DevNet - what it is and what it isn't

I really like DevNet and am a big proponent of its concept. I think it has fulfilled a huge role in helping people get past stumbling blocks and to get people who wouldn't normally be able to communicate about similar issues and problems talking. But there are some shortcomings, albeit minor ones, that I would like Interwoven to address. I welcome others to get involved in this as well as it's really the customers' site. Or is it - that's one of my issues Here are some things I'm wondering about:

Why is DevNet open to the public and not a customer only site?
Seems to me that this greatly reduces the amount of information Interwoven is willing to provide because competitors might be listening in. I really don't understand why anyone but customers would be involved in a developer forum.

Why do some threads remain unanswered?
When I spoke to the individuals responsible for DevNet at last year's Gear-Up conference, they made it clear to me that if a thread went unanswered for more than a couple days, someone from Interwoven was supposed to provide some kind of answer. That appears to be not happening all the time. Is interest in DevNet diminishing at Interwoven?

What is DevNet's purpose?
Just want to get Interwoven's take on this.

What is DevNet not supposed to be?
This may be a tough one. I'm trying to understand what topics Interwoven would define as taboo for this site. There were at one time threads started by Interwoven employees asking for discussions about details of future development. Some of those threads were actually removed from the site. So I'm wondering what topics does Interwoven want people to stay away from here. Be specific.

I like that there is no "moderator" for this site and that people can feel free to speak their minds about almost anything. I like that Interwoven employees feel comfortable helping people, no matter how trivial the questions may be. What I find irritating is when threads appear to be avoided when the issues get hot. No one from Interwoven seems to want to touch certain subjects like documentation. When I suggested that Interwoven publish a list of all the open feature requests, it met quite a backlash. There seems to be some gray areas. Ultimately I wonder how this site has met Interwoven's expectations and where are they taking it from here?

Feel free to discuss or flame.

Dave Smith
Sr. Software Engineer
Nike, Inc.
(503) 671-4238
DavidH.Smith@nike.com

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Migrateduser

Hello? Interwoven? Are you out there? Can someone please respond to these questions???

Dave Smith
Sr. Software Engineer
Nike, Inc.
(503) 671-4238
DavidH.Smith@nike.com

Migrateduser

Hi Dave,

DevNet is open to the public because we want developers who are not be customers (and there are some out there) to have access to the site. We are looking into setting up a separate, customer-only area, where we can provide customers with information that is a bit more confidential.

Interest in DevNet is definitely not diminishing at Interwoven. However, the responsibility for monitoring the forums, and escalating unanswered posts, has been transitioned to a different group. Some unanswered questions have apparently fallen through the cracks during the transition. It is still our intent to ensure that posters receive timely responses to their questions.

The purpose of DevNet is to provide a single location for developers to ask questions, obtain information, share tips & tricks, etc. There aren't any topics that are taboo, per se. However, as you mentioned, we did decide not to poll DevNet users for feedback on future product directions. The reason is related to your first question - we don't want to expose future product directions to non-customers. We do, however, want to get customer feedback about future plans. That is why we are looking into setting up a separate customer-only area.

We are happy with the progress of DevNet so far, i.e. number of registered users and level of participation (both customer and IWOV employees). We are always happy to get feedback from DevNet users re: ways that we can improve the site. We just can't always act on them immediately.

Feel free to keep the comments coming!

Shannon McMahon
Product Marketing Manager
Interwoven Developer Tools

Migrateduser

Thanks for the response, Shannon. Do you have a timeframe for when the customer only area of DevNet is expected to be available? I certainly hope that this new group who is responsible for ensuring all posts are answered is going to catch up and get on the ball. I am curious as to an official Interwoven response as far as publishing the list of open bugs and/or feature requests. Because Interwoven employees have posted titles and ID's of certain open bugs and feature requests, what is the real harm in posting the entire list (on the support site at least)? I would think all customers could benefit from knowing what open bugs exist in the system. And because we were told that feature requests with the most customer backing get a higher priority, it only makes sense that all customers would get a fair chance to see what they could at least have a say in moving up the list. It doesn't mean that any particular feature request will be added to the product, but at least Interwoven can get yet another good input as to what customers want.

