New feature - Tagging and associated notices

We want to provide a new feature allow FastDraft users a number of ways to organise and view their data. In this post we outline how we envisage tags working to allow you to more effectively assess your FastDraft data.

This tagging features is display on the same tab as the new associated notices feature but the functionality of link notices is set out separately here and works slightly differently:- New feature - Relating associated notices across workflows

This feature is used to allow new and existing notices to be link together as explained here:-

Best uses for tags

Tagging is very useful when you need something to quickly filter your notices. For example, if you have notices that you consider more important than other notices, you can add a tag such as ‘critical’ to them. You can then select this tag as a filter option and display only those notices that contain that tag.

Tags can be added to all object types in FastDraft eg Notices (communications/certificates/submissions) by end users and also by admins for Companies and Users.

Tags are also available as a filter options in reports and via our API.

You can also search tags using global search.

Using tags

As described in above, you can create and apply tags to different object types in FD so that you can more easily segment, view, and evaluate the data in your FD account.

A user with admin rights is able to add tags that are available to all FD users and can edit or delete those tags. Admin users can also allow all users to define and apply their own tags to their own data objects. See managing tags below.

Tags are added separately for different object types. However, when a notice is under an organisation, its tags are retained and added to the organisation record.

Adding tags to notices

The tags that an admin user has created in the tags settings pages are available to be applied and then to be used for filtering and so on. If all users are allowed to add their own tags, they can be added as described here.

To apply tags to notices and other objects

  1. Select the element (a notice, for example) to which you want to apply a tag. For example, select the notice from the Register page.
  2. Click the Relations tab and the click the Add/Edit button.
  3. For admin defined tags click the Tags field and you’ll see the list of admin defined tags that are available e.g. list fo projects, programmes, or regional areas.
  4. For users generated tag (or enter a new tag, if all users are allowed to add tags) and then enter the tags to require and click Save .

You can also tag multiple objects at one time using your registers.

To tag multiple objects

  1. Select a Workflow Register , User list , or Company List page.
  2. In these table views on the Notices , Users, or Companies select the all the list items to which you want to add tags.
  3. Click the Tag button.
  4. Select one or more tags to apply to the items you selected.
  5. Click Save .

Removing tags

Tags that are applied by FD users to their notices can also be removed from them by simply editing the element and removing the applied tag from the record.

Tags that were created by an admin user and are available to all FD users can only be removed by an admin user (see below). Removing these admin-defined tags means they are no longer available as predefined tags.

Filtering by tags

After tags have been applied, you can use them as filter options and display only those elements any of the Table register views.

To filter by tags

  1. Select either the Workflow Register , Users , or Company Table page.
  2. In the Column selector button, drag the Tags column onto the table.
  3. Tags are filterable using the Tags column. This is available in the Search field of tags column.
  4. Select the Search field and select the terms (or tags) you want to filter on/out and the list will be automatically filtered based on the tag selected.

Managing tags as an admin

To help you organise the entire workflow of your instance of FD, you can easily prepare a set of tags to be used by everyone in the account. FD users can then apply these tags to notices. You can also allow individual FD admin members to create and add their own tags.

Each list of tags for notices, users and companies must be created separately.

You need admin rights to manage tags.

Adding tags

A user with admin rights can add tags that are used by all FD users.

To add global tags to notices

  1. Click the Admin Panel tab, then select Customise > Tabs, Customise > Users, Customise > Companies, Customise > Contracts or [ Customize > Projects ].
  2. Select the Tags tab.
  3. Click Add Tag .
  4. Enter your tag, then click Save .
  5. Select who can apply tags in your FD account. The options are All users and Admin only .

Tags that are added in the admin page are available to FD users to add to their notices. After tags have been added, they can then be used to filter Table and register lists and also to define reports.

Tags can also be added to your FD account via a data import using a CSV file. You will need to raise a support ticket with our support team.

Allowing all users to add tags

Who can define and add tags is determined by a FD user with admin rights. When editing tag settings for notices, an admin user can select to allow All users to add tags (instead of just Admin only).

When set to All users , FD users can enter any tags they want by editing a notice, for example. All of the tags that are added by FD users appear on the Tags tab on the admin settings page.

All tags are available to all users of your FD account, which means that any tag a user creates is visible to the entire population.

Editing and deleting tags

Tags can be edited (its name changed) and deleted.

To edit or delete tags for objects

  1. Click the Admin Panel tab, then select Customise > Tabs, Customise > Users, Customise > Companies, Customise > Contracts or [ Customize > Projects ].
  2. Select the Tags tab.
  3. If you want to edit a tag, click the Edit button next to the tag’s name. Change the tag’s name and then click Save . The new name of the edited tag is immediately changed in the objects where it was used. Note: If you can’t see the Edit button, this means you don’t have the required permission to edit it.
  4. If you want to delete a tag, click the Delete icon (the trash can) next to the tag’s name. You’ll be prompted to confirm that you want to delete the tag.

About tag editing permissions

Your ability to create, edit, and delete tags is determined by the permissions that are allowed for your user type in FD.

  • You can edit tags created by you or your subordinates. To edit tags created by other users, you need to have admin privileges.
  • You can delete tags created by you or your subordinates. To delete tags created by other users, you need to have admin privileges.
  • If you’re a User on your account, you won’t be able to delete Manager or Admin data from FD, including tags created by those users. A Super Admin or an Admin will need to delete the tags, or upgrade your permissions.

