Add Filters to Review Center (filter comments, filter users, filter statuses, etc.)

Sebastian Theiß
edited October 2016 in
Is it possible to add filters to the review center in the same way as they are implemented in the project's view?

I see a lot of use cases for this. For instance, our developers are classified in electronics, software and mechanics engineers. Requirements have special flags for these groups to classify whether a requirement has to be implemented in electronics, software and/or mechanics. Especially, the mechanics guys get the work order to check the requirements that are classified as "Mechanics". I don't want to create an own review for these requirements (for assessment purposes).
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Comments

  • Kristina King
    edited June 2016
    Interesting idea, Sebastian. I wonder how common it is, among all our customers, to send out large reviews but require people to complete only parts?
  • Knowledge Base
    edited September 2015
    Yes-- custom filters are a great idea!

    In our current approach, we use a large Word Document to describe the "Solution". As new Jama-ites we're loading the doc into Jama... which converts to 150-ish "items". Generally, we're interested in a review of all items, so a subset isn't necessary to break out. However, in a current scenario we want to present the entire set of items, but want to highlight a subset-- and are struggling with how to present to the client.

    Our thought is to start a review of the initial (full) set, have them "approve all", then change a flag in the targeted subset and Republish--which would cause all the approvals to be cleared for those items. Thus identifying the items of interest in V2.
    Suggestions welcome!

    (Note: we are not using "Stakeholders" at this time).
  • Chris Jenkins
    edited February 2016
    Hi All,

    I often have subsets of requirements reviewed using filters in the Project tab. Requirements are generally updated using a ticket number (e.g., Issue_001), which I add to a Notes field in the requirement. The filter is created using the issue number, then i just right click that particular filter and submit for review.

    Furthermore if you are using stakeholder licences, those reviewers can go to the Project tab and apply that filter to the explorer menu to see how those requirements fit into the entire project.

    Also, Paul, if that document you import is already approved, you should be able to perform a batch update of the workflow status to 'approved'.

    Cheers,
    Chris
  • Scot Mitchell
    edited September 2015
    Almost all of our reviews are like this.  Our reviews often involve Electrical, Mechanical, Software and Regulatory items.  Many of the people that need to approve in the review are specialists in their area and so they may only have a dozen or so of the 100+ items in their area that they need to approve.  We have told these people to just approve anything they don't have an interest in but if somehow we could set up some kind of filtering where they only saw their area of interest, that would be much better.   Another option is to have an "approve but not in my area" approval so that the stats could show the number of people that really looked at an item.  We have thought about sending out multiple reviews but that really makes it hard on the users that do have to review the whole specification.  Filtering or being able to highlight just specific sections of the review would really help us out.
  • Knowledge Base
    edited September 2015
    Variation:  "N/A" = "Approve but not my area"  (to indicate the reviewer/approver has no opinion on the item., i.e., even if the content changes, don't change the check mark (i.e., don't remove my "N/A" indicator. Statistically, still counts towards overall progress.
  • Ryan Dill
    edited November 2015
    This functionality would also be useful to our users -- one group in particular has complained that when they're reviewing a set of items, they want to be able to review the highest-priority ones first. While the appropriate priority field has been exposed the Review Center views by the tool admins, searching for only the high-priority items requires:
    • Loading all items at once first, with the maximum number of items per page;
    • Subsequently copy-and-pasting the desired priority in the browser's Find function and clicking "next" as many times as it takes.
    They feel this workaround isn't ideal, because:
    • It wastes time loading all items when you only want to inspect a subset;
    • It relies on the browser to report how many matches there are of that priority, which may be insufficient for knowing exactly how many of that priority there are (e.g. Firefox stops reporting the number found after 100 matches).
    Both of these would likely be resolved by filter (or facet) capability in the review itself.
    Ryan Dill
  • Jennifer Leitch
    edited September 2016
    Ah ha! Something that Angie hasn't tagged yet ;) 

    We would like this as well, as we have some very large projects that involve up to 80 reviewers, spanning multiple systems. The reviews for these tend to be very large, complex, and at one time have taken our on-prem version down. 