Dave Smith
Sr. Software Engineer
Nike, Inc.
(503) 671-4238
DavidH.Smith@nike.com

Migrateduser

Hi Dave,

Availability of the customer-only area is dependent on the completion of the SSO project (we don't want to make you-all log in multiple times!). I'll check to see what the schedule looks like.

Not sure about the answer to your question re: the feature requests & open bugs (having the list viewable from the Support site). I'll have to let someone else respond to that question.

Shannon

Migrateduser

I appreciate the support of DevNet and Interwoven from you Dave and many of the other subscribers.

(I reordered your questions because it made sense to start out with purpose to answer some of the others.)

> What is DevNet's purpose?
> Just want to get Interwoven's take on this.

The Interwoven Developer Network brings together the community of developers extending value by building content-driven applications on the Interwoven platform.

> Why is DevNet open to the public and not a customer only site?
> Seems to me that this greatly reduces the amount of information Interwoven is willing to provide because competitors might be listening in. I really don't understand why anyone but customers would be involved in a developer forum.

Interwoven is open to customers, prospects, consultants, and prospects of Interwoven and Interwoven employees. Customers are at an advantage because consultants and partners have also solved many of the challenges our customers face. In turn, consulants and partners gain an understanding of what services customers really want so that quality and performance improve. Prospects are invited to participate so that they learn that the implementation of applications on a content management platform is real. Personally, I believe it is important to clearly establish that enterprise systems are inherently complex. We all benefit from the community solving the challenges.

We do require registered corporate accounts. Users with public accounts (Yahoo!, Hotmail, etc.) are required to re-register with corporate accounts.

In terms of information on the site: we have been able to put much information on the site. However, Interwoven employees currently cannot make forward looking statements on the site for obvious legal reasons.

Interwoven does offer sites for customers (Expo/Support) and partners (Ultrateam) that provide some more detailed information for those consituents. The advantage of DevNet is the interorganizational interaction. That said, I do want to let you know that we are in the midst of a significant single-sign on effort to pull together these properties into a seamless experience for you. I can tell you that we are currently in the final phases of vendor selection with an expected 90 day rollout. I will be providing a case study of our own SSO implementation once it is complete. Along with SSO, we will be including secure forums.

> Why do some threads remain unanswered?
> When I spoke to the individuals responsible for DevNet at last year's Gear-Up conference, they made it clear to me that if a thread went unanswered for more than a couple days, someone from Interwoven was supposed to provide some kind of answer. That appears to be not happening all the time. Is interest in DevNet diminishing at Interwoven?

We do have a moderator that checks for unanswered threads. I took an action to look into the response times. Thanks for letting me know. The good news is that there are so many threads being answered.

Interwoven interest in DevNet continues to grow and is frequently cited around the company. For your reference, we are approaching 4500 registered users of DevNet.

> What is DevNet not supposed to be?
> This may be a tough one. I'm trying to understand what topics Interwoven would define as taboo for this site. There were at one time threads started by Interwoven employees asking for discussions about details of future development. Some of those threads were actually removed from the site. So I'm wondering what topics does Interwoven want people to stay away from here. Be specific.

We have removed very few actual posts. The ones that were for personal attacks and for advertisements. (Note - anyone can feel free to e-mail me directly if they have any concerns about improper posts.)

A thread was deleted in error concerning product feedback. As a rule, yes we do encourage open and honest product feedback on the site. Our boundary is that we cannot commit to futures and will limit discussion on it. All new ideas discussed on the site become property of Interwoven.

> I like that there is no "moderator" for this site and that people can feel free to speak their minds about almost anything. I like that Interwoven employees feel comfortable helping people, no matter how trivial the questions may be. What I find irritating is when threads appear to be avoided when the issues get hot. No one from Interwoven seems to want to touch certain subjects like documentation. When I suggested that Interwoven publish a list of all the open feature requests, it met quite a backlash. There seems to be some gray areas. Ultimately I wonder how this site has met Interwoven's expectations and where are they taking it from here?

I am happy to hear that everyone can pretty much speak your peace.

What issues concerning documentation are being avoided?

