jama/topics/additional-custom-reports-now-available">this post regarding reports. We are working to make some versions of this report available for older versions of Jama. I should have more updates to that page by the end of the week.

Thanks. This is very usefull.

The ability to retrospectively make a review public could be useful here. 

Hi George,

You can see review comments in the activity tab.

Harald

Good point, Harald—if a user has read access to an item they can see all review comments in the activity stream. George, that is an interesting thought, though.

If you are not on using the latest release of Jama, you can still
utilize the Review Center Comments report. As of today, earlier versions have been
added to the">https://community.jamasoftware.com/jama/topics/additional-custom-reports-now-available">he list of unsupported reports we offer, as well as some additional usage reports.

@Harald,
In my activity tabs all I see is "This item was reviewed in REV-186 v1". Is there a configuration option to shown the review comments?

@All,
Retrospectively making a review public would enable new users to see the review comments in context of the review & review version.

@George - If you were part of the review, the REV-186v1 would be a hyperlink that you could click and then see the comments for that particular item. If the REV-186v1 is not a hyperlink, then you were not part of the review and are unable to access the comments associated. There is no setting needed and this is by default how Jama works.

Hi Angela,
as you said, when following the review reference hyperlink in the Activity widget, a panel opens with the item related comments made during the review. Nice (even if a would have preferred comments merge as suggested by several times in this post).

May I suggest extra to add also an hyperlink to the review itself (in the activity or the consecutive panel)?
This would help to trace the context.
Today, I need to copy the review key word (REV-186 v1), open any review and modify the URL with REV-186,V1 to get to it.
Thanks

------------------------------
Christian Binard
ON semiconductor
Belgium
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 04-10-2015 11:36
From: Angela Southworth
Subject: Re: Review comment tracking outside of review

@George - If you were part of the review, the REV-186v1 would be a hyperlink that you could click and then see the comments for that particular item. If the REV-186v1 is not a hyperlink, then you were not part of the review and are unable to access the comments associated. There is no setting needed and this is by default how Jama works.

Hi,
Actually, the Item Activity widget documents the review only at Review closure.

Could we have a "This item was reviewed in REV-xxx" statement at each new revision publication of the review?

This is needed in case of rolling review strategy since the review is never closed.
For a given Item, it's activity panel would then display several of those statements till the moment it gets out of the review scope.

Thanks

------------------------------
Christian Binard
ON semiconductor
Belgium
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 10-30-2019 05:19
From: Christian Binard
Subject: Re: Review comment tracking outside of review

Hi Angela,
as you said, when following the review reference hyperlink in the Activity widget, a panel opens with the item related comments made during the review. Nice (even if a would have preferred comments merge as suggested by several times in this post).

May I suggest extra to add also an hyperlink to the review itself (in the activity or the consecutive panel)?
This would help to trace the context.
Today, I need to copy the review key word (REV-186 v1), open any review and modify the URL with REV-186,V1 to get to it.
Thanks

------------------------------
Christian Binard
ON semiconductor
Belgium

Original Message:
Sent: 04-10-2015 11:36
From: Angela Southworth
Subject: Re: Review comment tracking outside of review

@George - If you were part of the review, the REV-186v1 would be a hyperlink that you could click and then see the comments for that particular item. If the REV-186v1 is not a hyperlink, then you were not part of the review and are unable to access the comments associated. There is no setting needed and this is by default how Jama works.

Original Message------

Hi,
Actually, the Item Activity widget documents the review only at Review closure.

Could we have a "This item was reviewed in REV-xxx" statement at each new revision publication of the review?

This is needed in case of rolling review strategy since the review is never closed.
For a given Item, it's activity panel would then display several of those statements till the moment it gets out of the review scope.

Thanks

------------------------------
Christian Binard
ON semiconductor
Belgium
------------------------------

@Angela - Thanks for the clarification (I didn't think I'd missed a config option!).

@Kristina - So this wouldn't help for new members joining a Jama project as they wouldn't have been part of previous reviews. I think this makes the option for retrospectively making reviews public more appealing.

I may have missed something. I have downloaded the report and configured it per the instructions but when I go back to my project and try to select a review to run the report on the selection box is empty. Is there something I may have missed?

The report only works for reviews that are still open.

Well... I guess this would be somewhat useful but doesn't address my original issue. My issue will be solved once I can make reviews public retroactively. I will be able to do this once I update my on premise instance from 2014.1. We have started that process. Thanks for the feature.

