VIT Suggestion Form - VLab Improvement Team

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Make permission display the same for all portlets. If you try to change permissions for one portlet type, the next one you use has a different format. Make them all the same. This demonstrates once again the issue of consistency within Vlab.

Add a HTML, CSS, and Javascript editor to allow for customization of Vlab pages.

Do not allow Vlab to overwrite HTML and CSS code when changing column sizes, e.g. going tom 50/50 to 70/30 two column.

Ensure that the editors for all portlets are identical in functionality including the location of edit icons along the top. Also, we need to have the choice to have text under the icons. Not everyone works well with icons only, especially when using a new editor. Would suggest following a simple RTF editor layout (?). I am available to help out.

Hi Folks, Not sure if anything can be done about this, but copying and pasting text (from Word or Google mail for instance) into vlab forum space seems to result in formatting issues with word wrapping. There was no word wrapping. I had to toggle back and forth between the preview option and the text editor to have the formatting not chop words. The post I'm referring to is here: https://vlab.noaa.gov/group/probabilistic-snow-experiment/discussions-forums-/-/message_boards/message/692892#_19_message_692892 Dave Radell ERH

Community Participant List and Historical Membership list. Not sure if this exists for all, but I think it should. Brian

Support code syntax highlighting in VLab Communities (Wiki, Forum, Blog, etc.)

Improve "Request Membership" process. I clicked on the "Request Membership" link. Instead of a message saying the request was submitted, a new page came up with a dialogue box for comments and a Save button. So, was the requested submitted? Are comments needed? Do I need to click "Save" to complete the request? Very confusing!

Org: NWS - HQ In app Redmine notifications would make Redmine much more friendly. Currently, you receive an email notification of a change in Redmine. If you're already in the Redmine interface, this means you have to go to your email just to come back to Redmine. If you're in an active project where many people are updating issues and forums, this means many trips to your email. If there is some way, such as a plugin, to have some kind of notification system in Redmine, e.g. VLab's (Liferay's) notification center at the top next to your username, that would make the application much easier to use for those of us who participate in active projects.

Community Owners should be listed for each community for all to view. No need for secrets. This should be listed in the communities portlet.

Is Online Chat a feature ?

Region: NWS - HQ As I become more active in multiple communities, it would be extremely beneficial to see my involvement in all of those communities in one collective space. For example, if I have made comments in the forums of three separate communities, I would like to be able to see that activity of mine in one portlet. This would give me a much better grasp over where I am interacting directly with community members and allow me to more easily check back in on those discussions. This issue goes beyond just forums, as I'm also interested in keeping a tab on the various subscriptions or wiki edits I've performed, as well. I realize email notifications will always keep me up-to-date of activities; however, I'm buried in email from many other projects and would greatly appreciate interacting within VLab itself rather than vicariously through VLab emails. After a bit of reading, the Liferay Personal Page area seems like a great means for each user to individually stylize their content in a controlled space and, I think, would vastly improve the overall VLab experience by giving users a "Home" which pulls together their conversations and activities within the disjointed community structure.

NWS - HQ Enable private note creation and view for all development related roles in Redmine. Our group has really benefited from the transition to Redmine, but we still find ourselves often going back to email to have team coordination discussions about tickets. 1) Sharing "FYI" technical information that may assist another support member. (e.g. "The VM's use virtio VLM disk images, so `dd` or LV snapshots can be used here.") 2) Sharing developer information which potentially changes the ticket's state or properties. (e.g. "Terry is working this issue in Holland, but he's out for 2 weeks on holiday. Nothing is happening until then.") 3) Discussing the content of a new request before determining what should be done. (e.g. "Allen brought this up on another call last week. When he says he can't find that option in the menu, he actually means the option is still there, but it shows an empty/blank space that's still clickable.") 4) Leaving managerial commentary for team members. (e.g. "Don't forget to add office.watcher to these types of tickets." or "Looks like there is a great deal of miscommunication here. Please just call Barry and see if that helps clarify the request." It would be incredibly beneficial to be able to have these discussions within the tickets themselves. Doing so via email just invites more back-and-forth between browser tabs and matching up timestamps to see "When team member X said Y, was that before or after their post saying Z?"