Yes, feature requests cannot be published for legal liability issues. Why? Imagine we say we commit to a feature that you anticipate will be available in a planning cycle. We may choose not to implement the feature and it costs you time and expense. Not a desireable consequence. We will be providing secure forums as part of our focus group effort where different terms are in place.

> Ultimately I wonder how this site has met Interwoven's expectations and where are they taking it from here?

Interwoven could not be happier with everyone on the Developer Network. The launch and progress to date has been highly succesful.

Where do we go from here?

Expect to see more related to the TeamCode beta done late last year as promoted on this site.

We are updating site technology in coordination with SSO. One thing this means we will have private forums - what does that mean to you? You can connect individuals from your company. You can participate in open focus group feedback. You can belong to a local user group addressing regional issues. Another challenge this will help with is the seemless transition among DevNet, Expo, Support, Ultrateam, etc.

We are still working toward a conference to be held mid-this year. I am about to release a survey in which I will solicit your input for a venue. We also will expand the developer footprint at our annual conference.

We plan to include more partner material on the site. We know that you want more banner ads Smiley Happy

Really, this will be references to downloads/add-ons from partners that work with Interewoven. It will include a portfolio of integrations.

Finally, we will be updating the site navigation to have improved topical browsing.

> Feel free to discuss or flame.

Smiley Happy

Take care!

Mark

---------------------------------------
Dr. Mark A. Hale, PE
Director of Content Technologies
Interwoven, Inc.

(408) 220-7483 work
(408) 774-2002 fax
mark.hale@interwoven.com

Need code and content therapy? Sign
up today for the Interwoven Developer
Network at http://devnet.interwoven.com.
----------------------------------------

----
Mark A. Hale, PhD, PE
Director of Content Technologies, Interwoven
mark.hale@interwoven.com

Migrateduser

I think less than 50% of my issues are resolved by posting to DevNet. Even less than that seem to involve Interwoven reading my DevNet posts. In fact I think I spend more time posting solutions than reading about others'.

Migrateduser

Mark, thanks for the very eloquent response - it's always a pleasure to get your viewpoint - I was hoping you'd end up responding to this thread. I accept your answers to most of the points I questioned, but I still have some issues with a couple points.

First, as far as the documentation topic goes, it specifically pertains to the Workflow Developer's Guide. I have been complaining about this document since DevNet started, hoping to jar someone from Interwoven into making the effort to bring it at least on par with some of the other documentation, but hopefully to make it even better than all the others. Every so often, someone from Interwoven (typically Adam) will point people toward a technical note either he or someone else wrote that details specific "undocumented" workflow features in a clear way. Then last week or so, Brinko posted a list of maybe 5 or 6 of these tech notes for people to reference. That pretty much was the last straw for me, as it seemed clear that Interwoven was relying on these obscure tech notes for documentation and the Workflow Developer's Guide continues to be an outdated, incomplete document. I was hoping the 5.5.2 release would produce an overhauled document, but it's the same. So I pressed Brinko hard to say which release those tech notes he listed would appear in the Workflow Developer's Guide. He sidestepped the question and I didn't get an answer. No one else stepped in to answer either. I believe that some of the docs are pretty good - the Open Deploy manuals are good in my opinion. But the workflow doc is really, really bad. Workflow Builder was the only major change to the document since at least 4.2.1. Workflow is a complex concept to grasp, especially for people just starting out. The document really needs a lot of work, which is highlighted by the number of tech notes there are describing certain features in detail. All of that info should be in the manual. Nested workflow isn't documented at all. The appendix that attempts to describe it just stops abruptly. Anyway, I want to know what Interwoven is doing to get this document up-to-date and complete. I want someone to take responsibility.

