Tips on how to use the new support site

I don't see anything in the way of indicators for new entries. There does not appear to be such a feature, based on my short perusal of the ZenDesk documentation. I guess the best thing to do is to sort topics by 'Newest' and note which topics have entries since the last time you visited?

It would appear that if you 'follow' a topic, then you will receive an email when a new answer is added.

...and it also seems that when you post an answer, you are automatically set to 'follow' for that topic.

Al is correct. If you follow a topic, you will get email updates whenever someone replies to topic.

Yes, if you initiate a topic, or if you respond to a topic, then you are on the "Follow" list and get notified when there are new answers. But some of us, like all of those that have commented in the new Support site so far, attempt to help other people by responding to their questions. On the old site I could click on "New" I think and see anything with new activity, whether I was a follower or not.

I think there are two ways to do that here. One is near the top of this window. Clicking on Topics or Questions or Open Questions. I don't have enough experience yet to know which of those choices is preferable.

The other way is at the bottom of this page, where you can click on Community Browse. Again, at this point I don't know which approach is preferable or even if there is a difference. I do find having the Browse at the bottom of the page inconvenient, but that could just be because it is unexpected.

Here is a great example of one of the problems that I've been mentioning. Michael Slade wrote a tip on a new feature in Joomla 3.4, version control of Articles. It is useful information. But I only know about his tip because he posted a note on Yammer/The Tent telling people that he posted that tip in this support site. Just going to this site and logging in, there is no apparent way to tell that anything new was posted in the Article topic or anywhere else. At least no way that I see.

I don't think there's any forum that will automatically send you a message whenever someone creates a new post. You can follow the topics, then you will be notified.

I wouldn't want a note anytime anyone creates a new post on any topic. On the old site though, you could click on something like "new posts" (I don't recall exactly what it said) and you would see a list of items that had new entries. That is what allowed us to help each other or to learn from each other. I don't know how to do that as easily here.

I was going to edit my last post, but I notice that this forum doesn't have that capability either.

I was going to say that clicking on "Topics" could do what I'm suggesting, if it had an indicator that there was something new in that topic since the last time I logged in or went to that page.

I agree with Bernie. I certainly wouldn't want to follow every single topic. For that matter, when the site starts to accumulate posts it will be tedious to review the "questions" to see if there's anything interesting.

I am a little put off by this community interface. Adding an answer is on top of the ten answers I had read to follow the conversation. After every one's name the four different offers to Share on social media is not very appealing (worth sharing? really?), takes a lot of space and distracts. ~ What is the 0 that is above everyone's avatar? Finally, and I believe it has already been said, the grey palette of the box "Add answer" is not conducive to clicking and the box to type our text is really narrow: if you are as verbose as I have just been, the first lines are hidden, and cannot allow me to re-scan what I have written above .

Feeling like I have just been very negative on the design of the new community forum when it is just starting! I hope it can be seen as intention to be constructive and not criticizing.

Laurence
http://jewishfamilycongregation.org

I'm afraid I think the ZenDesk software isn't as useful in our environment as it might have seemed. I can see the appeal of ticket tracking, but I wonder if the volume of tickets justifies the awkwardness of the "community". It looks like the community functions are an afterthought, but for us it's the primary function.

If it isn't too late, maybe you should consider a more forum-oriented package like PHPBB.

And the initial list show the title, who created it, when and how many answers. Time of the last answer would be useful. I fully support moving the community to a 'real' BB like PHPBB or even vBulletin. I'm afraid the community, which was limited to begin with, will die if this format remains.

Having the community support was one of the best perk in going with the RJ-Builder aside from the expertise of the developers and the features offered in a powerful way. Having to go on the various component forum when something is causing me tsures does not cut it with sharing within the URJ community because we know our pains and can share our sense of urgency in a more relevant way. Give us back our kehillah! (especially that I believe we are kind of pioneers in our demographics)

This software is hardly as conducive as the prior version. I find it incongruous to read through all the responses and then have to scroll back to the top to add a comment. I assume that, like joo-me-luh, this is a "responsive" system so moving the "add answer" function to the end of a discussion should be simple to do. But, I do not recall a "new posts" facility on the old version though. But, sometimes I can't remember what I did yesterday too. ;-)

I would though request an enhancement to the help desk ticket submission form. If I am already logged in, why can't the system auto-magically fill-in my website? This was bothersome in the old version and has not changed in the new.

I have question...
I can't seem to find all the old topics, posts and responses. There was a wealth of valuable knowledge there that I fear has been lost.
Can it be imported or at least viewed?

I don't recall a specific 'new posts' either, but I do recall that every section had a red indicator with a count of new entries, and then every thread had the same. As much as I wnt to be hepful to the community, I just can't be bothered to check every single thread to see if there are new entries.

How could we get back to something manageable? Even following a conversation with notification is becoming painful, because once I want to reply or add to a comment, I need to scroll down and it makes absolutely no sense ~ then scroll up again and try to spot where you reply... no quoting what I am replying to, this is not a forum at all! this is just a mistake, for sure! maybe it was not clear that it was going to turn out this way when it was adopted. I hope that our screaming voices are going to be heard, although it might not be the priority right now with the crazy timeline of upgrading (I am having a bunch of tickets because of issues popping out as a result of the upgrade and I'd still rather see Jared and Joel attend to my selfish needs than the community needs to be very honest with all of you!).

I get the feeling it's never going to be a priority. Do I gather from your comment that the upgrade is done on the live site???That is a big no-no. Sites really should be upgraded in a test environment and then give us time to test the functionality. That's System Upgrade 101.

On the old support forum, there tabs (I think the two left most tabs) that said something like Topics, and New Topics. In at least one of them and maybe in both, whenever there was a new entry in a topic there was a green superscript next to the topic that said the word "New". Those were the only ones I ever clicked on, either to see if I could help or to see if I could learn something.

Serge, don't get me wrong, I did not mean that things were not working, because they are, but you cannot avoid having tiny bolts and nuts that need to be tightened in an upgrade ~ and also maybe some of my problems are due to my own doings (or not knowing how to do). This is our website (since there is no more a profile with our home showing on this silly and useless zendesk!): http://jewishfamilycongregation.org so you can see for yourself that it is not completely broken at all!

I have cosmetic issues, which I believe are one of the worst plagues always in upgrades.

I still go back to my other question... Where is all the old info, questions, answers?
It might still be here but this nutty icon interface on the home page doesn't help navigate.
Forums are not designed this way.

Mike, as far as we know, the old content is completely lost.

Laurence, I do this for a living. A major version upgrade is never done on a live system. I'm not going to put the blame on Joel and Jared, because we don't know what their constraints are, but from this and previous issues, it's still comes back that, to my view, URJ is not treating our sites like the important commercial endeavors they are. They are the face of our businesses.

I've started a new thread on the issue of testing, upgrading, and version control. It's in the "General" bucket.

Serge is absolutely right: you should never do brain surgery on yourself, and you should never put new software into production without testing it.

We seem to have universal agreement (among those of us that use it) that this new support site software is a disappointment. That being the case, I hope that as soon as the Joomla upgrades are completed that Jared and Joel will identify a replacement, possibly the old software (and the old discussions restored). Whatever is chosen to replace this, I know that several of would be willing to help test and evaluate any candidate replacement software.

As so often, you are the voice of reason Bernie.
And I would always be willing to join mine to ask for the return of a more friendly interface and if possible the restoration of the archives.

It would be easy to set up a suitable system using PHPBB. I would certainly be willing to help URJ set it up, if they were interested.

PHPBB is an actual bulletin board. Think of it like the old forums, only done properly.