API integration

The tag API endpoints will allow the following interfaces:- Fetch list of tags, Fetch specific tag, Update tags, Delete tag, Create tag, List possible autocomplete values for a search term and List all tags for the current user/company/project/contract/notice and Tag an user/company/project/contract/notice.

name - The name of a tag.
String - Required

context_id - The ID of the object the tag is for.
Integer - Required

context_type - The type of the object the tag is for. May only be set to ‘group_users’ at this time.
String - Required

@batuhan.balaban and @adrian.von.plato i have set out spec above for a new feature being requested by some clients. i have taken screenshot where features has been mocked up, but have yet to do this for the admin panel. let me know your thoughts. We can then share with client and also Steven Evans to validate it.

Hi @ian.brown, @loreta.adams and @Steve.Webley could you please take a look at the scope we have produced for a new feature we wish to roll out.

Hi @chriscorr, the proposals as set out will definitely work for our use case of cross referencing supplier change to our main contract references through the pre-defined tags that we can use across the project. The flexibility of leaving it open for users to add their own tags will also support specific use cases for a particular subcontract without having to have a top down approach to everything.

Queries I have:
I think in various conversations we talked around the linking between notices, what starts as an EWN may lead to an NCE, Instruction for quote, quote and implemented CE and I thought there was going to be an automatic/system generated element of tagging which would address this?

Are the tags visible to both parties to the contract or do they only have visibility of tags added by their own company? I’m not entirely sure what I want the answer to be but potentially the ability to control that visibility may be useful.

Lastly, can you “close” a predefined tag such that the notices with that tag retain it but no new notices can be tagged with it? I’m thinking around preventing subcontract change being tagged against a main contract change ID which has been closed and agreed.

First question is the most important.

Ian

A followup thought, it may be helpful to keep the “managed” list of tags separate to the free tagging by users so you don’t end up with the available tags getting polluted by misspelled words, abbreviations etc.

@loreta.adams and @Steve.Webley this features is being release in December and the scope will be locked down shortly so we can get it built. I still don’t have any comments or feedback from you, so it will have to wait until the next update if not. Can i have any input from you back by close of play 14/11/20. thanks

@batuhan.balaban and @adrian.von.plato assume you have what you need to get this built now, but if not please seek any clarifications you need from the user directly. thanks

@ian.brown yes that is the intention. The automatic association of notices under the old UI was done differently, so i think this will still need scoping as an improvement. @batuhan.balaban can you confirm whether this will be consolidated all under the same tabs once implemented or done later and whether you need anything from us to enable this. Another points to consider, is that these automatic tags cannot be removed by a user.

@ian.brown good question. this would be quite a lot of extra complexity to manage so initially the tags would be visible to all users who can view the notice. I suggest we look at improvements down the line once it’s been used and we have feedback from users.

@ian.brown another good questions, which again i think will be complex to manage. i don’t think have a multi tiered permission hierarchy is possible at this stage. At this stage we envisaged a two tier approach. end users can add and remove tags from the bottom up e.g. all parties who can access the contract and a second tier top down where the list of tags is managed through the admin panel. I have envisaged that both sets of tags can be applied and removed by anybody and that only the admin list is fully controlled by the admins. Let me know if this works for your users case.

@ian.brown Yes thats the intention. A list of admin controlled tags and a system wide list of user generated tags.

@chriscorr Based on feedback received to date, the ability to create and view threaded conversations is probably the number one priority for our users. I think we need to be careful in terms of terminology so that there is no ambiguity in terms of creating/updating/deleting a tag versus applying/removing a tag on a particular object. If I’m understanding your spec correctly Admins can create tags for global use and can switch on or off the capability for users to create their own tags. We would definitely need the ability for Admins to update and delete tags created by users and the ability for admins to remove tags previously applied by users. We would definitely want users to be able to remove tags they applied (even if the tag was created by an Admin for global use) but we wouldn’t want end users to be able to delete those tags (hence the need to be careful with the definitions). You would need to consider whether you would want end users to be able to remove a tag (from a user/company/project/contract/notice) that had been applied by another user. Most crucially, not covered in the spec is the need to be able to generate reports of all objects that contain specific tags/associations irrespective of which register they appear in. A particular use case would be, for example, report on all of the Contractor and PM notifications relating to EWN-00001. That would probably also require extension of the date field to include timestamp or at the very least require a report to list the communications in the order in which they were sent.

Since the software already allows key association (e.g. a PMI and multiple EWN’s to be associated to a CEN) it wouldn’t make sense to duplicate this functionality. More specifically, it wouldn’t make sense to provide users multiple ways to achieve the same thing as that will only lead to confusion. Would you plan to replace the existing associations so that all associations are created in the same way? If so you would need to plan for recreating all existing PMI to CEN and and EWN to CEN associations so that they are retained in the new format. In all cases it would be useful for the associated form to be visible in both directions and include a hyperlink for ease of navigation back and forth between associated process forms.

@ian.brown we have discussed this internally and on reflect we are going to start simpler and only have a single list of tags that can either be managed by the admin or end users, as we feel that two lists will lead to housekeeping issues.

@batuhan.balaban Steve makes a good point. As part of this features we would need to migrate the existing associations between documents, so that users or the system can associates document only one way.