IMPORTANT: We need your feedback to decide about the technical future of SUMO

April 19, 2016, 1:32:30 AM PDT

Hello,

We have some urgent news that we would like to share with you first. In an effort to eliminate some of the challenges that our users have, Mozilla is focusing all staff developer efforts on improving Firefox. While this is good news, this also means that we will no longer have full time employee web developers to work on support.mozilla.org.

We are therefore obligated to look at alternatives, including outsourcing to 3rd party development agencies for the SUMO knowledge base and alternative forum tools for the SUMO forum.

Your opinion is extremely important on how we’re going to move further. The goal for SUMO is to provide the best community-based support at scale. While this might sound challenging this is also a great opportunity for us to figure out what are the things we need most from our platform and get a better solution/tool than the one we have now.

We consider our Knowledge Base and Localization tools are best in class compared to the alternatives that we’ve researched so far. Keeping that in mind here are some of the choices we are considering:

Keeping the KB and L10N on Kitsune and finding a better forum platform
Replacing both the KB and the forum with a different platform
...any others?

Here are some of the platforms we are considering (in no particular order):

Discourse
Lithium
Get Satisfaction
Zendesk
Salesforce
...should we consider others?

We’d like your feedback as quickly as possible because we have to make a recommendation by May 1st. We have started a Google doc to collect your thoughts. Here are some initial questions that we can use to start the discussion:

What are the features or functionalities that are essential to you?
Have you used other support platforms before?
What lessons have you learned that would be applicable to SUMO?
What are some of the things that you’d like to avoid?

We know this is a big decision, so please take your time to compose your thoughts.

Madalina will be out until Wednesday (tomorrow), so if you have any pressing questions or concerns before then, please share them with Patrick and Vesper or with Madalina starting on Wednesday.

Hello, We have some urgent news that we would like to share with you first. In an effort to eliminate some of the challenges that our users have, Mozilla is focusing all staff developer efforts on improving Firefox. While this is good news, this also means that we will no longer have full time employee web developers to work on support.mozilla.org. We are therefore obligated to look at alternatives, including outsourcing to 3rd party development agencies for the SUMO knowledge base and alternative forum tools for the SUMO forum. Your opinion is extremely important on how we’re going to move further. The goal for SUMO is to provide the best community-based support at scale. While this might sound challenging this is also a great opportunity for us to figure out what are the things we need most from our platform and get a better solution/tool than the one we have now. We consider our Knowledge Base and Localization tools are best in class compared to the alternatives that we’ve researched so far. Keeping that in mind here are some of the choices we are considering: * Keeping the KB and L10N on Kitsune and finding a better forum platform * Replacing both the KB and the forum with a different platform * ...any others? Here are some of the platforms we are considering (in no particular order): * Discourse * Lithium * Get Satisfaction * Zendesk * Salesforce * ...should we consider others? We’d like your feedback as quickly as possible because we have to make a recommendation by May 1st. [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mYIx-6ZzRmb-cug5s8wgEQG5meNBqikpAtq-D768j5Y/edit We have started a Google doc to collect your thoughts]. Here are some initial questions that we can use to start the discussion: * What are the features or functionalities that are essential to you? * Have you used other support platforms before? * What lessons have you learned that would be applicable to SUMO? * What are some of the things that you’d like to avoid? We know this is a big decision, so please take your time to compose your thoughts. Madalina will be out until Wednesday (tomorrow), so if you have any pressing questions or concerns before then, please share them with [mailto:pmcclard@mozilla.com Patrick] and [https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/user/vesper Vesper] or with [https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/user/Madasan Madalina] starting on Wednesday.

Modified by vesper on April 26, 2016, 12:55:29 AM PDT

Madasan 1255 posts

April 20, 2016, 2:53:29 AM PDT

Hi guys,

I just wanted to thank everybody who has provided their feedback so far, there's a lot of it and it is very constructive so thank you!! As vesper stated in the initial post the reason we're keeping this thread locked for now is so that we can collect everything in one place (it is easier to follow). Once this is done and we identify the top things for discussion we can open it up.

Your feedback is crucial for how we're going to deal with this so please try to provide it by the end of the week. We will discuss more next week.

Hi guys, I just wanted to thank everybody who has provided their feedback so far, there's a lot of it and it is very constructive so thank you!! As vesper stated in the initial post the reason we're keeping this thread locked for now is so that we can collect everything in one place (it is easier to follow). Once this is done and we identify the top things for discussion we can open it up. Your feedback is crucial for how we're going to deal with this so please try to provide it by the end of the week. We will discuss more next week.

Madasan 1255 posts

April 22, 2016, 2:31:08 AM PDT

Hi everybody,

Quick update on the progress of this.

Once again thanks everybody who took the time and entered their feedback. We're now in the process of surfacing the top platform requirements as well as concerns identified by the community. This will make it easier to discuss the direction we want to move towards. We're going to post those on Monday and open up this thread.

