Leveraging Feedback in Katapult Pro

With the Feedback tool, users working together on a job can leave comments throughout (on nodes, pieces of Attribute History, and Actions recorded in Action Tracking as some examples of where feedback can be provided) and start up a conversation with the person that did the work or made the changes. PEs can perform reviews of their team’s work, verify make-ready calls, or potentially provide alternative solutions to the problem at hand. The tool allows for communication to flow naturally through the system and displays all of a user’s feedback on our /home page.

Our teams use feedback to propagate information quickly and efficiently, directly to the person who needs to receive it. Keeping Feedback inside the system will tie the information to a real-world entity (any node in the job) to the actual conversation so that all parties involved have access to the data being discussed.

Leaving feedback and initiating a conversation is simple. For leaving feedback on nodes, click on any type of node on the map, and click the chat icon in the top right corner of the node info panel. This will open up an initial Feedback Details window, which will allow you to drop your comments on this node. (Our team often uses feedback on the node for leaving feedback on annotations during the extraction phase.)

If you have Attribute History enabled on a job or configured Action Tracking, you can also leave feedback on a specific attribute change or action recorded further down in the node info panel.

As shown above, there's chat icons next to each piece of the Attribute History. Click on it to open the Feedback Details window and leave a comment on the change that was made.

Action Tracking will also be kept in its own section inside the node info panel. Click the three dot menu next to the Action you want to leave feedback for, click "Show Conversation," and the Feedback Details window will open.

You have two options available to you once you open up the Feedback Details window. You can either leave a message or open an issue. Think of it like this:

• Leaving a message indicates that you have non-actionable feedback to leave for somebody. By leaving a message, you can comment on a node without requiring action from that individual.

• Opening an issue indicates that you have an action item that you are requiring an individual to respond to. You need them to fix a piece of data on the node, correct an annotation, or possibly change a make-ready call.

When leaving feedback on the node itself, be sure to tag a specific user in your feedback, so that they can see the comments you have left for them. As you are typing out your message, simply use the “@” symbol to tag another user in your company. The system will present you with all of your company’s users, and you can then search and filter down to find the correct person.

All of your comments and actions (i.e. opening and closing issues) in this conversation will be tracked in the dialog window. Several people can be tagged and involved in a feedback conversation, and all parties will be able to see the most up-to-date responses. This will allow you to dialog back and forth with your co-workers.

For feedback left on an attribute in the attribute history or an action in action tracking, since the user who performed the attribute change or action is linked to it, they will automatically be included in the feedback conversation and won't need to be tagged.

(The GIF above shows a user, "lweaver," leaving a comment on the change made for the MR Category attribute. The second screenshot shows the Feedback Queue of the user "abashore" with the comment left by "lweaver," since "abashore" made the change to the MR Category attribute. Even though "lweaver" did not tag "abashore," the comment still showed up in the Feedback Queue for "abashore" since that user was linked with the attribute in the Attribute History.)

We needed a way to keep track of all of these conversations, so we built a central Home page that houses all of the conversations you are a part of. Eventually, this Home page will be able to house other widgets and useful tools for you to use.

Initially, you’ll see a queue of all of the conversations that you are currently a part of. You will see all the feedback that you are a part of, and you can click on the chat icon (outlined in orange) to open the details. This will be the same Feedback Details window we saw on the Maps page, only it'll open here on the Home page. (Notice that the avatar displayed for a particular feedback dialog is the avatar of the user that most recently responded.)

You can open up each piece of feedback to read comments in the conversation. In the "Labels" portion of the Feedback Details window, you'll notice the text for the "JOB" and "NODE" are blue, unlike the other labels in the screenshot above that are black text. That's because the blue text are links - click on the job name to open the job; click on the node to open the job with that specific node selected. This makes it easy to reference the data being discussed and address any issues .

You can then decide what to do with this feedback item. Each feedback window will have two options in the top right-hand corner, Leave Conversation, and Clear From Queue.

If you no longer wish to be a part of the conversation at hand, you can leave it altogether. This will remove you from the conversation and you will no longer receive future notifications.

If you have remedied the feedback item, and still want to be notified of further interactions, you can simply hit the “Clear From Queue” button. This will file the item away and remove it from your main queue of feedback. You are still a follower of this conversation and will be notified if any further comments are left.

Notifications will show up as bubbles with a number on your avatar in the toolbar. The number corresponds with the number of feedback conversations you have; if you click on your avatar, you will be able to click on the "# Feedback Item" button on the dialog window to take you to the home page. Any red bubbles will indicate feedback with open issues, and blue bubbles will indicate feedback without open issues.

Thanks for reading! We are excited for your team to be able to start using this new feedback system. If you run into any issues or have any questions, contact us at support@katapultengineering.com. How can we improve our documentation? Let us know in the comments below!