feature-request Questions - FogBugz Knowledge Exchange

Sending just the email address using URLTrigger

2011-04-27T16:02:59Z

We need the URLTrigger to send a GET request that includes the customer's email address to our stats package (Performable). We have it working using the {EmailFrom} variable, but that will pass along "Customer Name " rather than simply "customer@domain.com".

Is there a way to amend that? Another variable we can use?

We're On Demand so can't make changes to the plugin ourselves.

Feature Request: Nested User Groups

2011-07-02T01:12:53Z

The ability to nest user groups (i.e., add a group to a group) would make our lives much easier.

One benefit to allowing groups within groups is that groups can be centered around roles, as opposed to project affiliation (which isn't very useful), and we can slice and dice it in a number of different ways without time-consuming, error-prone redundancy.

Figurative Example: The only reason John is part of the Deciders group is because he is a manager. Therefore, we have created a Managers group in FogBugz and made John a member of it. We have also added Managers to Deciders. At some point, John opts to take a different career path, so he transitions to a non-management role. He is therefore removed from the Managers group. As if by magic, his membership in the Deciders group is also ended; this occurs as one atomic step.

Without nested groups, removal of John from Deciders is a separate step (and might, erroneously, never happen). What is the advantage of this approach?

Similarly, if for some reason it is decided that Managers are no longer Deciders, the whole of management can be removed from the Deciders group in one step without error-prone, redundant user-by-user effort.

On the other hand, if John is granted permission to Deciders on an individual basis (as well as indirectly through Managers), then he will be unaffected by the removal of Managers from Deciders. This reason-for-inclusion information is completely lost in the absence of a nestable groups system, and can create a significant amount of redundancy and error.

Another important advantage of nestable groups is that we can create "junction" groups that exist solely to expose all of the users in group A to all of the users in group B, without the necessity for any shared (dummy-) project exposure. This is very useful for project admins, who need to be able to see users in order to add them without involving a full-blown Site Admin.

Request: API to list custom field options

2011-03-14T18:40:06Z

It would be super handy if there were a way to use the existing XML API to see all of the different choices for each of the Custom Field columns. Even if it weren't using the existing XML API, it would be nice if there were a plugin page you could go to and see the different columns, their display names, and their available values in XML.

If you can think of any way we could do that easily, that'd work too!

Case FC2052649

Feature request: Recent filters history

2011-05-17T06:56:54Z

I would be really nice if FogBugz could save a list of recent filters. Not just the saved ones, but the ad hoc created fulters.

I would imagine that it will be difficult to design the UI (e.g. name the filters), but it would be a very useful feature.

Feature Request: Display time intervals in case history

2011-05-13T18:24:04Z

It would be nice if the timesheet information for a case were displayed in the case's history. I feel that this would provide easier access to information that is already being recorded in the system, would prove to be informative to anyone reviewing a case's history, and ultimately provide more value to more users of the timesheet features of fogbugz.

The case history text would simply be something like

"Worked on by Jack Black for 3 hours on 5/13/2011 10:46 AM"

Example 1: John assigns Jack a case to work on, and Jack spends 3 hours doing research on how to accomplish the fix for that task. Jack logs the 3 hours using the "working on" feature, and when finished with his research, edits the case and places his findings there. John checks the case later and sees the update, but thinks it would have been nice to see the timesheet information in-line on the case history to get a general idea of how long Jack had spent working on the case prior to that update.

Example 2: A company has a forward-facing cases system so that their users can see the status of cases they have permissions to see. A developer may have logged many hours on a case that a user has interest in, but the developer's logged work does not show on the case history, and the user feels that nothing is being done about their problem. The user may have felt reassured to see that many hours had been logged working on their problem, even if a solution hadn't yet been found.

A personal note: as a "worker bee" myself, I feel that this would help me be more vigilant about documenting my time spent working on a case. As it is, I feel that the "time spent working on" and timesheet feature only provides value to the managers that are assigning cases, setting estimates, and setting up timelines and milestones. Because I find no personal value in the recording of this history, I feel it to be a "hassle". However, If my recorded work were reflected directly on the case's history, my efforts recording my work would be more tangible to me, as well as to anyone that comes to review the history of that case. One of my primary goals as a worker of cases is to be thorough in my history updates... I feel that making my timesheet information visible on it's associated case would directly lend to a more thorough history for that case, which would provide direct value to me as a worker.

