Talking and Collaboration

Activity Stream Panel (News Feed)

Summary: The Activity Stream consists of

The Activity Stream consists of

two sections

:

• Your Wall’s Post box
• The Activity Stream

What is the Post Box?

On your profile page, on the Wall tab, you see the Post box. The Post box at the top of the activity stream panel is a duplicate of this box. That’s all it is. Entering a post here, is the same as entering it on your wall.

But unlike all the pages, what you post will not necessarily show up in the Activity Stream unless the activity stream is displaying a channel that contains your wall.

Usability Note / Request for Feedback: We added the Wall Post box to the top of the activity stream late in development. Prior to adding it there, you either replied to post in the activity stream, or you clicked on the post to open the profile page for the post, and did your commenting there where you had more contextual information to work from. What we didn’t like was that you needed to open your profile page to make a post on your own wall. We deliberated a lot on this question. We considered (a) adding a narrow panel for your profile page in the Task Detail Panel’s condensed view (single column), (b) Creating a separate Wall panel, (c) putting it at the bottom of the panel with it’s own header saying “Your Wall”, (d) eliminating it from the workspace entirely and just letting users use the Shortcut Key to open the profile in a sliding panel. So that if you wanted to make a quick post, it you’d press ALT-[KEY], the sliding page would open, and you could quickly enter on your wall from there. One of the other factors is that you will be able to issue Runcible commands (command line options) by posting on your wall, and we thought it would be helpful to have the post box always visible for power users. (This feature is not available in the beta. We have it scheduled for later when users are more experienced.) Our problem is that given the Slack/Facebook/Yammer UI, we feel that the user is easily confused by this feature. So your thoughts after you’ve had some experience, are appreciated. -Thanks. [Eds. My opinion is what we should cut it. -cd ]

What is the Activity Stream?

The Activity Stream shows

changes

to every

Page

you’re subscribed to, every Page you're involved in, and every conversation you’re participating in.

The Activity Stream (News Feed) Updates Constantly.

The server will '

push

' updates to your Activity Stream.

• Anyone using your organization's Runcible will be notified.
• When any update arrives, your browser will 'flash' the items that have changed, and then update them.
• The time between making a change and your browser being notified by the server depends upon how busy the server is. Usually it takes from half a second, to a second or two, but it can take much longer if there are many users making many changes at the same time.
• If you are not receiving updates, then refresh your browser. The server may have 'lost you' due to internet connectivity issues, or it may not be sure what you have loaded on your browser.

What Actions Can I Perform on the Activity Stream Panel?

• Mark as Read Click on any post to mark it as read. Once the server responds, the 'blue dot' will disappear, and the counters will decrease.
• Mark All as Read Right-Click on any Channel. A context menu will appear. Select "Mark as Read". Once the server responds, the counters will decrease and the blue dots will disappear.
• Show More or Hide If you are using Article View (See "What Filters Can I Use" below), only the last three to five updates will be visible by default. Select Show More to see more updates.
• Select Hide to show fewer.
• Open the Page to see the entire Wall for that Post's Page.

Rate Select

or

to give positive or negative feedback.

• Note: By default, ratings increase your Karma, and cost ORCs.

Give Feedback To leave feedback on the post, select the [icon ] icon. Enter your comment. Then press "Enter".

• Note: By default, giving Feedback increases your Karma and costs ORCs.
• Note: You cannot (obviously) leave feedback to yourself.

Leave a Comment on the Post To leave a comment on the Post, select "Comment". Enter your comment. Then press "Enter".

Note: Leaving comments does not affect Karma or cost ORCs.

Reply to a Comment To reply to an entry in the Activity Stream, select "Reply". Enter your comment. Then press "Enter".

Edit To edit an entry in the Activity Stream, select the

icon. Make your changes. Then select "Save" .

Delete To delete an entry in the Activity Stream, select the

icon. Then select Delete. Then select "OK" to confirm.

Open a Page Double click on a clear area of the post to open the posts's Page.

What Filters Can I Use?

Use the

menu to display the Filter Menu.

Views

The Activity Stream has two available views:

• Article View Or, "Facebook/Yammer Style": Activity is grouped by page into a single post, and the post is updated with each change.
• Log View Or, "Slack/IRC Style": each post is displayed as it arrives in a constant stream.

Which view you prefer will depend upon the kind of work you do. Be default Runcible uses the Article View.

