jenniferlee-dsva
commented
3 years ago @mchelen-gov @rroueche @drorva - Adding a note here per request wrt dependencies. CC: @davidconlon @johnhashva
There are 3 known products that currently need notifications, but we were informed when these products launched that product notifications feature would not be available until the global notifications core CMS functionality was built.
1/ Benefit hubs:
- VBA, VHA, VA, and NCA digital media teams currently have edit and publish access. The PW team has asked them and received agreement to not publish any changes without first notifying the PW/sitewide content team to review. Because we currently don't have assignment and notifications in the hubs, they have to remember to save changes in the CMS as a draft (without using the publish dropdown), and then off the CMS, send an email to the content team. Sometimes we've had a stakeholder (at NCA) forget to notify us and so, their change didn't get published in a timely manner.
2/Forms:
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When the product launched we asked for a notifications feature that notifies the PO/PM when a form is removed from the source VA MSSQL database. When a form is removed in the MSSQL, the form meta data is migrated into Drupal with a 'deleted:true' flag and the date it was removed in the MSSQL db. But we have no way of knowing when this happens today and what the affected forms are.
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We need to be notified of this status, so that we can archive the form detail landing page and send the info to Mikki to determine whether a redirect to the forms search or to a more granular content page needs to occur. (Today, because we don't know when this happens, we created a special 'form has been retired or removed' message when someone tries to download the paper form; but the detail landing page remains live on prod.)
3/ Resources and support:
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To publish an article, it takes many steps within the editorial process: someone enters the content into the template; someone reviews the content; someone else copy edits; etc. We asked for notifications so that the different content roles can easily complete their task and notify the next person that they can do their task.
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Because we don't have this in the CMS, we currently rely totally on Slack and GitHub. In q4 2021, we planned to onboard VA SMEs to create RS content for people who work with beneficiaries (school administrators, fiduciaries, career counselors, etc.). They do not use Slack and GitHub, and today on TeamSite, they are able to simply submit their finished editorial task to the reviewer via a notification system within the CMS.
With each of these products, we were told that the notification function couldn't be worked on until the core functionality was completed. However when I have brought up this core functionality in the past, it gets deprioritized or pushed out because there isn't a specific product dependency. (Or rather - there was with prior products, but we moved forward with a bandaid approach bc it wasn't available.) So we end up in a circular justification for not providing it. I hope I've described clearly the rationale for the need of this functionality.
Additionally, I don't think we can expand to tier 3 content and tier 3 users without key basic CMS AX capabilities. It will be a serious CX and trust issue if we try to onboard tier 3 users with the current bandaid approaches that we have been using.
TheBoatyMcBoatFace
EWashb
Problem statement
An increased number of users and content in the Drupal CMS makes it challenging to locate the content that is relevant to the user. Communication about content needing review or other editorial actions takes places outside the Drupal CMS.
Many Content editors are accustomed to use applications that allow for an assignment of an owner / reviewer / approver and request the same capability for their Drupal CMS editorial workflow.
Based on these requests, the editorial workflow in the Drupal CMS should be enhanced with an ability to assign owners at various stages of the content lifecycle, so as to streamline editorial processes.
A critical component of the editorial workflow is timely notifications, which should inform CMS users about events related to editorial actions for the content they need to follow.
Hypothesis or Bet
We will know we're done when... ("Definition of Done")
Known Blockers/Dependencies
User stories
As a Content editor, who wants someone else to review my draft, or to make some edits, I want to be able to assign it to another CMS user so that they can take the next action.
As a Content editor, who made edits to an important page or assigned it to someone for review, I want to be notified when the page is updated or when it’s editorial status has been changed, so that I am informed of performed actions and don’t have to keep going back to the Drupal CMS and manually refreshing my page to understand its status.
As a CMS user, I want to be able to subscribe to notifications for a specific page, so that I can follow the updates to that page.
As a CMS user, I want to be able to UNsubscribe from notifications for a specific page when I no longer need to follow its updates.
va.gov-team product directory
https://github.com/department-of-veterans-affairs/va.gov-team/tree/master/platform/cms/product-outlines/editorial-workflow-assignments-and-notifications
Affected users and stakeholders
This is the #1 feature request from @jenniferlee-dsva