Basic "People" features

[richardolsson]

High-level requirements

Views/person listing

• Views list
  • Show title, owner and creation time
  • Create new view
• View
  • Show title and description
  • Edit title and description
  • Delete view
  • Adding, editing and removing columns
  • Column reordering
  • Render view contents
    • Support for all existing cell (column) types
  • Add person to view
  • Remove person from view
  • Create new person

Simple person/profile page

• Display all fields (native and custom)
• Edit fields
• List tags
• Delete person

Edit connections

• List a person's sub-organizations
• Add person to sub-organization
• Remove person from sub-organization

Not in scope

These existing Gen2 features are outside of the scope for this iteration:

• Import
• Managing tags and smart searches
• Duplicate search and merging
• Join forms
• Loading Smart Searches in views
• Copying view
• View download
• Adding/removing tags on person

[richardolsson]

This is what these features (when available) look like in Gen 2

View listing

Only "icon" view, with no ability to sort

View

Works quite well, with header "collapsable" to allocate more space for the actual table.

Single person details

Pane on right hand side

Editing person details

Second (rightmost) pane. This is also where the delete button can be found.

[richardolsson]

Views

Definitions

• View: A sheet/table where every row is one person, and every column can contain some information related to that person
• Data set: A collection of people being displayed as rows in a view

Roles

These are the people that might interact with this feature:

• Database managers/administrators, i.e. people whose main job is to update person records, clean data, etc
• Organizers, i.e. people who are using Views as a means to support the social interactions of organizing, e.g. to find suitable people to reach out to, look up someone's contact information or to keep track of whom they've spoken to

Job stories

Need to have

• When I have an organizing or reporting task that could be solved by assembling a spreadsheet, I want to be able to create a custom view with only the data that I need, so that I don't have to export data and collect it outside of Zetkin
• When I'm creating a new view, I want to give it a name so that I can easily find it later
• When I'm about to create a new view, I want to see all the saved views in the organization so that I can see if there is already a suitable one for my needs before I create one
• When I'm browsing views, I want to see who created them so that I can talk to them if I have any questions
• When I no longer need a view, I want to be able to delete it so that the list does not become cluttered
• When I'm building my view or working with it later, I want to be able to add columns so that I can display and work with only the data that I need for the task at hand
• When I'm adding a column, I want to be able to name it so that the resulting view communicates the content and purpose of the column
• When I'm adding a column, I want it to automatically populate with data from Zetkin so that everything stays in sync
• When I'm adding a column, I want to be able to choose from one of several types so that I can work with any type of data from Zetkin in the view. These are the options currently:
• When I'm choosing the type of column, I want to be able to choose

• …a field column that renders a field from a person record, so that I can see things like names, phone numbers and addresses in views
• …a Smart Search query cross-reference column and pick a Smart Search, so that I can see whether each person in the view also matches that Smart Search query
• …a survey response column and pick an existing survey and question, so that I can see for every person what they have responded (if anything) to that question
• …a survey submit date column and pick a survey, so that I can see for every person what date they submitted that survey (if at all)
• …a "notes" column, so that I can see the most recent note on each person
• …a tag column and pick a tag, so I can toggle that tag on/off for people in the view individually
• …a "toggle" column that I can toggle on/off for each person
• …a person column, so that I can assign and reassign an organizer to each person record in the view

• When I don't need a column, I want to be able to delete it so that I can free upp space in the view and display only the data that I need for the task at hand
• When I'm working in a view, I want to be able to add an existing person record as a line, so that the columns auto-populate for that new person
• When I'm adding a person to the view and there is already a row for that person, I want to be alerted so that I can easily find the existing row without adding the same row twice
• When I'm trying to add a record and cannot find a person, I want to be able to create that record in Zetkin so that I can add the person to my view without having to navigate away and create them separately
• When I'm navigating my view, I want to be able to hide all unnecessary chrome, so that I can browse the view unincumbered and see as many rows and columns as possible in my browser window
• When a person is no longer relevant to the work I'm doing in my view, I want to be able to remove them only from the view, so that they disappear from the view but still exist in Zetkin
• When I'm trying to make sense of the data in my view, I want to be able to sort the view on any column so that I can easily see the most recent/most relevant records on top
• When I'm looking for patterns in my view, I want to be able to filter the columns based on the data therein so that I can hide those rows that are not relevant to what I'm doing

Nice to have / known future improvements

• When I have a lot of views, I want to be able to structure them in folders so that I can keep related views together and unrelated views apart
• When my organization has a lot of views, I want some of them to be just mine, so that I can work with them without interference from, or interfering others
• When I've created a view which may be relevant to others, I want to be able to share it even with non-officials, so that they can use the view in their organizing without getting full access to Zetkin
• When my needs change, I want to be able to reorder the columns in my view, so that the order feels natural for the task at hand
• When I'm creating a new column, I want to be able to create it anywhere in the view so that I don't have to move it after creating it for it to appear in the right place
• When I'm building my view, I want to be able to add many columns at once so that I don't have to repeat steps to get started with a view that should contain multiple fields (e.g. e-mail address, phone number, join date etc)
• When I'm about to create a new view, I want to be able to use an existing one as a template or copy an existing one, so that I don't have to start from scratch
• When I'm adding a column, I want to be able to not pick a name manually, but have it be selected based on type, so that by default it reflects the content that will be loaded in the column
• When I'm brainstorming people to add to my view as a shortlist, I want to be able to define a Smart Search query and see the resulting data set in my view, so that I can add the ones I want to the view from there
• When I'm using a Smart Search query to populate my view, I want to be able to save it in the view so that every time I come back the view contains the people currently matching that query
• When I'm creating a shortlist of people, I want to be able to switch between different data sets in my view so that I can compare and find the ones to add

[djbusstop]

I'm not that experienced in writing user stories myself. I think these are very good though, I like the "so that..." bit, I hope that bit helps @GemCopeland understand the idea and can make a good UX for it :)

Looks like maybe these can become a checklist? @GemCopeland What do you think? Is there anything else these need before they can be turned in to some designs?