Category Filters

The Activity Stream has five filters:

• Everything
• Just Messages
• Just Notifications of Comments and Replies
• Just Notifications of Your Action Required – Responsibilities assigned to you.
• Just System messages – usually changes in value.

Type Filters

And you can also filter more precisely by Type of Notification.

Note: "You can use the filter to hide a type of messages, and use the Channel to show the same type, and see nothing. In other words, it's entirely possible to confuse yourself. (But its' OK. Our support people have a sense of humor.)

No Full Text Search Filter on the Activity Stream Panel

Note: We were not able to complete work on the full text search of the Activity Stream Panel for the beta. Partly because given that main search already does full text, that it doesn’t seem to make sense for an event-driven activity stream. It would be slow problematic to implement. And so we think the current solution is best. Of course, as always, we’re open to thoughts.

There are Two Permanent Channels

Two Permanent Channels

• My Wall Everything you have posted on your Profile Page's Wall tab
• Everything (General, Defautl) When you use the 'subscribe' button, it adds that page to your Everything channel.

How did I Become Subscribed to some of these Pages?

• If you or someone else makes you an Owner. You can unsubscribe if you choose.
• If you or someone else assigns you the task. You can unsubscribe if you choose.
• If the workflow includes you as a Decision Maker, or the system makes you a Decision Maker. You cannot unsubscribe.
• If there are system events that require your action, you can’t unsubscribe if you’re a decision maker

Note: This feature – mandatory subscription – prevents orphaned tasks. (So, sorry. No “My dog ate it” excuses.)

What’s the Activity Stream’s purpose?

To provide you with a history of

Optional

notifications: so you don’t miss anything. Or so that you can monitor and react to changes in real time. Think of it this way: Runcible includes of views of your work that range from the most immediate to the longest term. So that no matter whether your work is reactive, selective, or directive, Runcible provides a way of working that suits your needs:

• Notifications of events in the Activity Stream
• Chats, Group Chats, and Messages
• Inbox List: Email, Memos, Directives, and Surveys
• Responsibilities List : All your responsibilities.
• Agenda: All work you are scheduled to do.
• Tasks List's Me View: All active tasks for you to choose when to work on.
• The Task List's Everything View: Everything you have permission to see.

1 -

( ... )

2 -

( ... )

3 - Your Email View of the Inbox Panel shows you:

• A history of different kinds of Runcible Email (which are like email messages but with workflows attached).

4 - Your Responsibilities View, on the Inbox Panel shows you:

• What you are required to do.
• What you can do.
• What you might want to do.

It’s a list of everything you’re responsible for. All as a sortable table. But that’s only a small portion of the activity happening in your team, group, or organization.

The Responsibilities view is important for people whose work is Event Driven: on approval of System Objects, like Customers, Clients, Deals, Contracts, Forecasts, Time Cards, Expenses, Adjustments, Invoices, and anything else that arises, rather than Tasks.

5 - Your Agenda Shows You What you are scheduled to do.

• Any time during the week
• Any time during a day
• At a specific time of day

6 - The Tasks List’ “Me” View Shows you:

• Every active Task for every Program, Project and Deliverable, that is assigned to me, but in the context of the program, project, and deliverable.
• What it DOESN”T SHOW is the System Objects that are not a part of Projects.

7 - The Tasks List’ “Everything” View Shows you:

• Everything you have permission to see in the organization.

So, How Can You Use the Activity Stream?

• You can use it as a sophisticated chat stream – like Slack or IRQ.
• You can use it to stay informed and collaborate, like Facebook or Yammer.
• You can use it as an alert system, to notify you of things you’re waiting for.
• It can function as a streaming task list. Anything that ‘pops up’ means you can, should, or must, work on it. So you can treat it as a kind of inbox.
• You can use it as a ‘heartbeat’, to get a ‘feel’ for what’s going on in your organization in real time.

Tip: This is one of the best features of the Activity stream. After a while you sort of can ‘feel’ whats going on. And it makes you feel ‘connected’ to everyone else.

Runcible is virtually programmable without programming. So between workflows, awards, social features, and tasks, we’re not really sure what creative uses you might come up with.

Q&A: “Will the activity stream accept incoming and outgoing hooks to other software?” Yes, we have that scheduled for the API Release. But that’s in the future.

More...

• See Channels for more.