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Final report for WooCommerce E-commerce Software Support and Development Work-project for weeks 23 & 24 (2017)
By author Morgan Jassen
I replied to multiple threads over multiple days on the software user forums ( wordpress.org/support/plugin/woocommerce )
I researched more, then followed up on a thread that I had previously replied, thus progressing the issue.
Someone thanked me for my willingness to help. I'm writing to ask them how they ended up solving it. https://wordpress.org/support/topic/lightbox-not-working-134/#post-9206159
Writing my final report, I see this thread along with others: "Update to 3.0.8 CRASHES my site – PLEASE fix ASAP!!" ( https://wordpress.org/support/topic/update-to-3-0-8-crashes-my-site-please-fix-asap/#post-9235841 ) The pattern of multiple threads like this causes me to realize I have a huge area to improve in the areas of 1.) Following up to ask how the case is going, in the case I haven't heard back from the request poster, and 2.) Increasing the rate of cases I've worked which become resolved. To address these two points, I'm now starting 1.) tracking the cases to which I reply, and keeping a "resolved" flag for each one, so I'll know to follow up until they become resolved, and 2.) Directly requesting that the user mark the thread as resolved with a note of resolution.
On the 2017-06-06 dev chat on slack ( https://woocommercecommunity.slack.com/archives/C4TNYTR28/p1496764780571391 ), I learn the dev team is considering how to do an automatic check during automatic software upgrade, in order to prevent software upgrade from breaking a site/install.
I meet with a colleague Mike Schwab in-person and we progress a support forum thread. After, and indeed from my colleagure I get some ideas. Ideas including leveraging numbered lists in my support replies, and, before closing a thread, asking clients to please follow up with a note of what the resolution was, before formally closing out a support request. (Especially to add value to the software project community, by giving closure and steps-to-resolution, for reference)
I read multiple dev requests in the issue queue ( github.com/woocommerce/woocommerce/issues ), over multiple days, and learned how tax calculation is to one user, and another user ran into minor issues during a software upgrade, and another is seeing a sporadic issue of hooks not firing possibly related to a cron job. I observed a core dev reply with a concise, professional response, and the thread become resolved, here: "Tax is 0 on cart and on checkout does not include shipping until billing details modified #15589" https://github.com/woocommerce/woocommerce/issues/15589#issuecomment-308424364
In the area of planning future work on this work-project, I scheduled 4 in-person work sessions to work with a colleague on this project in the next 2 weeks! Collaborating like this will allow for much greater potential to create software support solutions as well as for greater potential to learn.
URL to previous Work-project -related post: "Work-project plan for weeks 23 & 24 (2017)" http://w̶i̶e̶l̶d̶l̶i̶n̶u̶x̶.̶c̶o̶m̶/2017.php?2017-06-13#2017-06-13
[2017-06-19 Update: Added an edit after original publish: colleague's name.]
[2017-06-20 Update: Moved paragraph of next sprint's plan to separate blog post.]
[2019-03-11 edit: Moved to: https://i̶n̶v̶e̶s̶t̶o̶r̶w̶o̶r̶k̶e̶r̶.̶c̶o̶m̶/2017/... .html.]