eZ Roadmap description & FAQ

What is the eZ Roadmap?

eZ Roadmap is the place where:

• Anyone can come up with a feature idea,
• Anyone can rate a feature by +1-ing it onto his/her own roadmap,
• We can discuss the features,
• You can openly volunteer to participate in feature definition or development

eZ Roadmap completes the tool set that we, as an open source Community, need to innovate and push eZ Publish ahead at a fast pace. The two other main tools are:

• Issue Tracker: https://jira.ez.no/browse/EZP, for bug-reporting,
• Code Repository: http://github.com/ezsystems/ezpublish  for code level collaboration. A very useful tutorial on Github can be found here.

FAQ

• What are the pre-requisites to participating to eZ Roadmap ?
• How can i submit a new feature idea ?
• What is the difference with the "Request for Enhancement" in the issue tracker ?
• What happens once i have submitted a feature ?
• How is moderation working ?
• When can we start coding ?
• How can we collaborate with other people ?
• Why would i bother creating "My Roadmap" ?
• How is feature score calculated ?
• What does "Official Roadmap" mean ?
• How can i report issues on the Roadmap tool itself ?
• How can i stay tuned on the latest features posted ?

What are the prerequisites for participation in eZ Roadmap?

There are almost none. The contents of eZ Roadmap is publicly available. You can search it and read it without needing to log-in.
If you want to:

• Add a new feature idea,
• +1/Add an existing feature to your custom roadmap,
• Participate in a feature discussion,

you will need to sign-in. If you do not have an eZ Community account yet, join here : http://share.ez.no/user/register

How can i submit a new feature idea?

First, sign-in with your eZ Community account. If you do not have one yet, register here: http://share.ez.no/user/register. Then navigate to http://share.ez.no/roadmap and click the "Request" button. An edit form appears, you can safely go wild now.
 
A few hints:

• Make the feature title explicit and descriptive,
• The description is where you can convince other eZ Community members that your idea is awesome. You can adopt the "User story" type of feature description, commonly used in agile project management,
• Pick tags that instantly communicate what the feature is about,
• If your idea is related to existing issues or request for enhancements in the issue tracker, list their IDs (comma-separated) in the "Related to" Issues field.

What is the difference from the "Request for Enhancement" in the issue tracker?

You probably were used to filing "Requests for Enhancement" in the eZ Publish issue tracker, along with bug reports. A "Request for Enhancement" often is a small scope idea on an existing eZ Publish feature.
 
A feature, filed in eZ Roadmap, is interpreted as a larger scope, longer-term idea, involving more specification work than a simple "Request for Enhancement". But the difference is small. When in doubt, you may want to prefer eZ Roadmap. The moderators will guide you here, so do not worry if you place something in the wrong place.

What happens once i have submitted a feature?

After clicking the "OK" button in the Feature edit form, your proposal will go through moderation. Moderation will merge duplicates and bounce spam. The moderation time may vary, and you will be notified through email when your feature is published.
 
Once approved, your idea becomes part of the Community log of features, and everyone can start +1-ing it to their own Roadmap, thus increasing its score. Other members can also click the "Participate" button, making clear they want to help. A forum thread is attached to it, so that discussions can start around the idea. That is the beginning of the specifications/design/implementation phase for your idea.

How does moderation work?

The Product Management team at eZ is part of moderation, as well as the eZ Publish Community Project Board. They will work jointly to make sure as much innovation as possible is channeled into eZ Publish over time.
 
Every time a feature is submitted, it is scanned, dissected & scrutinized by the worldwide green-tech-enabled eZ Cloud computing infrastructure, busting spam with a 100% hit ratio. Moderation also helps merge similar ideas into one, reducing duplicates, and thus reducing dilution of ideas.
 
Once the feature is approved, it is published in the Community Roadmap, and participation can start. It might also make its way into the Official Roadmap, if our Product Management team is willing to commit to it. 

When can we start coding?

Once the feature is approved, participation can start. Participation means several things including:

• Aggregating the team of volunteers to build the feature,
• Brainstorming (over the forum thread associated to the feature),
• Specifications/requirements writing,
• Prototyping,
• Actually developing the feature and committing it to the eZ Publish repository.

How can we collaborate with other people?

First, get people who are keen on participating to signify it by clicking the "Participate" button on the feature. The effect is that this feature is pushed into their custom roadmap (My Roadmap), and they are listed as participants in the feature. In short: make the team visible.
 
The means of collaboration are up to the team. However, we provide some useful tools:

• A forum thread attached to the feature, allowing discussions,
• Github, through your fork(s) of eZ Publish, makes it easy to collaborate at the code level, and then retrofit this back into the main eZ Publish repository.

Why would I create a "My Roadmap"? 

"My Roadmap" is here for you to build THE list of all ultimate features YOU want to see in eZ Publish. We will make sure it appears on your profile, so you can inspire other community members and on-board them to build the features you want.
 
The second point of creating your roadmap is that every feature +1-ed into your roadmap will be weighted higher. The higher the score, the higher the ranking in the Community roadmap, the higher the attention received. Logical. You can also order the features within your roadmap, according to your interest. This order is also reflected in the feature's overall score.

How is feature score calculated?

We first went for an advanced version of the formulae.
We then rolled-back to this: the score is the sum of priorities assigned to the feature on members' custom roadmaps, divided by the total amount of features, multiplied by 100.
 
In essence, to increase a feature's score and make sure it gets more attention:

• Place it (+1 or "Participate" buttons) in your roadmap,
• Push it up within your roadmap order.

What does "Official Roadmap" mean?

The main roadmap page displays the Community roadmap. It is where we are building the eZ Publish Community Project feature database, ordering it, and delivering on it based on our needs.

On the top-right corner, the "Official Roadmap" tab will lead you to the list of features to which eZ's Product Management has officially committed. This means that eZ Engineers will put particular effort into these features, and join the Community in making them real.

How can I report issues on the Roadmap tool itself?

You can do so by filing a report on the Community portal issue tracker. When editing the issue, in the right-hand column, pick the Component named "roadmap" under "share.ez.no". Be descriptive, give the steps to reproduce, and do not hesitate to attach a screenshot or any other useful information that should speed up the fix.

How can I stay tuned to the latest features posted?

To follow the latest features posted, subscribe to the dedicated RSS feed called eZ Roadmap : http://share.ez.no/get-involved/exchange#RSS