Allow Customization of the "Reading View" in the same way as the "Review Reading View"

Dana Frost
edited November 2016 in
We always try to discourage printing out items and recommend using the views provided in JAMA. But the "Reading View" is severely limited because you cannot see any of the custom fields. You cannot even see the "Release Field" in the reading view.

The "Review Reading View" already has the ability to be configured to include any fields you want.  This feature (I have requested before) is strangely still missing. I am surprised that more users do not request this feature.
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Comments

  • Pam Aipperspach
    edited April 2016
    We would also like this feature.  We currently are able to review the release type and release number in the Review Reading View and, now that we have collaborator licenses for those who need read-only access to the requirements in the Projects area, it is necessary for them to easily read through the requirements and have access to see custom fields as well.
  • Knowledge Base
    edited July 2015
    I agree. I have requested that we be able to turn off the arbitrary outline numbering and allow us to determine what identifier to use. In our case, we'd use the item ID
  • Kristina King
    edited June 2016
    Thanks for posting this idea, Dana, and to Pam and Sandy for adding context, too. I'm not sure why the disparity between regular and Review Center Reading View exists in the first place, but you make a good point that it should be a consistent experience.
  • Knowledge Base
    edited August 2015
    This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled Allow Configuration of Reading View.

    For some item types it is beneficial to see other fields on the reading view that just summary and description.
    Please allow the configuration of the list view by the user and/or by the administrator (like for the Review reading view).
  • Knowledge Base
    edited June 2016
    This is an absolute "wow, how is this not a feature already?".  If we just got a copy of the review-center view instead of the not-customizable reading view it would make me very happy (and should, seemingly, be pretty quick, especially as versus making the existing view customizable in any way).  A lot of our most read/reviewed items make more sense in the reading view.
  • Kristina King
    edited June 2016
    Kit, what is it about the Reading View that enables these items to "make more sense"? Is it that they need to be read from top-to-bottom rather than left-to-right, or is it the ability to display tables, diagrams and graphics in Reading View?
  • Knowledge Base
    edited June 2016

    Both, actually.  Reading top to bottom mimics the reading view in the review center – which was sensical enough to develop for that audience, and often the same users/personas are developing the artifacts being sent for review.  Being able to view the graphics, tables, et cetera inline ... it makes the content read like a document.

    The table view which exists is fantastic, as it lets us see a customizable summary and/or report-like views of the data (including the handy custom-color-tinted cells like status), but trying to view specific details of custom rich-text items in our objects is equally invaluable.  Perhaps another way of looking at it:  table view is best for meetings and reference, reading view is best for detailed reviews and proofreading without having to dive into items or dump their contents to MSWord/Excel.

    As an aside to a prior comment in this thread:  +1 vote for allowing custom outline numbering.  For some reason our templates/QA readers are pretty dependent upon those, and are confused when 6.1.1 becomes 5.4.7.6.1.1.  I'm okay with including that value in, e.g., the title field but that's a bit messy on import/export.  (low priority nice-to-have IMO)

  • Kristina King
    edited June 2016
    Gotcha. Thank you much for the added level of detail.
  • Kevin Mote
    edited August 2016

    I strongly agree that this is a very unfortunate shortcoming of an otherwise outstanding product!

    My users have a strong preference for the Reading View, given their background with MS Word Requirements documents. But this deficiency is a rather glaring hole.

    I have resorted to instructing my users to Copy&Paste important field values into the Description field, so they are visible in the Reading View. (Yuck)

    Kevin


    Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS)
  • Gary Garon
    edited June 2016
    Reading tests occurs one at a time or in an export, because the reading view does not include steps.  I have added test steps to reviews.
  • Kristina King
    edited June 2016
    Gary, thanks for adding more context. 
  • Kristina King
    edited June 2016
    You're right, Kevin, that is a gross workaround. There's a lot of good feedback here to share with my colleagues, but any time someone says "Yuck" to a workaround, I know it's serious. ;)
  • Felicia Weick
    edited June 2016
    Agreed. We don't use the heading numbers for anything other than organization since they are arbitrary and can change from revision to revision. Being able to add (at least) the requirement ID so we don't have to continually open each item to know which ID we're looking at would be a HUGE improvement.
  • Kristina King
    edited June 2016
    That's a good point, Felicia. Thanks for chiming in.
  • Allan Pendergrast
    edited November 2015
    I'll join the folks asking for this feature. We have some custom fields that would be really helpful to be shown in the reading view. This is especially useful given the recent update allowing inline editing of items in reading view. Saving a few clicks is always appreciated!
  • James Coalter
    edited June 2016
    We would also like to request this feature. 