And just to note, Davin, that you'll have to edit and publish the review to make a closed review public. There's no way to make it public without opening it up again. (Although you could republish it with only yourself as the audience so no one gets the notifications, and then provide other users the direct review link.)

Sounds good. Thanks for the info.

Hi Kristina, Just a clarification - We can use the review center comments report in 2014.2 you meant or the new version that was out last month. I am on 2014.2 and trying to access that report

The Review">https://jamasoftware.box.com/s/sfwg88wnk1bzowflr18apjubtk19mtnj">Review Center Comments report that was written for 2014.1 *should* work for 2014.2, however, it has not been tested and we cannot confirm that it does.
The version for 2015.1 will not work with 2014.2 because of the BIRT upgrade in 2015.1.

Hi Kristina, Can you please guide me to a user guide on review center comments report? I am on 2014.2 version now

The most we have for a user guide for the report is the Word doc in the report folder on Box (https://jamasoftware.app.box.com/s/sfwg88wnk1bzowflr18apjubtk19mtnj). Aside from that, an open Review needs to be selected as the parameter within the report run screen.

Do you have a particular question?

Thank you

HI Kristina, Can I recover a closed review and run a report?

Sorry to bug you Kristina, I think I am in need of help again:-(

So I followed the instructions and added the report. Now I am trying to run a report for recovered review - My question as above..

Q) Can I recover and run a report?

Q) I created a review just now (Brand new review) and tried to run a report(since this is open review) It pulls up a review for something that is way too old. That is not the one I selected. The review it is pulling is an old one and is closed. I understand that this report is unsupported in latest version but if we are on old 2014.1 version, can we still use it or this feature no longer exists?

Ha! You're bugging no one ;)

1. Yes, you can recover a review and run a report. However, it might not be open after recovering it—you might have to also choose Tools > Reopen Review after recovering it. (It depends what status the Review was when it was originally closed.)
2. As long as you pulled the report out of the folder indicated for the version you're on, it should work. The report for 2014.1 was tested on 2014.1, but there is no reason it shouldn't work on 2014.2—it just hadn't been tested. I'm not sure why it would pull up a review that is for something else, considering the parameter is chooses is based on the review ID. Can you attach a screenshot of the Criteria from the Add/Edit screen when you setup the report?

Instead of creating a new thread, I have a question in a similar vein. I would like replies to a review comment to email the user who created the comment, even after the review has closed. As review administrator, I may need to respond to a review comment after it has closed, and I would like that information to be sent to the commentator, maybe with a link to the reviewed item. It would help with closing the loop on some reviews.

Bill, what version of Jama are you using? I can't recall that we've made any changes to how Review comment emails work, but I just tested a user replying to a comment after a review was closed, and the original commenter received an email that there had been a reply.

Kristina, thanks for following up.  The email went to his spam filter.

Ah, I'm glad to hear that it went somewhere ;) Thanks for letting me know!

Kristina,

In the "Reports" I see "Review Center Stats Report" but I don't see the "Review Center Comments report" that you mentioned in your post from several months ago.  How do I generate the "Review Center Comments report?"  I need a report that includes the stats and the comments, even from a closed review.  Thank you.

The RC Comments report is a (non-supported) custom report created by our Services team. You can get details, including how to add it to your instance, via this thread in the community. However, it only shows comments from open reviews. 

If you need a report that shows comments from reviews in any state along with the stats, you're in custom reporting territory (which would require a Services engagement, unless you develop it yourself for an on-premises environment).

Kristina,

Thank you.  Are there also instructions for how to develop our own reports for our on-premise environment?

Start here https://community.jamasoftware.com/jama/topics/introduction-to-advanced-reporting">https://community.jamasoftware.com/jama/topics/introduction-to-advanced-reporting">https://community.jamasoftware.com/jama/topics/introduction-to-advanced-reporting to determine if your needs call for BIRT or Velocity. Once you've decided that, there are some tutorial videos that can get you going. 

Hi,

We'd like to revisit this issue, if possible. Can we have the item's comments in a review merged with the item's comments stream?

It sounds like a permissions issue may be in the way, as the people who have access to view an item may not have access to the review. However, as George points out, this is an artificial obstacle and shouldn't be there in the first place. I think making the item's Review Comments visible in the item's comment stream is a neat(er) way of resolving the issue of making all past reviews public. It actually preserves the permissions better in my opinion.