Thank you.

Feature Request: Milestone Planner for Fogbugz

2011-09-30T17:34:09Z

After seeing Trello I was originally thinking of using it for a top level milestone planning in meeting. After playing with it some I realized its missing a critical piece, dependencies. After a little more thought I realized what I needed was a display of several linked lists in a sliding window. This way I could logically layout the various phases of development, rollout, etc.. on a high level so everyone can see what's still to come. ie that shiny new feature doesn't happen until phase 3 because of some tool and database refactoring that's needed before hand. So when planning things out everyone sees that "oh phases 1 and 2 have to happen first and they're each 2 weeks long so I won't be getting that shiny new feature for at least a month" if we choose to make it a priority.

In the end this is mostly a way to visualize milestones across the system. What's been missing for us is a bird's eye view of what's down the road, or in other words a great view for meetings. If you're planning the next 3 months, 6 months, a year it'd be nice to "see" the impact of moving priorities around, where the give and take is without jumping through various schedules and piecing back together what's dependent on what.

As a small company our backlog of new feature ideas is already bigger than what we have resources to do, so planning for us is more about getting the most ROI we can smartly. A big part of that is keeping everyone on the same page and by everyone I mean developers, owners, customer support, and customers. Fogbugz is already helping quite a bit, but something like this would allow managing / seeing the big picture to be much more accessible to everyone.

I've diagrammed an example:

Each vertical section is a different project.
"Current" represents milestones where now is within its date range.
The items off to the far right are milestones without a startdate set.

This view would have the following abilities:

Create new milestones
Create dependent milestones by clicking its parent and choosing create dependent milestone.
edit milestone properties
drag reordering of milestones to flip flop dependencies or drag off to the right to unschedule it. Dragging will also move all dependent milestones with it.
hover over and see cases assigned and/or summary (# of cases, # of people assigned, etc..)
quick assign cases to milestone. Mostly for small #'s of case assignment, larger batch assignments should probably still be done in the list case view.
project filter
print and fullscreen view, nice for meeting and outputting screen to a projector/tv.
show official and est completion dates. possibly show probability distribution as that node's background image, or hover to see.
"Next" could be a smart blocking depending on the official due date distributions. If your milestones are always in 3 month blocks then it would show x number of Next 3 month blocks. Could be a configurable "Show me X months of the schedule."
Current/Next internally would show a timeline. Having just had to back up a few milestones I can't just start with the first one and bump all dependent ones back, I had to start with the end ones and move forward. This ties into #4 where dragging one milestone bumps dates of all dependent ones back as well. Could show message/warning about it happening, "Approve new completion date?".

The idea of "Current" needs a little work, perhaps a global milestone with multiple dependent milestones to mark a "release / rollout", but probably something else entirely. Needs more thought.

Feature Request: Sitewide modifier for "% time spent on FogBugz tasks"

2011-04-01T22:50:02Z

Feature request: a site-wide estimate modifier / scaling factor / efficiency rating.

Individual users can say they spend "70% of their time on FogBugz tasks". However, even if the person is supposed to spend 100% of their time on FB tasks, there will be interruptions, questions, etc. So, I would not schedule 80 hours of estimates into 80 working hours.

Ideally, at the very least, I'd like to be able to give a site-wide or per-project efficiency rating. For example "all developers are 80% efficient" => a 40 hour work week should achieve 32hrs of "working on" when 100% on FogBugz tasks. A per project rating may also be useful to compensate for "new project with steep learning curve" vs "old and predictable project".

(I've also pondered a per user rating, but believe that would probably confuse personal estimates, working on and estimate accuracy too much...)

Cheers,

gwagner

Shared Filters Updatable by All Admin

2011-06-16T20:37:52Z

I think when you share a filter, it should not only be able to be updated by you, it should be updated by everyone...