    I'm not sure if this is in a different idea/request, but this would certainly be desired. I also have a request for someone to be able to filter and see their last commented/noted item. This way, when performing a giant review, they can go back to where they were and start up again. For folks like myself, who like to hop around and review certain pieces not in order, this would be handy as well.

    Thanks!
  • swoo Woo
    edited September 2016
    Hi Jennifer,

    Thanks for your suggestions. I can understand why better filtering and sorting may be very desirable when there are 80! reviews. I sometimes get confused even with 8 reviews. I can totally understand.

    In the hosted version, a Home View at least has a nice and easy way to see the active reviews that are relevant. Are you aware of that or perhaps you are on an older on-premises Jama version?
    image 

    Have a nice day and keep those ideas coming.

    swoo
  • Jennifer Leitch
    edited March 2016
    We are on-prem, but have the new release in testing.

    Also, it's not 80 reviews, but 80 reviewer people...on one review...with upwards sometimes of 400 items to review. Each person may only have 5 or so items to approve, but may want to see all 400 :)

    Pain and woe!
  • Sebastian Theiß
    edited June 2016
    We have to take care about one small thing...

    If every reviewer only reviews a small part (one reviewer is only reviewing requirements tagged as software and others the ones tagged as electronics requirements), there won't be a cross-check anymore. Thus, nobody checks 
    1. that the guy who has set the flags (electronics, software, mechanics,...) has done a good job (there might be requirements that aren't flagged)
    2. The software guy won't know if there are hardware limitations that affect the software.

    Filters are really great, but the moderators of the review have to keep an eye on the balance between high effort and min quality...
  • Sebastian Theiß
    edited February 2016
    The idea of Paul to have an additional button (e.g. for approvers) like "reviewed" is an additional option (I don't like it...). 

    Reviewers can mark items as "reviewed" (interpretation depends on the company's implementation).

    Approvers have ADDITIONAL options:
    - Approved (I approve the content)
    - Reviewed (I have formally checked the item)
    - Needs More Work (I have added a comment to explain why)

    Why I don't like it:
    I also had discussions in the past with a mechanics guy that didn't want to "approve" the software requirements of a review. He said that he don't want to be punished (is it the correct wording?) by our company or another external authority due to the fact that one of our products leads to a tragic accident. But hey...
    1. The mechanics guy is listed as "mechanics guy" in the project's documentation. Nobody will accuse a mechanics guy of haven't seen a mistake in the software requirements... 
    2. Reviews are "only" one method to increase the quality of a document or software code. If we do reviews (and document them in a proper way), no assessor will ever discuss single comments of reviewers. They will ask who were the reviewer, did they had the correct knowledge, who has released, was everything reviewed, are there review documents to each release etc.
    3. A third option wouldn't be smart anymore! You will have reviewers that mark the items correct according to there knowledge. That's fine. But you will also have the reviewers that don't want to be punished and the ones that didn't care about the definitions (they will choose one option depending in his/hers daily condition).

    If a third option is added, it should be configurable (turn on/off, rename) by the OrgAdmin.

    Cheers,
    Sebastian
  • Knowledge Base
    edited September 2015
    Slight revision - Limit the "N/A" option to reviewers - to indicate that they either have no opinion on the topic, or may not be qualified to render an opinion.
    The current option of "reviewed" implies more than may be warranted.
    I'd like to know how much rubber stamping may be going on.
      


     
  • Jennifer Leitch
    edited March 2016
    I know we have quite a bit of rubber stamping. The user feedback of "I want the option to see the review items, but I don't want claim responsibility for it" comes up often. We require our security team to review all requirements - they want to see everything, but they aren't especially stakeholders for every single item. They don't want to mark items as Yes or No, but more of "looked at it, no issues."

    It does put more work onto the moderator, but our user feedback would encourage moderator involvement. 

    Thanks!
  • Kristina King
    edited June 2016
    Great point.
  • Kristina King
    edited June 2016
    Thanks for all the additional feedback, Sebastian, Paul and Jennifer. It's really helpful to have not only the context but also the "pain" it can cause.
  • Edward Choi
    edited July 2016
    This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled A way to filter Review Center comments based on who made them.

