SAS Support Communities: Updates are coming!

[ChrisHemedinger]

[updated this post on 26-March]

Thank you for all of your visits and contributions to the SAS Support Communities.  As you might know we’ve been working on a project to give the community site a more modern style and some new features.

The first phase of this project “went live” late Tuesday/early Wednesday (17-18 March).  Here’s what you can expect:

• The main page of the community will look quite different – but all of the content will still be there!
• All content and URLs will stay the same – your browser bookmarks will still work.
• The main navigation menu will have a new look.  Here’s a preview:

• The Search function will have a new look and some new features, including the ability to find categories/boards, not just topics.  So if you can’t find what you’re looking for, try the Search field.
• The community site will have a responsive web design, which means that it will look nicer and work better on mobile devices.
• Writing posts, replies and articles will be more fun, as you can drag-and-drop images and attachments instead of uploading.  (But upload still works too.)
• You can now "at mention" content.  Want to include a link to a specific article or solution? Use the '@' key to trigger a search to add it.  Example: 

That said, we expect some bumps.  We’ve tested what we can, but as we apply this new design to a community with hundreds of thousands of members and topics, you will certainly notice some things that we missed.  We’ll identify and fix these as quickly as we can over the coming days.  You can help by letting us know about issues – just send a message to communities@sas.com.

Thank you,

Your SAS Community team

P.S.

If you want a preview of what things will be like, visit our friends at the JMP Community.  We’ve cribbed heavily from their proven work.

[PaigeMiller]

One of my biggest problems with the main Communities page at https://communities.sas.com or https://communities.sas.com/t5/forums/recentpostspage/post-type/thread listing of topics is that there is no way to see the thread listing in chronological order with the most recently modified threads at the top. So I use the page at https://communities.sas.com/t5/custom/page/page-id/activity-hub-tbl and I never go to the main Communities page.

How will the upcoming change affect these?

[ChrisHemedinger]

That page with All Topics will still work.  Looks like this.

[PaigeMiller]

Why isn't this basic functionality of displaying threads in chronological order built into the main Communities page? Why does someone have to discover a different page to get the threads to appear in chronological order?

[Quentin]

Thanks for the tip @PaigeMiller .  I've been using:

https://communities.sas.com/t5/forums/recentpostspage/post-type/message

which sort messages chronologically

But your the link you posted to the 'activity-hub' looks more useful.

Maybe after the migration, someone could write an article presenting the various customized views available.

[Kurt_Bremser]

Will we have to do special actions on our browsers, like clearing caches etc? Right now (2020-03-18 08:40 UTC) the website doesn't look good.

[MichelleHomes]

I was just thinking the same thing! A  few hours ago it was working fine.

[Kurt_Bremser]

Fixed now.

In the "All Topics" page, latest posts to any topic are not displayed anymore. This makes it harder to find topics where no answer was given yet.

[ChrisHemedinger]

Hi @Kurt_Bremser and @MichelleHomes and all -- slowly getting these things fixed.  Moving from our stage site to our production site is like packing up a house, moving to a new house, and then trying to figure out where everything needs to go.  Lots of stuff to unpack.  Thanks for your patience.  As the day(s) go on we'll get more things set up, prioritizing the big things first.

[Kurt_Bremser]

It's not meant to be critical at all, just a report of things that I noticed.

[MichelleHomes]

Having recently move home, I can relate and can appreciate the interim period before things settle 😉

It's great to see the header widgets working now and to experience the new design. Also found some areas I wasn't aware of before so that's a bonus!

Thanks to you and the team for all the behind the scenes work you've done and doing... all the best in unpacking the boxes! 😋 (search on emoji's yay! 😎)

[Kurt_Bremser]

It would be nice to see the notifications without having to click on the profile.

Gee, it's 5 am in Cary. Have you been up all night?

[PaigeMiller]

I like the new appearance, and everything seems to be working as expected so far.

A suggestion for improvement:

More vertical space between the time of posting and the first line of the reply, as in this example:

And suggestion #2: less vertical space between the thread name "Re: how to reverse..." and the time of posting line.