I look at it as... "Hey guys, check out my filter"... and now the Filter is openly shared... and anyone can enhance it, etc. Kinda like the Filter is now open-sourced / wikia style, anyone should be able to make it better.

This should be at least be updateable by an Admin...

We have meetings, and while looking at a filter and would like to update it, add a column or something... we cannot because we are not logged in by the person who shared id... so it's quite clumsy.

Perhaps a "Shared Filter" could be "Owned" by everyone... or have it be another option.

Feature Request: Multi-case request

2011-07-05T22:46:04Z

The API Request in question is documented as follows...

cmd=listIntervals - returns all TimeIntervals for a user. Any of the optional arguments serve to filter the results.

Arguments

ixPerson (optional) - Specifies which user's intervals should be returned. If omitted, list intervals for the logged on user. If set to 1, list intervals for all users.
ixBug (optional) - Specifies that only intervals associated with this bug should be returned.
dtStart, dtEnd (optional) - If dtStart and/or dtEnd are supplied, listIntervals will return intervals whose start date falls between dtStart and dtEnd.

I am issuing the request with a single ixBug argument, but ideally need the request to accept a comma separated list of n case numbers. Currently I have to make n requests to the server and accumulate the responses, which is time consuming.

Is it possible to display all tasks within dependent milestones?

2011-04-18T07:09:29Z

We have a number of different projects/products that contribute to our offering as a whole. When a new client comes onboard, we create a milestone that is used to track the work required for that client.

We also set up multiple milestones within our individual projects, that represent customizations and new development work relating to that client. These milestones are then set up as dependencies on the global 'client' milestone mentioned above.

What our bosses would like to be able to see, is a list of all the work required to hit that global milestone. This would involve showing all the tasks within all the child milestones of the global one. Is this possible?

If it's not, has this been discussed before? What is the likelihood of this feature 'making the cut'?

Attachments in your Snippets

2011-06-07T18:35:39Z

This is the most amazing feature request ever! I want to be able to attach a file to my snippet. We have a VERY common request that we have to attach a doc for (5-10 times a day).

We use a snippet for the email body itself, but we still have to manually attach the file.

This (I would think) would be a simple thing that others would probably find very useful if they are using FogBugz/snippets as regularly as we are here.

THANKS!

Improve setup and definition of virtual users

2011-06-16T12:10:25Z

We set up virtual users for our projects so that when a new case is raised, everyone who is on the virtual user list gets an email. So the whole team gets notification of a new item, or if something assigned back to ‘the pool’, or a comment made on such an unowned item, etc.

E.g. Primary contact for project NewTech is a virtual user called ‘New Tech Team’, which is defined as:Tech Team’, setup as:

Fred.flintstone@mycompanyltd.com;wilma.flintstone@mycompanyltd.com;barney.rubble@mycompanyltd.com; ...etc

However, there are a couple of problems with setting up virtual users:

We have to use the full email addresses (even of users who are in the system). This is a pain.
There is limited number of characters (255?), so we have quite a small number of @mycompanyltd.com that can fit.

The second item is our real problem currently, but is exacerbated by the first problem, as each person takes many more characters than needed.

At the moment we have to revert to setting up a mailing list on our Exchange server, and pointing the virtual user at that. But this adds an extra level of indirection to managing project notifications that we would rather do without.

So my feature request would be :

Remove the 256 character limit on the virtual user field.
Change the UI on setting up a virtual user so you can select FB users directly.
Allow the primary contact of a project (or any of the areas) to be a Group in Fogbugz. This would give us great flexibility in managing email notifications.

Feature Request: Full-screen mode for wiki editor

2010-12-14T14:53:27Z

A lot of screen real estate around the editor is wasted. Full-screen (or full-window) editing would be very helpful on smaller screens. See also this post.

Case FC2037979

Is there a way to add HTML to a snippet?

2011-03-14T21:27:22Z

For example, I would like to add an HTML table structure to a snippet. But when I do, all I get is escapted HTML. When I go to the edit HTML source view, snippets seem to be disabled.