[richardolsson]

To be improved:

• Job stories instead of user stories
• Define roles

[GemCopeland]

@richardolsson Do organisers ever want to just see their unfiltered membership database, or do they primarily access this via different filtered views?

[richardolsson]

@GemCopeland If by "unfiltered" you mean all the people, then yes that's a good point. The need for that comes up every now and then, and in Gen2 the only way to do that is to create a smart search for "everyone" and load that in a view.

If by "unfiltered" you mean all the data for the people, then no.

By the way, I have created #451 which is the Epic issue where this work should happen now that we're in "phase 2". I should close this discussion. I see you've converted the list here in the discussion to checkboxes, and I had already done that in the epic issues. 😊

[GemCopeland]

Ah right, will add stuff over there then!

[richardolsson]

Single-person profile page

Definitions

• Person: a member/contact record in a Zetkin organization, managed by organization officials. Not quite the same as user.
• User: a user account in Zetkin, managed by Zetkin Foundation officials.
• Field: a piece of information on a Person record, e.g. their first name, email or phone number. There are some fields built into Zetkin, and other fields can be added to Person records by an organization using "custom fields"
• Tag: a person can be assigned any number of string-based tags, from a set of tags defined by the organization.

Roles

These are the users that may interact with the single-person page:

• Database managers/admins looking whose main job is to make sure that data is up to date and that irrelevant people are deleted from the database
• Organizers looking for information about a person

Job stories

Need to have

• When I'm looking for information about a person, I want to be able to find everything on a single page / set of pages, so that I don't have to navigate to different parts of Zetkin
• When I'm on a person's page, I want to see all their fields, so that I can easily find key pieces of information
• When a piece of information in a field is incorrect, I want to be able to easily edit it so that I can keep the database clean
• When a person wants to quit the organization, I want to delete them from the entire organization, so that no other sub-organizations can keep the record
• When a person has moved away from my branch, I want to be able to remove them from my sub-organization only, so that other sub-organizations are unaffected
• When I'm on a person's page, I want to see all tags that have been assigned to them, so that I can quickly get some context about them
• When I want to group people or indicate some boolean state (e.g. paid yes/no) I want to be able to assign a tag to a person, so that it can be used elsewhere in Zetkin to filter, prioritize etc
• When I'm assigning a tag to a person, I want to pick from a list of existing tags, so that I don't accidentally create the same tag twice
• When there are a lot of tags to pick from, I want to be able search for a tag, so that I don't have to look through a huge list one by one
• When a suitable tag does not yet exist, I want to be able to create the tag while I'm assigning it, so that I don't have to go somewhere else to find the tag

Nice to have / known future improvements

• When I'm glancing over a person's fields, I want to be able to see when each of them last changed, so that I can get a hint of what might have become irrelevant
• When I create a tag, I want to be able to pick a color for that tag so that it can easily be discerned from (or grouped with) other tags visually
• When a person is connected to sub-organizations, I wan to be able to toggle whether to see information belonging to those organizations as well, so I can optionally get a complete picture of all the data stored on this person
• When I'm familiarizing myself with a person, I want to be able to see a timeline of all that they have done in the organization, so that I can know their history and level of experience
• When I have relevant information about a person that isn't suitable for a field or tag, I want to be able to write a free text note and have it timestamped, so that me and other organizers can remember it later
• When there are other records that appear to be duplicates of the one I'm looking at, I want to be alerted so that I can easily merge them and keep the database clean

[richardolsson]

Editing a person's connections

Definitions

• Sub-organization: an organization which is related to another organization in a tree such that it's their "child". Any organization may have sub-organizations, and they can be any number of levels deep.
• Super-organization: an organization that has sub-organizations. An organization can be a sub-organization to one organization and at the same time be a super-organization when it has sub-organizations of its own.
• Connection: Relationship between a person and an organization. The same person may exist in (have connections to) multiple sub-organizations within the same tree, e.g. a local chapter, district branch and national organization
• Membership: Older (technical) term for what we today usually refer to as Connection

Roles

These are the users that may interact with the single-person page:

• Database managers/admins in super-organizations, whose job is to make sure that people are connected to the right sub-organizations (e.g. after moving)

Job stories

Need to have

• When I'm inspecting a person, I want to see what sub-organizations they are connected to, so that I can easily spot discrepancies like belonging to two "competing" sectors at once or a geographical branch that does not match their address
• When a person has moved between two geographical chapters below the branch that I manage, I want to be able to remove them from one sub-organization and add them to another, so that the right officials have access to their information
• When a person expresses interest in a certain sector of my organization, I want to be able to add them to that sector's sub-organization, so that their organizers can start working that person
• When a person should be added to a sub-organization, I want to be able to search to find that sub-organization, so that I don't have to go through the entire list of sub-organizations to add them

Nice to have / known future improvements

• When a person is connected to a sub-organization, I want to be able to "jump to" their profile page in that sub-organization, to manage that sub-organizations information about the person

[richardolsson]

I've created epics #451, #452 and #453 for these features.