Enhancements Process FAQs

Q: How are moderators selected and what are their qualifications?

Q: What is the role of the moderators?

Q: Are there any rules for participating in the Enhancement Forums? If so, what are they?

Q: What features are available in the enhancement forums?

Q: Why does SirsiDynix only allow us to submit a limited number of enhancements annually?

Q: How long does it take between posting an enhancement request and the enhancement appearing in an actual version?

Q: What enhancement requests have been submitted in past years?

Q: What happens to requests that do not make the annual top enhancements list?

Q: What happens to requests that SirsiDynix declines to implement?

Q: What happens to lower-priority enhancements that SirsiDynix agrees to develop but then cannot finish in time for a release?

Q: Who should I contact if I have any questions or run into problems?

 

Q: How are moderators selected and what are their qualifications?

A: The process of recruiting moderators is overseen by the users' groups. Moderators need to be familiar with the module under discussion, and need to be able to review forum activity at least weekly, summarize discussions accurately and impartially, create suggestion polls in a timely manner, and be available to select proposed enhancements for submission to SirsiDynix when the time comes.

Q: What is the role of the moderators?

A: Moderators monitor the Enhancement forum requests. Moderators may encourage more discussion customer listservs or request clarification.  When needed, Moderators summarize the discussion, outline the goals/benefits of the enhancement, and describe the desired "look and feel." On an annual basis, moderators tally the votes and submit the most popular requests to SirsiDynix as proposed enhancements.

Q: Are there any rules for participating in the Enhancement Forums? If so, what are they?

A: All SirsiDynix Support Portal users can and are encouraged to participate in the Enhancement forums.  Throughout the year users can submit requests, comment on existing requests and add their vote to the polls.
 
COSUGI member institution also gets to designate one official voter to cast their ballots for Enhancement Requests during the annual voting cycle.  During each cycle, each institution is limited to one vote per request, though this is currently not enforced by the software.
Posters are asked to be polite and to stay on topic.
 
If you vote "No" on a request, please add a response to the forum indicating why you voted that way, since even one No vote can be enough for SirsiDynix to turn down an enhancement request. If SirsiDynix can see exactly why someone voted No to an otherwise popular request, they may take those concerns into account when making their decision and creating the development specifications. (Especially if the reason is something that they can easily account for during the design process.)
 
It is a good idea to look through and search the forums for the topics of your request before posting it, as it is possible someone else has already suggested the same idea, in which case adding your support to the existing thread, even one from several years ago, is better than starting a new thread. Posting to an existing thread prevents discussion of the topic from becoming fractured across many discussion threads and thus difficult to follow, and your post of support of the existing thread may be all that thread needs to demonstrate sufficient interest & consensus to be elevated to the poll stage. (Put another way, a new post to an old thread is more likely to get to the poll stage faster than starting a new thread, as a new post will have to attract new posts of support.)

Q: What features are available in the enhancement forums?

A: Search – The forums are all indexed, and the indexes are accessible both by the keyword search and several limiters such as topic, category and status.
 
Request result pages are sortable by column heads such as created date, number of view and number of votes.
 
Requests provide users with option for subscriptions to receive updates.  Related issues and JIRAs are linked from with requests to provide more information.
 
Polling - While you are viewing a request, you can view current results and record your support (or not) and rate your enthusiasm on a scale from “No” to “Critical”. If you change your mind, you can later change your vote. 
 
Official Enhancement Ballot Results – During a voting cycle official COSUGI designees can view votes and cast your ballots for requests.  For request that have completed a voting cycle, you can continue view the results.  If you have not yet voted in a poll, click "View Results" to see the current results. 
 
Completed polls - After an enhancement has been submitted to SirsiDynix, the poll will be closed and no more votes will be accepted. Its "Sticky" status will be removed.

Q: Why does SirsiDynix only allow us to submit a limited number of enhancements annually?

A: In the past, SirsiDynix committed to more enhancements than their development system could handle. Customers were unhappy when their favorite enhancements remained unfulfilled. SirsiDynix decided it was better to accept fewer enhancement requests and actually follow through on fulfilling them.

Q: How long does it take between posting an enhancement request and the enhancement appearing in an actual version?

 

A: Due to the nature of the process, this can vary greatly from request to request. If a request quickly garners a lot of support and a general consensus for how the suggested functionality should work, it may be quickly elevated to the polling stage. If it then gets a lot of high-enthusiasm Yes votes, or there are not many other requests on that forum, it may make the list of top enhancements at the next forum deadline.
 
Once an enhancement has been submitted to SirsiDynix, a top-priority enhancement should generally take between 12 and 18 months to appear in a delivered release.
 
Therefore, the minimum amount of time between posting an enhancement request and seeing the enhancement in a delivered release is approximately a year to a year and a half. For a busy forum with a lot of requests jockeying for the top positions, two to three years is more likely, as it will likely take more than one cycle for a request to gather enough votes of sufficient enthusiasm to be one of a cycle's most popular requests.

Q: What enhancement requests have been submitted in past years?

A: All threads on the forum are kept for several years in the Enhancements Forums.  Enhancements that have been accepted will be marked with a JIRA if they are in process and Complete when the feature has been added.  

Q: What happens to requests that do not make the annual top enhancements list?

A: After the most popular polls have been submitted and their voting have been closed, the remaining polls will remain open for voting in the next cycle.

Q: What happens to requests that SirsiDynix declines to implement?

A: If SirsiDynix declines to implement a request, the forum will have to discuss it again, taking into consideration the reasons, if any, SirsiDynix gave as part of their decision, and then vote again on it. In most cases, if there is still interest in the request, a new thread can be started to discuss modifying the request to avoid whatever issues SirsiDynix raised, and once consensus on a new wording is reached, the revised request can be elevated to the polling stage and go through that process again. In a select few cases (such as those where the customers are interested in functionality SirsiDynix could develop in the time available but is not interested in implementing), the moderator may open a poll about the request as it currently stands in order to gauge continued interest, and thus could potentially re-submit it at the end of the next enhancement cycle.

Q: What happens to lower-priority enhancements that SirsiDynix agrees to develop but then cannot finish in time for a release?

A: Enhancements that SirsiDynix agrees to implement but then cannot finish in time for a release will not be automatically rolled over into the list of enhancements to be implemented in the following release. Instead, there will be a brief reconsideration process on the forums as part of the then-current enhancement cycle, in which customers will indicate which of those enhancements are still considered desirable and should be scheduled for the following release. (This way, those enhancements do not have to go back through the entire enhancement process. Also, if there is a lower-priority enhancement that is no longer needed due to other technological, societal, legal, etc. changes, the customers get a say in the decision to drop it from development.)

No decision has yet been made on how these will affect the number of enhancement requests SirsiDynix is willing to commit to for a given release.

It is technically possible for an enhancement to end up in a quasi-Limbo in this way, continually being resubmitted by the customers but then assigned a low priority and getting bumped from the final release. However, because they must go through the process each year, both the company and the customers will be continually reminded that they exist, so when SirsiDynix reconsiders the priority of these requests in future enhancement cycles, they also will have to consider the long-term customer demand.

Q: Who should I contact if I have any questions or run into problems?

A: For questions and concerns about specific forums, contact the moderator for that forum.

For questions about the overall enhancements process, contact the COSUGI Enhancements Coordinator at enhancements@cosugi.org.