Next is the issue regarding the feature requests and bug lists. This issue isn't nearly as passionate for me as the documentation issue, but the reason I am harping on it is because I just don't understand the reasons Interwoven gives for not doing it. I find it silly that Interwoven engineers can display feature request titles and ID's at their whim, yet when asked to show the entire list (just show the titles - I'm not asking for more than that) to only the customers, well, you just can't do that. Why not? I'm not asking you to tell me which ones are going to be implemented when. Just by the nature of the name "feature request" it's clear that none of them may be implemented ever. But because of the notion that Interwoven claims to take more notice of the ones that have customer desires attached to them, I would think all the customers should have a fair attempt to get to that point in the process. You don't have to tell me which ones are being implemented, and especially how they will be implemented - I don't care. Just give me an opportunity to see what people are asking for. Just show me the same info your engineers display when they mention a feature request. If you already do it for some of them, how can there be a legal problem showing them all?

The bug list is a different beast altogether. I don't see any excuse at all not to show the existing bugs to your customers. If for no other reason than to help your customers not pull their hair out trying to get something to work that is a known bug. Bugs are a much more interesting topic than feature requests. Bugs definitely need to be taken care of and it would be really nice to be able to track the lifecycle of bugs that I'm interested in. I have had found bugs and have initiated feature requests through support. Have I ever heard anything back about any of them? Nope, never. Nobody contacts me when my name is attached to a bug. So let me be proactive and track them myself. That way if a bug of mine seems to be sitting there with no action for several months or so, I can get on my support engineer's case to get on it. Certainly would be nice.

I'm really pleased to see that DevNet will be evolving and it will be interesting to see what comes out of the "customer only" areas. I look forward to "focus group" style interaction through DevNet. Thanks for all the good work you have put into this place. Hard to believe the user community has doubled since we last spoke.

Dave Smith
Sr. Software Engineer
Nike, Inc.
(503) 671-4238
DavidH.Smith@nike.com

Migrateduser

I strongly second Dave's suggestion about posting the list of bugs. It just makes sense to look at the list first to make sure it isn't a bug before we start going crazy when something doesn't work. Over the past few days I was searching for the bug list as I was sure to find it and I was about to make a post asking where I could find it and I just saw this thread.

Thanks
Saravanan

Migrateduser

Regarding the Workflow Developer's Guide, I checked with our Tech Pubs group, and they feel your pain. Here is their response:

"We do know WorkFlow is the worst doc in our library, and with each release we hope we can do a total rework of it. Unfortunately we are always given other priorities to work to. We are doing a minor update to the WF Developer's Guide (5.5.x) which will be available April/May timeframe. We are doing some restructuring, fixing a number of bugs, and trying to beef up OOTB workflow documentation. This is all we will be able to do in this timeframe.

We will have another opportunity for incremental updates in 6.0, and I am very hopeful for a total rework in 6.5. We will be looking through the DevNet articles for 6.0 and 6.5 (one or two articles are being integrated into the doc for the 5.5.2x release). Unfortunately, many of these "undocumented features" are also unsupported and we in pubs can only document features that have been validated."

So - the solution is not immediately forthcoming, but at least you know it's on the roadmap. Hope this helps.

--------
Shannon McMahon
Product Marketing Manager
Interwoven Developer Tools

Migrateduser

Thanks for the details, Shannon. But let me see if I'm understanding you corrrectly. The position that Interwoven is taking on the tech notes is that many of these are unsupported features of the product? So you've got Interwoven publishing tech notes regarding unsupported features of the product? How can that be? Doesn't the fact that Interwoven is publishing these tech notes imply that these features are indeed supported? I don't get it. I certainly hope that all of the Interwoven supplied documentation of any feature that is not supported is clearly marked as such.

Dave Smith
Sr. Software Engineer
Nike, Inc.
(503) 671-4238
DavidH.Smith@nike.com

Migrateduser

That's what I get for providing you with unedited information! ;-)

Most Tech Notes describe supported features. However, If we publish a tech note for an unsupported feature or workaround, it is clearly stated in the Tech Note (see tech note #1684 - Unsupported OS workaround for OpenDeploy, for example). If the tech note does not state that the feature is unsupported, you can rest assured that the feature *is*, in fact, supported.

--------
Shannon McMahon
Product Marketing Manager
Interwoven Developer Tools

Migrateduser

Ok that's a relief. I will look forward to those next versions of the documentation. Thanks again for getting all the details.

Dave Smith
Sr. Software Engineer
Nike, Inc.
(503) 671-4238
DavidH.Smith@nike.com