One issue I have with conversations is that when you add a reply to an existing conversation it's not really apparent to anyone that there is more to the conversation than what is shown on the main defect/story. The only clue you have that someone wrote a reply to it is the last post date which you can compare to the posted date of the original message. Then you have to click the link to see more to realize there was a reply there.
The problem is that many of the team members never bother to look further and click that link and just read the original message and miss all the additional information that was included in replies.
It would be nice if the main defect/story made it clearer that there is additional information there. Maybe use an accordian style control to collapse the replies by default, but allow the user to quickly click through the replies as an example. At the very least, having the number of replies and the last poster listed would be a nice improvement as it lets people know at a glance that there is more to the conversation.
by: Scott W. | over a year ago | User Interface
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Not only conversations, but attachments as well. Often we put detailed testing documentation or user-supplied screenshots as attachments, but there is no way this is indicated unless the Backlog item itself is clicked on and the Attachments link is clicked. We utilize Conversations to indicate the presence of these items, but again, no visibility of their existence and it is up to the developer or tester to explore on their own.
I completely agree. We abandoned this feature because it is a mess. For example, I cannot see a reply to conversation unless I click a little date link and then it opens it up in another window so I cannot see other conversations where the user just clicked reply. We have been trying to use this, but it just doesn't make sense.
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When is this happening?
This has been addressed with the redesigned threaded conversations in asset detail views. The new design shows threaded conversations and embeds interactions inline. A conversation thread will be displayed on backlog item whenever any expression within that thread mentions the item. This means that subsequent replies need not mention the item again for that reply to show up on the backlog item's detail view, it will just be pulled in as being part of the thread.
More details about the new conversations design can be found in the Winter '13 release notes:
http://community.versionone.com/Release%20Notes/ReleaseNotes2013WInter.aspx