Microsoft Connect Feedback Blog

Discover Connect and the Different Technologies Microsoft Is Working On

My apologies to any readers about not keeping up with my blog. Much has changed in the last year, both on Microsoft Connect as well as in my own career. I have gone back to my roots and have transitioned back to development. Being a program manager has let me discover a different aspect to software development and I have learned a lot about Connect and how to try and make it an effective form of communication between our customers and the various product groups here at Microsoft. This change is beneficial both for myself as well as Connect as I have stayed on to be a developer to help resolve those issues and/or make Connect a better platform for the community. If you have not had a chance, go visit Microsoft Connect and browse around. You may discover new areas that are of interest or information about existing products and/or technologies.

Stay tuned for more updates soon...

Glenn Bulat
Development Software Engr. - UX Experience Team
Microsoft Connect (http://connect.microsoft.com)

The Effective Use of Tagging for Searching Feedback

Tagging is one of those community style mechanisms by which people can classify content using a particular set of keywords. The more often unique content is tagged, the more "weighted" a tag will become. We on Connect have been thinking about this concept with respect to feedback and possibly other content items and I would like to get your thoughts on how effective this type of indexing is.

Tagging can help to group "some" things together, that is those items that have actually been tagged. So is it the concept that those items which have not been tagged are probably of less importance? Have not been found during a search or people just are not adding the tags when the read page. As a user, when do you decide on adding a tag verses not adding it?

Thanks and I look forward to having some interesting conversations about this topic and learning from the community how this is used.

Glenn Bulat

Feedback & Platform Program Manager

Microsoft Connect (http://connect.microsoft.com)

Additional Forums for Discussing Connect and Managing Customer Feedback

Hello everyone. I would like to announce that I now have a new public forum out on Connect:

http://connect.microsoft.com/Connect/community/discussion/richui/default.aspx

about various topics concerning managing feedback on Connect. Please take a moment to go visit this new forum and participate in some of the discussions currently taking place. The idea here is to be able to openly discuss pain-points, what works well or does not as well as to acquire different ideas on how you, our customer wants to manage the feedback that you give Microsoft. The forums are broken up into a "General" discussion area and a specific forum about Feedback. I regularly check for updates to the feedback forum as well as post some new topics for discussion.

I look forward to having some rich conversations that I hope will result in enabling us to build a better web site to gather and respond to customer feedback.

New "Connection" on Microsoft Connect to Receive Feedback from Customers

As many of you may already know, Connect 2.0 was released to the public on June 3rd, 2006. This release included many upgrades to the existing Microsoft Connect web site, including a new presentation of the feedback area. Customers can now view most recent, top rated bugs/suggestions, or see the issues that they have posted directly on an overview page from the primary navigation link located on the left hand side panel. Plus many other new features.

As part of the intended purpose of Connect, that is to create a collaboration environment between customers and the various product groups at Microsoft, Connect itself has also become a site for which you can go and submit your comments, bugs, and/or suggestions about your experience on Connect. This new "Connection" as we are now calling them is located at http://connect.microsoft.com/Connect. Add this connection to your favorites folder in your browser and use it frequently to view the latest topics and discussions about Connect itself. Vote or add your own comments to existing issues you have an opinion about. This is our way of continuing Microsoft's concept of building applications, services and tools that customers are asking for, not just what think you may want.

Thanks,

Glenn Bulat
(Connect Feedback PM)
http://connect.microsoft.com

Displaying Feedback Status - What's Your Expectation?

As we get ready to launch the next version of Connect, V2.0, some interesting discussions have been taking place between the Connect team and some of our customers. The topic? What status does a customer expect to see concerning their feedback item when that item is resolved as a Duplicate of another feedback item?

There are different view points on this subject depending on individual's expectations. In Connect V2.0, the feedback area of our Customer Site will be changing dramatically as we continue to improve the customer's experience while searching and submitting feedback. Part of this change is that Connect will now display "links" to feedback items that are related to the current issue, in particular, when the current issue is resolved as "Duplicate". These links will point to other related issues and what Microsoft refers to as the "Primary" issue. The primary feedback item is the issue for which the current issue and all other related duplicate issues are resolved too.

The above situation brings up the following question:

What should the status of the current feedback item show? The status of the "Primary" feedback item or should the feedback show that the issue was resolved as "Duplicate" and then expect the viewer to have to click on the primary feedback item link to find out what the status of the related feedback item is?

Example: (2 Connect Feedback Items, FdbkItem1, FbkItem2)

FdbkItem1 is logged by a customer and is linked to a internal Microsoft issue A whose status is Active.
FbkItem2 is logged by a customer.

Microsoft determines that FbkItem2 is a "duplicate" of FdbkItem1, and resolves the feedback item as "Resolved - Duplicate".

Should FbkItem2 status and resolution show?

1) Status = Resolved, Resolution = Duplicate    - or -
2) Status = Active

Depending on your view point, you may go either way. Show me the status of "My" issue as Microsoft has determined it, or show me the status of the primary issue, the one that relates to the one that I filed and show its status.

In both cases, Connect V2.0 will still show the Duplicates and Primary feedback item links. That will not change.

Let me know what you think!

For similar examples, visit http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/productfeedback/default.aspx, the MSDN Product Feedback Center and view various feedback items that have been submitted by their customers and how they handle this issue. (Btw - they have selected option (1) above, to show that the feedback item was resolved as "Duplicate".)

Thanks,

     Glenn Bulat
     "Collaborate with Every Customer"
     Program Manager, Microsoft Connect

Additional Viewpoints on Feedback and Microsoft Connect