[novinosrin]

Well done Sir @ChrisHemedinger /Mam @ShelleySessoms  for your successful endeavor. Would it be possible to give us a brief description/bullet points to expect 

1. What's new 

2. What's not new

and some kind of navigation guide( This is a suggestion from my boss at Citizens as he casually mentioned over a coffee )

[PaigeMiller]

Ok, here's a bug at https://communities.sas.com/t5/custom/page/page-id/activity-hub-tbl

The third line seems out of order chronologically. Actually it is correct there, the 2 hours is wrong as about 10 minutes ago, I did reply, and so also the information that Kurt Bremser has the last message is wrong. If you click the title, you can see my reply, it is there. I did refresh my browser screen several times

[Tom]

Are there any settings to reduce the whitespace?  The vertical spacing in particular is excessive.

[ShelleySessoms]

Thanks, @novinosrin. We will be offering some guidance soon. It may be in the form of videos or articles. Once we have the new design nailed down, look for those "how to" pieces.

[Kurt_Bremser]

When I look at one of my posts, I see that the forum "eats" the last line of my signature, while having quite some space between the lines.

Suggestion: reduce the vertical whitespace.

The previous forum version displayed up to six lines, now there's only four.

[mkeintz]

Looks good.

A couple of related nitpicks (and now a more import loss of content in the message display).

The original text near the bottom below has two items in a numbered list, which I am going to post as simple lines here:

   1. The block quote (inverted double quotes) icon disappears, and

   2. I don't see a way back to the unexpanded toolbar.

But item 2 does not appear when I enter it as a number list, as originally entered here.  And the list numbers are missing also (original message follows): 

When in the REPLY window, if I select the EXPAND TOOLBAR icon (the 3 dots on the far right):

1. The block quote (inverted double quotes) icon disappears, and
2. I don't see a way back to the unexpanded toolbar.

But … so far I'm a happy camper.

[ChrisHemedinger]

@Kurt_Bremser  - fixed that notification indicator:

[Patrick]

What's menu Community/My Groups for? I'm getting an access denied when clicking on it.

 

[Patrick]

Insert Photos allows to choose the size for the uploaded image (small, medium, large). 

Is there anything comparable possible for drag&drop when directly dropping into the message (or a setting to define a default other than medium).

[Patrick]

Reading from left to right I find it inconvenient that the info if a question has already been answered is so far on the right.

 

[Patrick]

I believe Data Management belongs under Programming. My expectation is that if it remains under Solutions then most DIS and DQ questions will get asked under SAS Programming.

[PaigeMiller]

Before the change, each reply was numbered, you could see that you were looking at (for example) reply #12, and then you could direct others to the thread and say "See Reply #12". There does not appear to be anything in the new Communities.

[Kurt_Bremser]

Where do I find the "Edit" option for a post? I just wanted to add additional code to a post of mine and couldn't.

[PaigeMiller]

@Kurt_Bremser 

It has moved to the left side on most threads (but not this post), it is a downward pointing "chevron" (a downward pointing ^) which produces a dropdown menu when you click on it.

[PaigeMiller]

@Patrick says the indication of whether or not the thread has been answered has moved to the far right, which is a bad place for it (I agree).

This is another reason why I use this web page to access the forums, the check mark is immediately adjacent to the thread title.

[PaigeMiller]

I said earlier: "Before the change, each reply was numbered, you could see that you were looking at (for example) reply #12, and then you could direct others to the thread and say "See Reply #12". There does not appear to be anything in the new Communities."

Adding: old threads where I did the above referencing are now meaningless.

[Patrick]

@ChrisHemedinger 

Can we please get this web page somewhere linked on the home page? Thanks @PaigeMiller! So much more the view I want.

[PaigeMiller]

@Patrick I just create a bookmark in my browser to that page, and I never even see the main page of SAS Communities.

[ChrisHemedinger]

@Patrick - You'll find it on the top menu, Community->All Recent Topics.

[Quentin]

@Patrick interesting point about putting Data Management under Programming.  

I think of Data Management discussions (DI studio etc) as *not* programming.  But I can still see the benefit to having it under programming.

Maybe the time has come to allow boards to be listed in multiple menus.  For example, EG is currently hidden under Solutions->BI.  Maybe it should also be listed under Programming, along with Studio.  Statistical Procs in under Analytics (good), maybe should also be under Programming. 

