Customer surveys and what happens next; a post in two parts – part 1

It’s been a few months now since our initial Open Repository
customer surveys
, so hopefully it’s not too late to thank everyone who took
part.  We released three surveys: one
for set up processes and communication, one looking at user features and one
looking at admin features. Each one asked for comments about how things are now
and suggestions for what could happen in the future.

For my own part, I’m especially happy to be able to say that
on the whole the results from the first survey were very positive. Most of the
comments were related directly to the ‘weightiness’ of the support
documentation, an issue we’re addressing as we rewrite the manuals and guides
for the new release. Additionally setting up this blog was in part response to
the request for more varied information about what’s happening in the
‘OR-iverse’.

Likewise with the user features survey all current features
were considered to be either medium or easy to use by those who used them. Of
all features surveyed the PDF conversion tool was considered the easiest to use
and hopefully the expanded options that will be made available in the next
release will maintain its rating and popularity.

The administration features survey had the fewest
respondents but still returned results in keeping with what was expected.  Firstly that the aspects of the
administration system dealing with editing policies (authorization and groups
menus) were the hardest to use whereas the process of setting up the hierarchy
(including initial group creation using the wizards) and e-people management were
more straightforward. And also that action validation messaging is often
lacking which is often cause for confusion.

I haven’t yet mentioned the user and admin feature suggestions, I’ll tie that in to part 2 of this post.  Once the 1.4.1 release is out we’ll look at gathering some more detailed feedback on how you use the repositories, which features you don’t use and why.

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