    The reason for our request is because we have a custom field within a requirement for 'Rationale', ideally we would like to proof read, in the Reading View, the rationale for all filtered requirements immediately before they are sent for review - currently this is not possible.
  • Kristina King
    edited June 2016
    Makes sense! Thanks for that added context.
  • Scott Holland
    edited November 2015
    Hey, we'd really really like this feature too. My users see it as a major limitation of the software, especially when the function to custom the reading view is available in the review centre - users see it there and are then frustrated that they can see the same information in the regular reading view
  • Marcis Djelassi
    edited July 2016
    We'd also very much apprecite such a functionality.
  • Jonathan Andree
    edited August 2016
    Any updates? I'd vote for this too.

    Jama is very powerful in terms of customizing data types to drive towards a common taxonomy. The power drops off when in reading view.

    For example, if I capture Problem Statement as a field and Solution Options as a field it becomes easier to look for patterns or create filters. But the reading view forces me back into an old-school document style... put everything in one field and use a document template. 
  • Jonathan Andree
    edited August 2016
    Let me add an alternative, which is to have the List View display multiple lines of text as an option. We're kind of stuck. I can have any field in List View, but can't read the full field. I can read the full field in Read View, but am limited to fields. Neither view really meets the full need. It is critical to be able to analyze across items without drilling into each item or exporting to Word. Jama is soooo close to perfection, but this is one of the gotchas that holds it back.
  • Dana Frost
    edited August 2016
    I like this idea of improving the list view. However, I don't see this as an alternative to fixing the reading view.  They are used for different reasons.  The reading view is for read and review all relevant details of an item. 
  • Kristina King
    edited August 2016
    Jonathan, I just wanted to let you know that there are no updates on this.
  • Jessica Ostrowski
    edited November 2016
    This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled Feature Request - Description Text is concatenated in "list" and "reading" view.

    Need the ability to configure field’s showing in reading view of the project. Often more than just the Name and Description for each item needs to be generated into document form for the delivery to customers. The ability view what that document, and data would look like/contain saves hours of re-generating exports/reports to ensure all the data is captured for release. - WYSIWIG - need the ability to see what we are going to get before running expensive reports.
  • +1 from me for this feature.  I would like a consistent experience between this a review centre.
  • +1

    We would also like to request this feature. 
  • Hi everyone,
    Our UX team is currently researching what our users need out of reading view. Our UX manager, Eva, is looking for real live humans to take part in some research.

    We also have a poll open to capture preferences. If you have some time, please complete the poll or volunteer some research time. It'd be great to get you all involved!
  • Hi Kristina,

    Any insight on plans to make reading view customizable - or at least replacing outline numbering?  We are very interested in including the unique Item ID vs. the outline numbering for online reading and exports.

    Thanks,
    Mary
  • Thanks for posting this Dana. When the Project Reading View was introduced, it was assumed that users would be choosing to go there from the List View, so we worked to provide more context than the List View by giving users the Description field - which at the time was the primary field that users wanted to read that they couldn't in a list. We didn't anticipate that users would want to consume content in the Reading View in the same way they do in the Review Center or that users would add as many rich text fields and other fields as they have.

    Thanks to this comment thread we decided to research the issue more, which is why you may have seen the live intercept survey go out in February and customer research sessions in March of this year. We are actively working on providing the ability to toggle on field content for the Reading View to allow users to customize their reading experience. In the next several releases we'll be incrementally introducing new functionality for this view so expect to see these updates in the release notes and what's new videos in the future.
    Joel Hutchinson

    Jama Software
  • Thanks for posting. We saw similar feedback in our live intercept survey and research sessions on the issue. The outline numbering in the Reading View ties to the document ID for the project. When we introduced the Reading View we wanted users to have a reference point that tied to the entire document - assuming users wanted the entire project to be their document. What we found is that users have gone away from this way of consuming information as items in Jama can be moved, so in essence their document ID can change any time someone moves, adds, or deletes items. 

    We are actively working on adding the item ID now in the Reading View. This will be added with a hyperlink that allows the user to navigate to the single item view if they choose. The ID will also be in the same location for every item regardless of what data users have selected so it's easily visible and consistent, so as not to distract from the reading experience.

    We are also looking to remove the document ID numbering from the Reading View and may potentially add options for alternate numbering in the future. In the next several releases we'll be incrementally introducing new functionality for the Reading View so expect to see these updates in the release notes and what's new videos in the future.
    Joel Hutchinson

    Jama Software