But of course, there are hundreds of ways this taxonomy could be done.  So far, I'm really liking the changes!

[Kurt_Bremser]

I think it should rather be called "Data Integration". That would remove the ambiguity.

[Patrick]

Community / All Recent Topics

Just realized that I can click on the column headers to sort by column 🙂

Also realized that doing so for column When sorts by displayed string and not by datetime. 

[Kurt_Bremser]

The "little running man" code editor does not (yet?) have the nice coloring. Is this planned for the future? If not, then we would only need the </> anyway.

[Kurt_Bremser]

The list of Top Contributors (as found on the "All Topics" page) is highly questionable. What kind of metric does it use?

[Patrick]

Getting the hang of posting pictures. Loving the change! 😀

[ChrisHemedinger]

@Patrick @PaigeMiller @Quentin and all -- the All Recent Topics page now sorts chronologically (ascending and descending) when you click the header.  Finally!

[Kurt_Bremser]

In the previous incarnation, posts that were edited were marked as such. This seems to no longer be the case. This can make one question one's own state of mind, when an answer that was given does not meet the initial question (as it later appears) at all.

[ChrisHemedinger]

@Kurt_Bremser True. Might try to get that indicator back.  But in the meantime, you can hover your cursor over the timestamp to see:

[PaigeMiller]

How can we open a thread and see only the last page, or only the newest messages, or only the last message? (Any of these would be useful)

Right now, for example, if I want to read the new messages at this thread, I have to click on the thread name, then scroll all the way down to the bottom, and click on page 2. (There's doesn't even appear to be a way to avoid scrolling all the way to the bottom of page 1). If a thread has 4 or more pages, you can't even click on page 4 at the bottom of the first page, because its not an option there.

[novinosrin]

@  Managers and to whom it may concern, The current version seem to not display the link/topic that details "how to ask a good question" on the first page screen. I'm afraid that is very important in my humble opinion for our community at large. I would appreciate if that can be helped.

The joy of writing codes is fun but when we come across data in the form of pictures/screen shots, it takes several communication exchanges back and forth requesting OPs to i. Please post a representative sample ii.  Please post an corresponding expected output sample to the input sample iii. Briefly explain the business logic/purpose with some additional comments, before the question becomes clear. 

I trust this makes sense. Thank you!

[PaigeMiller]

Agreeing with @novinosrin, and pointing out that when these exchanges go back and forth with a poster to get him/her to provide data/code/logs/output in a usable form, the poster often thinks we are badgering him/her or just plain old being a pain in the neck. So "How to Ask a Good Question" ought to be a link on the main page of the SAS communities, as well as on sub-pages by topic.

[Kurt_Bremser]

"How to Ask a Good Question" should be the first page a new user is sent to after registration, or when first visiting the communities (in case they have registered on another part of sas.com).

[BeverlyBrown]

Thanks for the constructive input, @novinosrin, @PaigeMiller and @Kurt_Bremser. Newly registered users receive "how to ask a question" content in their welcome/conboarding email. While it also appears on the reply editor (under the Post button...see photo), maybe there's a way to make it more conspicuous. Do you see ways to make this article more clear? The absence of clear signage (on roads and websites) annoys me as much as it does you. Thanks for helping us improve!

[Kurt_Bremser]

Could you please post the text of the "welcome" mail in the superuser's forum, so we can refer to it when someone seems to ignore it?

[PaigeMiller]

Why hide it in the superuser's forum? Why not put it somewhere where everyone can find it, and let us know the link.

[PaigeMiller]

Icons seem to be overlapped, incorrectly, when a thread has a correct answer (check mark icon)

[ShelleySessoms]

Hi @PaigeMiller, @Kurt_Bremser and everyone else.

Newly registered members receive a quick "welcome email." In that email, they are linked to this article: https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Support-Communities/How-to-ask-a-good-question-and-receive-a-fast...

Feel free to link to this in any of your replies. This article is easily searchable on the community, as well. Some folks are just so desperate for help that they post without reading the information in front of them. 

Thanks for helping to spread the word.

Best,

Shelley

[PaigeMiller]

Thank you, @ShelleySessoms , I have "bookmarked" it. Although the article is easily searchable, I was not aware that this was the actual "welcome email".