Ten Tough Collaborative Inbox Questions

I had an interesting meeting with the Law & Management team about the possibility of using a Collaborative Inbox ( which is a kind of Google Group ) rather than our current in-house issue management system.

We went through what they wanted to do when people report problems and they came up with a heap of great questions. With almost all their questions, my answer was, "Ooh, I'll have to look that up and get back tomorrow". Here are the answers.

For the purposes of trying to answer the questions, I am using a Google Collaborative Index Group called "Silly Questions" which has been set up to allow people to email it ( without being a member ) and has two members ( Mike and I ). I will be mailing the group from a test account called "Not Tom".

Q1. Can an issue be automatically given an ID?

This was an based on someone having mailed in an issue, then later calling in and being able to refer easily to the particular issue. An ID can be the quickest way to identify the thread the person is asking about.

Whilst each thread does have an ID, like this SQrl8LBy48Q, that is quite long, impossible to read out reliably and can't be searched for - you'd have to hack the URL to get to the particular thread.

A search for their email like this...

from:csrv644@york.ac.uk

... returns all messages from them. But it is entirely feasible that somebody might have dozens of issues on the go.

Adding a search term (light) from their title helped limit the results (see above) but you can also limit them by adding a tag, assuming the message has been tagged previously.

Note: Thinking deviously, you could potentially tag each new thread with an "ID tag". I looked to see if there was an API for Groups where I might automatically attach an ID to each new incoming message and email the sender with a message with that ID in. There isn't an API to Google Groups! Boo!

Mmm?! I wonder if you could achieve this with the GMail API and AppsScript? You could set up a script to check a given email account once a minute and if there was a new thread, then send a mail replying with an edited subject line containing the new ID. 

You could potentially generate and assign an ID for each incoming message by hand, but more realistically, getting into the practice of tagging issues as they come in might
a. Enable you to find them easier later ( if someone phones in for example )
b. Result, over time, in a useful categorized resource.

Q2. Can an issue be raised on behalf of someone?

A lot of the questions regarding Collaborative Inboxes fall into a "Hang on, what's the simplest way of doing this?" category. In this case, my alter ego, "Not Tom" sent a question to the Silly Questions group and CC'd in Aimee ( see below ).

Although Aimee isn't listed in the view ( above )... when the Real Tom goes to reply, anyone CC'd in is shown in the reply form ( see below ).

Q3. Can you piggy back an issue, being kept in touch with any solution found?

I think this is again handled by being CC'd in to a thread.

Q4. If a thread has been assigned to me, who gets an email when I reply to it? Can other members see what the solution was?

Yes. During this I discovered that if you "Take" a thread and assign it to yourself, everyone else still gets an email, so in the example above, both Mike and Aimee will have a reply. And the thread is visible in the web interface.

Q5. Are tags global?

Yes. If you add a tag to a message, people can search for messages with that tag.

Q6. If a thread is marked as "complete", what happens when someone replies to it again?

The thread is moved back up the lists to the current threads and marked as unread.

NOTE: You can "Lock Replies". If someone then replies to a locked thread, a new thread is created but the reply-er, in this case Aimee, is oblivious to this fact. See below where Aimee has replied to a locked thread.

NOTE: You can mark any reply as a Favourite, by clicking the star icon, but these are personal to you. This is a design mistake in my opinion. They should be global favourites.

NOTE: There is the concept of marking a topic as "Best Answer" but I think that, maybe because I've already participated in my Group that I can't change a question type. This may be a bug. Found it! In Manage > Information > General Information if you select "Allow users to post to the group on the web" then your ability to change your Topic types is disabled. Why I have no idea.

Q7. What's the difference between an Email List and a Collaborative Inbox?

Not much. With each of the "new" Google Groups types ( Web Forum, Q&A discussions ) you pretty much get the same feature set but with a few add-ons and LOTS of configuration options regarding who is/isn't a member, who can post, who can moderate etc.

Q8. Couldn't you create a configurator tool using Google Groups API?

Whilst Google Groups itself doesn't have an API Google Groups Settings API does. And yes. It's a good  ( and challenging idea ). I could imagine two approaches working.

1. Define a set of discussion types that better match a university's needs ( maybe Seminar Group or Boards of Studies etc ) and create an interface that lets people create those - rather than delving into myriad config items.
2. Create an "all on one page" list of configuration options but better describe ( with more lengthy and visual documentation ) what the affect of making those changes will be. For example, in the General Information page of settings, you can set your Default topic type to "Discussion" or "Questions" without having any idea how this will change any aspect of your group.

Q9. Why doesn't Gmail allow searching for partial words?

Hang on, that's not a Google Groups question. Because it doesn't. See why and that it's coming real soon ( not ).

Q10. Can Collaborative Inbox Issues be integrated with Footprints?

The notion here was that, if an issue had no resolution then could it be passed into the university issue management system? 

The obvious answer is that a message thread can be forwarded to another email address, so I guess, yes is the answer.

Alternatively, you can "Move" a thread to another Group. I believe this to be groups for which you are a Manager, so were our department to use Collaborative Inbox, we might need to create a new role which would allow a non-member to Move threads into our space. This needs verifying. I think it may be doable.

And Finally...