There is a lot of very constructive and thoughtful feedback in the document so I think we will be able to move this in a very positive direction. Thank you once again for being so involved, you rock!

Hi everybody, Quick update on the progress of this. Once again thanks everybody who took the time and entered their feedback. We're now in the process of surfacing the top platform requirements as well as concerns identified by the community. This will make it easier to discuss the direction we want to move towards. We're going to post those on Monday and open up this thread. There is a lot of very constructive and thoughtful feedback in the document so I think we will be able to move this in a very positive direction. Thank you once again for being so involved, you rock!

Madasan 1255 posts

April 25, 2016, 11:50:45 PM PDT

Hi everybody,

First of all thank you for your patience during this process, it seems we’re finally getting somewhere!

We have managed to compile all your amazing feedback and draw a few conclusions on what our priorities are moving forward.

The top priority for the community is to consider the alternative cost of opening platform ownership and maintenance to existing contributors and rallying other Mozillians around Kitsune.

If this is not possible for various reasons we will look at a 3rd party option where best feature parity and smooth data migration are key. The most important features that this 3rd party option should have are:

identify with Mozilla and the Mozilla community and feel like an integral part of it
feel “cozy” and enable the community spirit.
support complete data migration (including all existing UI and content localizations, content-contributor relationships, community roles, badges, etc.)
offer automated troubleshooting data collection from users reporting issues.
offer a complete set of issue management tools for the support community (merging, deleting, tagging, best answer selection, etc.)
support full localization of all support content in a scalable and measurable way (multiple contributors, prioritization, version control, metrics) and support existing content display options (show content for release/platform combinations, enable embedding of user-generated rich media content, different text formatting for UI elements, etc.)
include a notification system to help track issues.
present a low-barrier of entry - be easy and intuitive to use and navigate for both users and contributors.

Next step: we’re in discussions with several 3rd party platforms to see what they have to offer as well as checking whether the first option is actually possible.

Any questions or concerns: fire away!

Hi everybody, First of all thank you for your patience during this process, it seems we’re finally getting somewhere! We have managed to compile all your amazing feedback and draw a few conclusions on what our priorities are moving forward. The top priority for the community is to consider the alternative cost of opening platform ownership and maintenance to existing contributors and rallying other Mozillians around Kitsune. If this is not possible for various reasons we will look at a 3rd party option where best feature parity and smooth data migration are key. The most important features that this 3rd party option should have are: *identify with Mozilla and the Mozilla community and feel like an integral part of it *feel “cozy” and enable the community spirit. *support complete data migration (including all existing UI and content localizations, content-contributor relationships, community roles, badges, etc.) *offer automated troubleshooting data collection from users reporting issues. *offer a complete set of issue management tools for the support community (merging, deleting, tagging, best answer selection, etc.) *support full localization of all support content in a scalable and measurable way (multiple contributors, prioritization, version control, metrics) and support existing content display options (show content for release/platform combinations, enable embedding of user-generated rich media content, different text formatting for UI elements, etc.) *include a notification system to help track issues. *present a low-barrier of entry - be easy and intuitive to use and navigate for both users and contributors. Next step: we’re in discussions with several 3rd party platforms to see what they have to offer as well as checking whether the first option is actually possible. Any questions or concerns: fire away!

Modified by Madasan on April 27, 2016, 2:11:59 AM PDT

Michal Stanke 86 posts

April 26, 2016, 12:34:33 AM PDT

Hi Madalina.

Thank you for the feedback sum-up. And count with me for the plan A (first option). I also hope to get someone involved too, once we get there.

Cheers, Michal

Hi Madalina. Thank you for the feedback sum-up. And count with me for the plan A (first option). I also hope to get someone involved too, once we get there. Cheers, Michal

Madasan 1255 posts

May 12, 2016, 7:07:07 AM PDT

Hi everybody,

Quick update on this one: we have been discussing with two 3rd party vendors about their solutions and they offered some demos. Unfortunately we can only share those with NDA contributors because they may contain sensitive info from our vendors. We have recordings available so if you want to check them out and provide feedback please PM me your Mozillians.org profile so I can make sure to get you in the NDA group.

If you are already under NDA and you have not received the recordings please let me know.

Thank you so much for your participation and help on this one!!

Hi everybody, Quick update on this one: we have been discussing with two 3rd party vendors about their solutions and they offered some demos. Unfortunately we can only share those with NDA contributors because they may contain sensitive info from our vendors. We have recordings available so if you want to check them out and provide feedback please PM me your Mozillians.org profile so I can make sure to get you in the NDA group. If you are already under NDA and you have not received the recordings please let me know. Thank you so much for your participation and help on this one!!

cor-el 1446 posts

May 13, 2016, 9:45:29 AM PDT

I would love to keep the API as that is a very fast way to load SUMO pages (less than 2 seconds versus usually over 10 seconds) and allow me to include more data.