MeetingsPropagateToLPMembers

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Summary

Each team will be able to register their meetings on their Launchpad page. Each member will be able to subscribe to a calendar feed from the member page that brings together all meetings for teams that they are members. A special "All Teams" feed could also be provided. The meeting feature could also alert members of upcoming meetings and changes to them provoded the team's email list is activated.

Release Note

Members of teams registered on Launchpad will have access to team meetings and events occuring by an I-Cal feed and web page for just that team. If email lists are active for a team, they will also recieve notices by email via the list.

Rationale

Setting up meetings and notifying members can be difficult. Currently, many teams have split their workflow between multiple service providers which can double their work. Utilizing the existing "Sprints" feature, but exposing and intergrating it into Launchpad team pages would allow team administrators to consolidate their resources and better utilize current data available on Launchpad. These changes should bring the benifits of a Google-Calendar-type service, but under the terms of mostly repurposing existing Launchpad Sprints features.

Sprints are currently not focused on team based workflows. Team administrators in Ubuntu now schedule their meetings by emailing the fridge staff to add their event to their calendar or using an alternate service. Other team adminstrators can only use alternate services. Current Launchpad data on teams and their members could be utilized to help teams publicize their meetings, if we were to intergrate the Sprints feature with Launchpad team pages. It should be noted this intergration would benifit the many communities that use Launchpad for their project management needs.

Current registration information from team members could provide automatic announcement and RSVP of planned meetings and events. The current Sprints feature needs to be exposed on Launchpad team pages and even offer filtered Sprints by the team that Registered the meeting either on a Launchpad page or via an I-Cal feed.

This is about making it easier for team meetings to be visible to its membership and the community. Individuals would be able to recieve meeting information for their involved and interested teams. A side effect would be that current Sprints would get better utilization and an entire community calendar could be built from the additional meetings and events registered.

Use Cases

Thom is an admin for a Launchpad Team. He wants to easily inform his team members of an upcoming meeting. He uses the "Register Meeting" function on his Launchpad team page. The page reuses the current Sprint feature with a few new twists. Each Sprint has been extended to email the registered team's membership and give them the chance to RSVP by replying to the email or selecting a link in the email.

Alice is a member of a team on launchpad. She uses the the I-Cal link on her team's Launchpad page to import the schedule of the team's "Sprint" into her calendar application. She repeats this for each Team she wants to follow with her calendar application.

Jack is a busy member of the community and wants to quickly check a favorite team's meeting dates. He choses a "Show Meetings" link on the team page to show just the "Sprints" by this team.

Thom is an admin for a Launchpad Team. He has a previously "Register Meeting" and wants to add topics to be discussed at the meeting. The "Sprint" functionality is used to enable him to easily add topics for discusions. Thanks to the I-Cal feed which gets processed on a recurring bases the new agenda items can be visible in the feed. As in the current "Sprint" functionality, members can check the update "Sprint" for a current agenda.

George is an admin for a Launchpad Team. He uses "Register Meeting" for his meetings and is able to provide updates and changes being made to meeting dates and agenda items. For all the changes made to "Sprints" registered an email is posted his Launchpad Email List. A bonus feature using the email list is that he can set his email list settings to remind of "Sprints" that are about to happen.

Jon is an admin for a Launchpad Team. He uses the Meeting feature for his team, but has concerns of realiability and data lock-in. He appreciates the open standards of the I-Cal feature, which he pulls routinely to maintain an safe and accessible copy.

Assumptions

  • It is assumed having a seemless workflow will enable teams to be more efficient. It is assumed that features of the revised "Sprints" have enough functionality to satisfy teams using other services to provide calendars. It is assumed that it will be easier for the larger community to easily determine when teams are holding meetings and events with the intergration of "Sprints" into team Launchpad pages.

Design

Each team will have a "Register Meeting" link on their team page which utilizes the current "Sprints" feature. On that page they will set up their meeting or event. The page should be able to remember passed locations for that registered team and provide them as possible future locations. The initial default would be their freenode IRC channel.

Each member will be able to add an I-Cal feed of teams that they are involved or interested in to their favorite calendar application. Members of teams would also recieve announcements of "Sprints" and be given the opportunity to RSVP by email or link. Members would also be able to visit team Launchpad pages to view "Sprints" filtered by that team using the "Registered Team."

Provided that a team is "Registered" on a "Sprint," that team's Launchpad email list could then be utilized to keep the team up to date on changes and additions.

A future feature could include communicating free/busy information to team leaders setting up "Sprints". Members could be able to establish busy times on their membership page. Leaders could also determine location availablity and schedule conflicts with its members.

Implementation

This section should describe a plan of action (the "how") to implement the changes discussed.

Use the current Sprint table and Attendee Tables. The current Sprint UI would be reused and extended to accomodate the additional features. Link to new Sprint form that auto fills the team as Registerer and perhaps a default loctation. Each team member would then recieve an email about the event. They would each modify the email or click a link to accept. Then show attendance on Member and Team pages and link to an I-Cal file. In the future we could implement a method to query the attendees and locations for times for conflicts.

Test/Demo Plan

Outstanding Issues

CategorySpec

MeetingsPropagateToLPMembers (last edited 2008-08-06 16:18:31 by localhost)