The hard part about answering these questions is that you need more than three accounts to verify what the public, members, other roles and admins can and can't see and do. Simulating collaboration well is almost impossible. Still, my Silly Questions Group is now looking good ( see left ) and it looks like I need a few more daft questions to go at.

silly-questions-group@york.ac.uk

If anyone at York would like to be a member of the Silly Questions Group so they can trial the Collaborative Inbox features without the bother of setting one up, click the Apply for membership link on this page.

By: Unknown On 5:41 AM

Continue Reading

Collaborative Inboxes Now Work!

Google Groups' different types of groups ( Web Forum, Email List and Collaborative Inbox and the other one ) do more to muddy the waters of understanding Google Groups than actually describe what it is they actually do. Anyway...

 I previously have blogged here that Collaborative Inboxes didn't work because in order to receive a reply to an enquiry - it meant that you had to be a member of a group - and therefore able to see everyone else's enquiries. This is the equivalent of group therapy for a clap clinic, in that as a question asker, you get to see everyone else's questions.

I was only now, just showing someone interested in using Collaborative Inboxes, that particular quirk when I discovered a "cc The original sender" checkbox which is by default checked. Yay!

This means you could now use Collaborative Inboxes for private issues, that get responses from the experts who are members in that group. AND fellow experts can see your response. AND the person who replies doesn't have to remember to make sure the person who asked the question in the first place gets a reply.

This is great and means that Collaborative Inboxes can be used for generic enquiry email addresses and responded to by a team of people - which is what they were supposed to be in the place.

By: Unknown On 8:03 AM

Continue Reading

Can You Use a Collaborative Inbox for an Enquiries Email Address?

Google Groups have added a few new flavours of group recently. As well as a regular Email List, you can now make a Web Forum, a Q&A Forum and a Collaborative Inbox - all slightly different takes on the same thing.

As part of the move to Google, one of the biggest challenges are  what we call "non personal email accounts", for those accounts like chemistry-enquiries@york.ac.uk. Traditionally the handling of these accounts was done by a number of people, all sharing the log in details. In a Google-ized world, having accounts that can't be audited is "not the done thing".

Our first trawl for non personal accounts found thousands of them. This included accounts for projects, conferences, departments, etc. With many of them, nobody knew who was replying ( or not ) to any enquiries.

Gmail has the ability to delegate access to your account to someone else, but this still doesn't solve the chemistry-enquiries@york.ac.uk problem. Essentially we need some accounts that nobody really owns ( maybe the department), that named administrators can administrate.

Collaborative Inboxes To The Rescue?

So, our initial look at the new Google Groups features suggested that the Collaborative Inbox feature was EXACTLY what we wanted for creating a chemistry-enquiries@york.ac.uk email address.

 

At this point it's worth pointing out that although there are four different types of Google Group you can create ( Email List, Web Forum,  Q&A Forum, Collaborative Inbox) that they are essentially ALL THE SAME THING but with a collection of settings and options tweaked in different ways. For example, I think the Web Forum defaults to have Tagging switched on and email delivery set to off. There is NO SUCH THING as a Web Forum in Google Groups really, it is just a collection of attributes that makes it more Web Forum-y than Email List-y.


This is a big problem. Given that there's no such thing as a Web Forum in Google Groups really, it'd be good to know what the difference is exactly between a Web Forum and a Q&A Forum. What get's switched on, what gets switched off? Is there anything you can't do in the other? Do they look the same?

I think the answer is that very little changes, with a Q&A Forum you get a "Mark This Post as Best Answer" button. That may be it as far as I can tell. But we could do with a matrix of features / Forum type so we know exactly what the differences are without having to create a group, get 5 people to populate it with discussion BEFORE we realise that feature X changes in Forum Type Y.


There are so many permissions, for membership, email delivery, moderation, posting that you'd think anything was possible. We certainly did.


And so, on to the need for chemistry-enquiries@york.ac.uk, an email address that prospective students, visiting lecturers, other departments might send any type of question that someone in the department might deal with. So we created a test Collaborative Inbox called Silly Questions, and hoped that people could post their silly question and receive a response from a team of members giving silly answers.

This sort of thing.

So Mike posted silly questions and I ( being one of the silly answerers ) posted answers. I marked questions I felt I'd answered with suitable silliness as "Completed". It was all working beautifully. I could even choose to respond as the group, rather than as me.


But here's the thing. Because of the way settings are organised. You can "allow posting by email" and make that available to all members of your organisation ( or even "Anyone") . Brilliant! That means you can publish the address and everybody can post to it.


BUT. Even though I replied to Mike's question, Mike doesn't receive my reply BECAUSE HE ISN'T A MEMBER OF THE GROUP.


The settings are wired so that if you are a member, you can both SEE and POST on other people's messages. This is exactly what a collaborative inbox isn't. I wouldn't expect my questions to be visible by everyone else... and definitely I wouldn't expect a reply from someone else who was only there because they, like me, were asking a question too. That'd be like getting a prescription from the person coughing next to you in the doctor's waiting room. 


It would seem that Collaborative Inbox is a mis noma. But then, all the nomas are mis... None of the Group Types really are the thing they say they are, they are just a bit more like the thing they say they are.


This isn't a pure technology failure, it's a failure of Google to communicate what their technology is and does. It's bad usability in that system understanding and affordance and expectation are all left dangling in a suck-it-and-see world. I'm not even sure I'm 100% right about all of this. And that's the problem.


Anyway, I don't think a Collaborative Inbox does what we need it to do. 

By: Unknown On 2:48 AM

Continue Reading