    It would be very helpful to be able to build in custom filters for the review comments in Review Center. While a filter exists for items with our comments, sometimes we want to see what someone may have said or marked up in a review.

    In a very active review we may have a lot of people saying a lot of things, and rather than searching through each comment one by one it would be nice to filter or sort the comments. Then when a reviewer asks: "Hey, what did you think of what I suggested in the review" a moderator could quickly bring that up and reply fairly quickly.
  • Edward Choi
    edited July 2016
    It's a little different, but yeah, if you can filter the items and their comments I'm all for it. I just thought it would need to be handled differently.
  • Edward Choi
    edited July 2016
    A use case we'd like to be handled in custom review center filters would be something like show all "Needs More Work" items which have comments not "acknowledged", "rejected" or "replied to". This will help narrow it down to items which have yet to be addressed.
  • Kristina King
    edited June 2016
    Yeah, that makes sense...additional facets on the already existing filters.
  • Tom Green
    edited March 2016
    We have a similar request from our Review Moderators.  They would like to filter large reviews by 'Needs More Work' and something akin to 'Moderator already looked at it'.  This allows them to moderate over multiple different sessions without getting lost.
    Tom Green
    Thermo Fisher Scientific
  • Kristina King
    edited June 2016
    Makes sense to me.
  • Kimberly Kick
    edited March 2016

    These filtering options will be helpful

  • Vladimir Cech
    edited June 2016
    This functionality would definitely be useful also for us.
    Vlada
  • Edward Choi
    edited July 2016
    Hi,

    has there been any developments on this feature request?

    It's getting really painful to have to page through the list of review items ("yes, please, show more") and filters could really help with that, if you didn't want to have a "View All" because of performance concerns.

    Thanks,

    Ed
  • Kristina King
    edited July 2016
    Hey Ed, I hate to break your heart, but so far, no. We recently focused on Relationships in Review Center (in Hosted/Express now), and it doesn't look like we have any other imminent Review Center updates.
  • Any progress on this? Is any work on filters/facets for Review Center on the roadmap for this year?

    Thanks,

    Ed
  • No, Ed, I have not seen plans for this request.
  • Another vote for better filtering in Review Center.

    I frequently look at 200-ish items in a review. It would be super helpful to be able to be have a filter that only shows me things I have not marked or commented; aka the things I have not been able to review. It is important that things I've commented on be excluded because such complex reviews may require a conversation over an item before finally marking it as Approved or Needs More Work. These become hurdles that need to be reviewed frequently and slow down the process of reviewing a document in multiple sessions.

    Cheers!
    Matt

    RBC Medical Innovations
  • Robin Calhoun
    Robin Calhoun Product Manager
    Hi Everyone,

    Thanks for sharing your feedback. It has supported the case for revisiting this area of Review Center. I'm considering what simple filters would be valuable in the existing architecture here, hopefully in the next few releases if they fit the current pattern:
    Filters in Review Center
    Sounds like a missing filter is "items I have not interacted with yet," meaning I haven't commented or marked them reviewed/approved/needs-work. Any other thoughts for this style of filter?

    ---
    Separately we are also considering how we might solve the other challenges brought up in this thread:
    1) A way to mark something as "N/A" given my role/expertise and
    2) Custom filtering based on a field to narrow down the list to your role, department, or expertise.
    It's part of the conversation as we update RC, though we haven't landed on an approach yet.
  • @Robin,

    As a moderator for many reviews, it is difficult for me to manage comments with the current Review Center filters.  I would like to see these filters added to the list you showed in the Review page:
    Filters
    Alternatively, the thread format of the Feedback page is very difficult for review moderators, so if the Feedback page could be updated so that you could get a reading view of the filtered items that looks like the Review page, that would also answer this request.  Essentially I need to see the view available in the Review page that shows the text of the items under review with linked items in reading view and all comments on each item.  The sort created desc view of filtered comments currently available in the Feedback page is so difficult to use I never go there, even though it has the filters I want.  Without the context of all comments, I cannot adequately respond to the newest comments.  When I click into an item to see the details and comment history, then I can't get back to the Feedback page without a lot of clicking because there is only a "Return to review" option at the top and no "Return to feedback" button.
    LC