In theory, if you have permissions to view an item you should have permission to view all of the activity/commentary on that item, wherever it may live (Review Center, Stream or just the item change notifications). This seems acceptable to me, but I'm open to any alternative views on this. 

Forcing people to click through a review link to a review that may or may not have a comment on an item seems like a roundabout way of collecting the needed information. I think we'd all prefer to see the information displayed in one place.

Should I file this as a new feature request?

Thanks,

Ed

Has there  been any progress on this?

It's an idea that would provide a lot of value to us as being able to see the full comments history of items in one place is currently not possible and requires hunting around and asking others.  New team members joining not being able to see history; having to hunt through closed and archived reviews; users not having access to reviews - makes it a pain to see the comments and decision trail for items.

It'd be a whole lot simpler if all comments were available on the item itself regardless of the status for associated reviews.

------------------------------
Warm regards,
Gavin Ryan-Keenor
Business Analyst
Australia
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 03-15-2016 21:21
From: Edward Choi
Subject: Re: Review comment tracking outside of review

Hi,

We'd like to revisit this issue, if possible. Can we have the item's comments in a review merged with the item's comments stream?

It sounds like a permissions issue may be in the way, as the people who have access to view an item may not have access to the review. However, as George points out, this is an artificial obstacle and shouldn't be there in the first place. I think making the item's Review Comments visible in the item's comment stream is a neat(er) way of resolving the issue of making all past reviews public. It actually preserves the permissions better in my opinion.

In theory, if you have permissions to view an item you should have permission to view all of the activity/commentary on that item, wherever it may live (Review Center, Stream or just the item change notifications). This seems acceptable to me, but I'm open to any alternative views on this. 

Forcing people to click through a review link to a review that may or may not have a comment on an item seems like a roundabout way of collecting the needed information. I think we'd all prefer to see the information displayed in one place.

Should I file this as a new feature request?

Thanks,

Ed

Hi @Gavin,
Adding review comments to items is not something that we have committed to the short-term roadmap, although it is something that we have been exploring. If we decide to tackle this, you will likely see one of our Product Managers hop in this thread and ask for more details!

------------------------------
Kristina King
Jama Software
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 03-25-2018 20:57
From: Gavin Ryan-Keenor
Subject: Re: Review comment tracking outside of review

Has there  been any progress on this?

It's an idea that would provide a lot of value to us as being able to see the full comments history of items in one place is currently not possible and requires hunting around and asking others.  New team members joining not being able to see history; having to hunt through closed and archived reviews; users not having access to reviews - makes it a pain to see the comments and decision trail for items.

It'd be a whole lot simpler if all comments were available on the item itself regardless of the status for associated reviews.

------------------------------
Warm regards,
Gavin Ryan-Keenor
Business Analyst
Australia

Original Message:
Sent: 03-15-2016 21:21
From: Edward Choi
Subject: Re: Review comment tracking outside of review

Hi,

We'd like to revisit this issue, if possible. Can we have the item's comments in a review merged with the item's comments stream?

It sounds like a permissions issue may be in the way, as the people who have access to view an item may not have access to the review. However, as George points out, this is an artificial obstacle and shouldn't be there in the first place. I think making the item's Review Comments visible in the item's comment stream is a neat(er) way of resolving the issue of making all past reviews public. It actually preserves the permissions better in my opinion.

In theory, if you have permissions to view an item you should have permission to view all of the activity/commentary on that item, wherever it may live (Review Center, Stream or just the item change notifications). This seems acceptable to me, but I'm open to any alternative views on this. 

Forcing people to click through a review link to a review that may or may not have a comment on an item seems like a roundabout way of collecting the needed information. I think we'd all prefer to see the information displayed in one place.

Should I file this as a new feature request?

Thanks,

Ed

No, Ed, I'll change this to an Idea since there is a lot of good context from everyone.

I hear you, though, on all this. It seems like approaching this from a fresh perspective rather than pointing to the "artificial obstacles" makes the most sense.

I wanted to chime in here to say that all users here have been requesting the same feature.  Looking at item comment history is much more difficult than I anticipated it would be with Jama. The whole solution of quickly finding the answer to "Why did we do it that way?" is not very quick at all with the current implementation.

------------------------------
Nick Hainline
NV
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 03-15-2016 23:16
From: Kristina King
Subject: Re: Review comment tracking outside of review

No, Ed, I'll change this to an Idea since there is a lot of good context from everyone.

I hear you, though, on all this. It seems like approaching this from a fresh perspective rather than pointing to the "artificial obstacles" makes the most sense.