[SPTUsers] User feedback

[Arbit 1202]

Hi,

We've been using spt on our intranet as a knowledge
base for some time now. We are a management consulting
organization with about 5 users - and spt usage has
been quite heavy. I thought I would send you user
comments to date.

This has ended up being a longer list than
anticipated, and is absolutely not intended as a "must
do" feature list. However, if any of these are on your
spt roadmap, it would be great if you could tell us.
Possibly we could then start work on some of the
remaining features and feed the code back to you.

Thanks for a great product, and hope this feedback is
useful.

PC

Overall
-------
Very very good. It beats all other "out of the box"
portal systems hands down for knowledge management
usage. In fact, in my search for the right software
for us, I've looked at almost all major cms, portal,
forum and FAQ systems, but spt is unique. Users
specially liked
1. Being able to enter multiple metadata fields
(absolutely critical for a knowledge base)
2. The "automatic" searches that happen when you click
on a classification / creator / publisher name in a
full record listing. 
3. Advanced Search flexibility and speed
4. Built in forums - we use this for a preliminary
discussion on a resource before moving it to the main
database
5. Rating system
6. Recommendation system

As administrator, what can I say but mucho thanks for
the
1. flexibility in adding / handling database fields?
2. ability to rebuild search and recommendation
databases at will


Some areas where they felt more features would be
useful. Most of these relate to having fewer clicks
and new pages being spawned while entering data: 
Edit Resource
------------- 
1. After clicking "Update", we dont get the final
view, and HTML code is still visible.
2. After "Update", may as well submit directly -
anyway can see the changes in the modification screen.
Else, can have separate buttons for "Preview" and
"Submit".
3. Buttons for inserting HTML code next to the
description box(resource as well as forum)? - for
people who dont know HTML. Main codes needed are <br>,
<a>, bold, italic, and underline. (I've seen this on
quite a few forums and wikis).

Home Page
---------
1. Can we optionally remove announcements?
2. Regarding "new resources". How is "new" defined? If
added in say last x days, then how do we see the next
bunch? As of now, can see only the 5 (or whatever is
set by admin) latest resources. Would like a
"next"/previous link.

Search & Print : these features were rated very high
on desirability
--------------
1. Search in forums?
2. Ability to search by rating?
3. Flag resources individually for export
4. Flag resources individually for printing
5. Printer friendly version of full resource page

Adding resources
----------------
1. Mostly as given in my earlier mail in March.
Overall, would be nice to be able to enter resources
(particularly multiple creator names), with fewer
clicks.

Speed
-----
1. Home page takes 3.5-4 seconds to generate, while
search takes less (2sec odd). Is this happening to
anyone else also or should I delve into my database
setup?

Browse resources
----------------
1. Can we see full tree at one time, instead of having
to click on each category to see sub categories
eg, the browse resources page would look something
like
Architecture -- History -- Canada
Architecture -- Technical
and clicking on any node would open the relevant page.

Thanks

PC

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