Thanks, Mike

Case FC2031368

Feature Request: Add "Resolved" to "Open v Closed" chart breakdown (e.g. Open v Resolved v Closed)

2011-04-14T08:53:20Z

Tracking the progress in status of cases over the course of an iteration is really valuable to us, but at the moment we have two relevant chart breakdowns ("Open vs. Closed" or "Status"), neither of which gives us what we really want.

The problem with "Open vs. Closed" is that cases are only marked as closed once they'd been QA'd, which tends to happen in a block at the end of an iteration - whereas as the developers are marking cases as "Resolved" continuously throughout development. Showing Open vs. Resolved would give us a much more representative measure of development progress.

The Status breakdown is too detailed as it separates out all statuses within all cases categories - which is confusing.

Feature request: icons for status and priority instead of text

2011-05-17T13:21:22Z

We would like to display status and priority as icons instead or additional to text. It would improve the visual appeal and overview in the list cases view.

Feature Request: Ability to set a completion date on a milestone which depends on another that has no date

2011-06-17T15:43:34Z

When I setup these milestones:

Prep Work (no date)
Coding (no date, depends on Prep Work)
Testing and Release (no date, depends on Coding)

and I then try to set a completion date for Testing and Release, FogBugz won't let me, complaining that it starts before a milestone which it depends upon.

What's going on?? Answer: FogBugz always assumes that milestones with dates come before ones with no dates.

Feature Request

If there are dependencies involved, as in my case, EBS should be smart about it and see that the one with a date must come after those without dates, and allow me to set it that way.

Case FC2077466

Feature Request: Reference and link Kiln changesets/files in FogBugz Cases

2011-08-19T23:41:09Z

This may already exist, but after extensive searches and reading, I haven't found anything.

I would like to be able to add a link in a FogBugz case to a file in a Kiln repository, much like you can link a wiki article using W###.

We have client facing documentation (requirements docs, diagrams, design docs, etc.). These are all created in Microsoft Word and Visio.

Since it is relatively difficult to export cases that belong to a project into a client presentable document, it would be very helpful to be able to place all of the client facing project documents in a Kiln repository and then add a link to the case from which it was created. This way we can continue to keep our project documents under version control and intact to share with clients, and link them to the actual work that is done and tracked in FogBugz.

If this is possible, we could also store testing files and such in Kiln and link them to the testing cases in FogBugz. I would much prefer to keep these types of files under version control anyway, and not add them as attachments to a FogBugz case.

Is there an existing feature that will do this, or is this a new feature?

Thanks!

Feature Request: Add Drag and Drop File Uploads with Firefox 3.6

2010-09-20T15:00:02Z

Firefox 3.6 and future supports drag and drop attachments like Chrome/Safari, will we be seeing that soon?

Case FC2217940

Feature Request: Allow deletion of the schedule item category

2011-09-19T19:27:04Z

I can't delete the Schedule Item category because it has "special meaning" for Evidence Based Scheduling. But I can't figure out exactly what special use it has that would prevent EBS from functioning without it (or, more precisely, without cases that can be marked as it.)

If I can use EBS successfully without using schedule items, I should be able to delete schedule items so as not to confuse my users.

Deleting multiple orphaned wiki articles

2011-08-17T16:05:10Z

Can you add functionality to delete multiple/all orphaned wiki articles? It can be quite tedious and time-consuming to delete them individually.

Feature Request: Add ability for BugzScout to submit HTML

2012-02-02T19:10:42Z

I am setting up BugzScout to report unexpected issues with our software. I've been able to get it configured to do everything we need. The only issue I've run into is that when I pass in HTML formatted information for the extra info field, it doesn't display in HTML in the ticket.

Is there some way this can be achieved? If not is this something that can be added? It would make it so much easier to read/display with a stack trace be formatted with HTML.

Case FC2216446

Persistent links to headings within a wiki page, or on another page

2012-02-02T09:44:28Z

We'd like to be able to create links between sections in the same page, or to sections in the middle of other pages.

One way we tried to do this was to use TOC references:

http://.../fogbugz/default.asp?pg=pgWiki&ixWikiPage=1633#toc_66

This works until the page structure changes and adds references above the one linked to.