Hi Doug and the VLab Improvement Team, I'd like to elevate a VLab improvement item to the VIT. The VLab Team has started a ticket for this issue (see https://vlab.noaa.gov/redmine/issues/21713 ). In VLab there is a way to collect form data using something called a Dynamic Data List (DDL). During data collection, a user has the option to upload a file. The upload process however is quite convoluted. Instead of a query to look for a file on your local computer to upload, VLab DDL first requires users to upload content to the Document Library. Then they have to select the document from the Document Library. A very confusing process. The VLab Team built a custom solution for the SOO-DOH Projects Dashboard (https://vlab.noaa.gov/web/nws/soo-doh-dashboard), where users can directly upload documents from their local PCs. We would like DDL to have this same capability and we request that the VIT make this a high priority improvement to VLab so that all users can leverage this functionality. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions. Thanks! Dave Myrick NWS Office of Science and Technology Integration

NWS-HQ : Enhance Jenkins integration with Redmine by using the https://wiki.jenkins-ci.org/display/JENKINS/Embeddable+Build+Status+Plugin . This would create a static URL to a generated image reflecting the last build status of your project. You could then use Textile or Markdown to embed the link in your Overview or Wiki pages in Redmine providing a clear indication of the project's current status.

Small, non-urgent, suggestion to add a field in community to filter by Line Office. I'd like to be able to look at a list of communities by Line Office.

I LOVE the Ideas Marketplace. Thank you for making it live!!! I have one suggestion for the page. Would you be willing to add a brief "how to" or "best practice" for submitting ideas at the top of the page? For example, it could look something like this: Layout for Ideas (How to Organize Your Idea to Maximize Feedback or Interest). 1. Concise Description - In one or two sentences, specifically state your idea. For instance, "The NWS should create a weather app." 2. Elaborate on your idea, but be concise - 1 paragraph or so. For example, "The NWS does not currently provide a publicly available weather app for smart phones/tablets. This app could provide life saving information and up to date radar, satellite and other observations." 3. If your idea does have some unanswered questions, then wrap up with those questions to stimulate future conversation. "Who would support such an app? Who would develop it? What goals, other than providing weather information, could we achieve with an app that we can't through other mediums?" Remember, other users will vote on your idea, but if you don't provide a clear and concise idea, they won't know how to vote. Finally, ensure you apply appropriate tags to your idea to make it easy to find by other VLAB community members. That's all. You don't have to follow my particular layout, but I think a common layout would be beneficial for everybody. A big key is keeping ideas concise. Nobody wants to read a 15 page idea. Thank you and great job!!! JJ Brost, SRH.

On the email notifications from the forum, the NAME of the person replying and the VLAB FORUM where the message was posted does not appear anywhere in the subject or message body. So I have to click on the link to see who sent the message and what . It'd be nice to see the NAME and VLAB FORUM in the message.

VLAB Email notifications have links which go to the public/web facing side of Vlab, not the internal/logged-in side. So if I want to say, comment on a blog or reply to a forum post I have to log in, manually navigate back to the Vlab group/forum/blog post, find what I wanted to reply to, then actually reply. I'd like if the link that showed up at the bottom of the email went right to the direct page where I can post/comment (which would then force the log in screen to pop up briefly).

Deploy and maintain a SonarQube instance as Development Service

I would like to suggest that you make the Easy Redmine Mindmap Plugin: https://www.easyredmine.com/redmine-mindmap-plugin available in Vlab. I would like to use visual mind mapping for my project management, and this seems to be software that would provide that. I volunteer to test this if you make it available. Here is a reference for what mind mapping is and how it can be useful for project management: https://blog.capterra.com/ultimate-guide-project-management-mind-mapping/ The benefits I see to this kind of planning and task management are: * this is suitable for visual thinkers and for seeing the big picture * the mind map can drive the Gantt Chart, instead of Issues driving the Gantt chart as we do today in Vlab. This is much more forward thinking and top-down in my opinion than how we do it today. * it is collaborative and team oriented. It lets team members see where their tasks fit into the big picture and how other components of the task are progressing. It lets the team leader see all components and easily and visually track progress. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you for considering this request. - Judy Ghirardelli (NWS/OSTI/MDL) Judy.Ghirardelli@noaa.gov

I use VLab Redmine for Project Management. My use case is that I would like to be able to create an Issue and the calculated Due Date adjusts based on US Federal Holidays. For example, say I have several linked Issues in December. I would like the last Issue's Due Date to auto calculate and factor in both 12/25 and 1/1 as Holidays. Rather than the parent Issue having a Due Date of 12/31 (a Sunday), the actual Due Date would be the next business day (1/2). Or, maybe you get a warning banner if you try to create an Issue with a Start Date that is a Saturday, Sunday, or Holiday. There is a "Multi Calendar" plugin (http://www.redmine.org/plugins/redmine_multi_calendar), but that just displays Holidays in the Redmine Project calendar. I've also searched for Open Source Redmine Plugins with the search string "working time" with no luck. This Issue is the closest discussion on this feature -- http://www.redmine.org/issues/2161. Does this feature exist in the Redmine world?