The Feedback Loop : Connect 2.2

Connect 2.2 QFE 1 Deployed

Cyclometh — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 23:32:00 GMT

It went up yesterday- thanks for your patience, especially you Vista testers, who bore the brunt of the display issues. We're already hard at work on Connect 2.3, and I'll provide more data on that as we move forward and solidify things.

First post-2.2 fixes coming

Cyclometh — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 20:24:00 GMT

We had a pretty good Connect 2.2 deployment, although it took a little longer than we expected. We've identified what caused that and it shouldn't occur again. We've got our Release Manager working on a mechanism for zero-downtime deployments of Connect as well.

Some issues were identified pretty quickly, in particular with the Vista/Longhorn beta. Because the Vista beta receives bugs via the MBC, users are not allowed to submit feedback directly via Connect. This resulted in the Feedback overview page showing the text "Sign in to view..." for your watchlist and "Posted By Me" bugs even when signed in. We've got a fix for this in testing, along with some late-breaking localization issues and a couple of UI tweaks (mostly for localization support).

The current plan for the update is early this week. I posted in the Vista newsgroups on the Microsoft beta newsgroups with links that will allow you to access your posted items, watchlist, and newest bugs with one click:

Please note that the following URLs are specific to the Vista beta. If you're not a member of the Vista beta, these links will not work for you. These links will require you to sign in.

(you can use the same pattern on other sites, though).

To access all of your bugs:

https://connect.microsoft.com/Windows/feedback/searchresults.aspx?FeedbackOverviewType=1

To access all bugs on your watch list:

https://connect.microsoft.com/Windows/feedback/searchresults.aspx?FeedbackOverviewType=3

For the top-rated bugs:

https://connect.microsoft.com/Windows/feedback/searchresults.aspx?FeedbackOverviewType=4

For the top-rated suggestions:

https://connect.microsoft.com/Windows/feedback/searchresults.aspx?FeedbackOverviewType=5

For all bugs posted by your organization (only applicable if you're a member
of an organization):

https://connect.microsoft.com/Windows/feedback/searchresults.aspx?FeedbackOverviewType=2

For the newest bugs:

https://connect.microsoft.com/Windows/feedback/searchresults.aspx?FeedbackOverviewType=6

Connect 2.2 Deployment

Cyclometh — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 00:36:00 GMT

Connect 2.2 is being deployed as I write this, as you may have noticed from the "Site Maintenance" page. However, a snag was hit during the upgrade which forced us to restart a process, and we're going to be longer than the original timeframe. We're hoping to have things up and running within the next couple of hours.

Connect 2.2 Feedback

Cyclometh — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 20:24:00 GMT

For those of you that have taken the time to look at Connect 2.2 on the ConnectBeta site, thanks!

Connect 2.2 is in lockdown at the moment, which means we don't make any changes that we don't consider absolutely necessary for the site to function. This is a critical phase of stabilization, because we have to reduce code churn as much as we possibly can. That means the bar is set pretty high for bug fixes to make it into Connect 2.2.

However, at least one person has filed a bug on the Connect Product Improvement site, which we just fixed for Connect 2.2. Thanks go out to AlconicCF, who filed this bug on the Connect Product Improvement site against Connect 2.2. The problem was primarily a display one; when the first comment is added by the feedback author, the region that shows them wasn't being updated to be visible. If you refresh the page, the comment is added again. The workaround was to go back to the overview page and come back to the feedback item (ugh).

Since the fix was pretty minor and the bug severe enough (customer experience issues are given a lot of weight), we triaged and fixed it this morning.

I'd encourage others to take a look at the Connect 2.2 site on http://connectbeta.microsoft.com. If you find bugs, please file them on the live Connect site at http://connect.microsoft.com/Connect/Feedback. At this point, the bar is set very high, and only what we would call "ship-blocking" bugs will be considered for implementation in 2.2.

I'd still like you to file any bugs, even minor ones and nits, if you find them. That way we can get them in the pipeline for hotfix releases or another point release, or assess them for fix in a major release. Your feedback is valuable to us!

Some issues identified by the Connect beta site I'd like to answer here:

Comments are not searchable in Connect 2.2. We're going to be working on making comments, vote text, validations, workarounds, and all other data associated with a feedback item searchable in the future.
Feedback search doesn't do a lot of stemming in the search, and generally relies on exact matches- ie, you won't find "software" if you enter "softwares". You can use an asterisk as a wildcard for searching words- i.e., "soft* would find both "software" and "softwares".
The index may lag a few minutes behind when you entered your feedback. Generally we don't think this will occur often on the production site, as the hardware used there is much more powerful and should be able to keep up. However, at times feedback submissions are very heavy, and in times like that the search index may take time to snarf up your submission.
The display issue with "post a comment to Microsoft" has been corrected, as above.

Connect 2.2 Preview

Cyclometh — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 23:11:00 GMT

Is finally here! Go to https://connectbeta.microsoft.com/site/sitehome.aspx?SiteID=3 and take a look around. You can do most of the things you can on the main Connect site, although you'll find that the available programs list is pretty limited. None of the feedback or sites from the production site are available here, with the exception of the Connect demo site.

Please take a look around and see what you think. After you sign in, click the "Manage My Profile" link at the bottom and fill out your profile data in order to be able to submit feedback. Keep in mind that this is a beta site, so the feedback isn't going to be processed or resolved. Don't enter your real bugs here- or do, but enter them on the real Connect site as well!

After you've taken a look around, if you have any comments you can file a feedback or suggestion form on the main Connect site at http://connect.microsoft.com/Connect/Feedback.

A couple of notes about the beta site; some issues were found after the deployment to the beta site and have already been resolved internally.

File uploads may not work correctly with Firefox 1.5. This is known and has been corrected in a later internal build.
Feedback should work with both Opera and Firefox, although some display elements may not be correctly placed or visible in non-IE browsers. These issues have been largely eliminated in our internal builds.
After attaching files, you may notice that the "attached files count" on the Feedback Details page always remains 0. This has been corrected in our latest builds.

I look forward to hearing what you think.

Preview Update

Cyclometh — Mon, 09 Oct 2006 20:55:00 GMT

Hey folks- sorry I didn't come through on the details of the 2.2 preview. We had some UX changes to implement and those kept me pretty busy the last few days. On the plus side, the new changes look great and hopefully we can get them in front of you folks pretty soon on the Connect beta site. I'll post some screenshots as well- I think you'll be pleased.

Connect 2.2, currently slated for deployment at the end of October or early November, is primarily a bug fix and stabilization release. We deliberately decided not to take on new feature work in this release- there are some new features, but they're not major ones and there's not many- and focus exclusively on bug fixes, performance improvements, and stabilization. In terms of look and feel, you'll find a number of significant changes in the Feedback area, and in terms of performance, we've made some serious improvements- especially in searching feedback, a primary pain point for Connect.

Moving forward, we're going to be continuing to stabilize and begin getting some new features into play. I have some pretty exciting ones on my plate for the Feedback area, and I'm looking forward to being able to share them with you.