It seems the only way to do this reliably is by editing HTML, which is not ideal. Could the TOC reference system be altered so that references were persistent?

This question asks how to do it, but I've rewritten it as a feature request, I hope that's appropriate.

Feature Request: Include voting in the Discussion Forums.

2012-02-01T14:17:47Z

It would be nice if the discussion groups got an update to allow voting up/down topics. It would be easier to weed through feature requests and allow us to focus on the most popular feature requests.

Or if a StackExchange layout could replace the discussion board would be great.

Add phone number to User Options Page and allow it to be in the message template

2011-04-26T23:34:13Z

We are now using FB for Customer Support. It would be great if we could add the agents' phone numbers in their signatures for outgoing messages. If you could configure another field in the user options called "Phone", then you could have some dynamic field in the email template called {phone}, then you could have a way for customers to call someone back if needed.

Feature Request: Wiki Article Type for Custom Fields

2011-12-06T18:44:51Z

It'd be nice to have a custom field type for wiki articles. For example, we could create custom fields in cases like "Requirements" and "Specification" that would maintain links to wiki pages. Since FB would know the type in the field, it could also do things like show the current heading for the article and even show popup summaries of the pages, etc.

IM Chat similar to facebook and gtalk

2011-11-07T08:39:33Z

Could you please come up with feature where Project Manager can chat with team members embedded inside fogbugz interface and chat can be saved as case creation if requied. Team members can also chat with each other. Online and offline symbol with members who are online / offlline / away etc.

Thanks Amit Kapoor

Create a new case from the Working on menu

2011-12-20T17:27:40Z

It would be nice if the Working on menu had an option for 'New case' which would open a new case and automatically start tracking time against it. Since a case number doesn't exist yet it would be a little tricky, but you could do something like the following:

Store the time when the new case entry starts (when the New Case page first loads).
When/If the new case is opened and assigned a case#, automatically start working on it and set the Start time to the previously stored time.

Export Case to PDF and Word outputs

2012-01-13T19:24:31Z

We hit this ALL the time: We have a nice, pretty case in FB, with screen shots, and all the related info.

And we need to send this off to the Foo company (who publishes an api, and this FB case of ours is actually documenting a problem in THEIR api, so we gotta communicate this to them... but they don't use our FB...).

I have asked Fog Creek for this before, and they just say "print from your browser to a pdf driver" But this gives dog food pdf, that is not formatted well, has images scaled down too much, etc. (we have tried from multiple browsers, and multiple pdf tools, like cutepdf and acrobat pro).

Also, sometimes I need to edit it a tad first (to remove the comment that says "Foo API sucks") before I send it to Foo. So a Word export would be great.

The Confluence system we use has awesome PDF and Word exports.

We really feel pain not having this in Fogbugz.

We promise to use this feature often, and to praise its usefulness to all within 20 feet of our lunch room.

Thank you!

(I apologize if this is a dupe, but I did look around first before creating this feature request.)

A note RE completeness of feature: Confluence also lets us edit the "master" template that is used when the PDF is generated server side. This lets us make sure "Confidential" and that kind of lingo is always on the exported PDFs. (Another way that a central PDF feature is superior to doing it on desktops.)

Hide unnecessary information in case view

2012-01-30T13:20:20Z

We use FogBugz a lot and we like to structure cases in the following way:

1) A parent case which is the User Story and which contains the description and acceptance test criteria

2) The actual features of the User Story are created as sub cases to the parent case

Whenever a sub case is added, a status update is written to the parent case. This will eventually result in the parent case being very long and thus push the real content of the case way down.

I like that everything is tracked in FogBugz, so I may see who added a sub case and at what time, but in 99% of my normal work with FogBugz I don't need this information!

It would be really really nice, if by default (or personal setting) all of these status updates could be hidden in the case view, thus allowing me to see only the content that users added to the case. Then I could enable the full view that 1% of the time when I actually need to use that information.

Bet it would also help improve performance :-)

Kind regards, Lars Due Nielsen

Copenhagen, Denmark www.klean.dk