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Project Communication using the CollabNet platform

Summary: tools and practices for effictive project communicaiton
Last edited on March 26th, 2007 by Ted Kuster

So you've launched your project, and things are happening! Design talks are advancing, feedback is pouring in, and your developers are itching to get started. How to keep everyone focused on the goal, not shooting off in all directions? Use your mailing lists and discussions, keep your Project Pages crisp -- and tie it all together with frequent project-wide announcements. Project members can keep up with your project announcements via RSS, or they can come to the project home page. Project announcements are perfect for setting a theme for your project, or pointing everyone involved with the project in a shared direction. Use them to call attention to a relevant news article or blog post. Remind project members of an upcoming event. Or lighten things up with a joke or a quote of the day. (JUMP TO WEB) Hello world! When you create a project announcement, project members have two ways of seeing it.

  • Point an RSS reader at the Announcements page (https://yourproject/yourdomain/servlets/ProjectNewsList).
  • Hit the Announcements link in the left navigation bar.

To add an announcement, click the Add new announcement link.

Fill in the fields on the Add new announcement page

  • Date of event : To add a date to your announcement click on the pull-down menus and select a date.
  • Headline: Enter a title or headline for your announcement. You can use HTML markup tags in this text field.
  • Body: Add in the text of the announcement. HTML markup tags can be used in this text field.
  • Image URL: If you wish to link to an image, you can include the URL here.
  • Original article URL: If you wish to link to an orginal article, you can include the URL here.

For example, you want to add an article recently published in a trade journal on an issue relevant to your project. The article, "Widget Kids", was published March 25, 2007, in "Widget Week" magazine. To create this as an announcement, click the appropriate pull-down menus in the Date of event field to enter the date. Enter the article headline, "Widget Kids" in the Headline field. Since HTML is permitted here, you can cut and paste the headline as you saw it online. You can also include the URL to link directly to the original article.

NOTE: Instead of cutting and pasting the article information into the announcements fields, you can include any level of HTML complexity. However, as a rule, you should opt for text that can load quickly and reliably across a range of browsers and platforms.

If you choose to add previously published articles, keep in mind that you do not "own" the article. While you can refer to the headline or title, and provide a synopsis that you have written, you must provide the proper compensations to the owner of the copyright.

One process is to cite the headline, link to it, and then provide, in your own words, an explanatory sentence or paragraph, preferably short. See, for an example of this practice, the announcements page for OpenOffice.org.

Once you have entered the information on your article, you are ready to "publish" it.

There are several options for submitting announcements:

  • By clicking on the Add new announcement button, you can publish the article immediately.
  • You can select the Advanced options button to set a future date for publication. This button also allows you to set a date for removing the announcement. You can either select to have the announcement never be removed or to specify a date for removal.

Things to keep in mind:

  • In the case of the acquired sources, be sure to clearly state where you obtained them. Neglecting to do so may be interpreted as plagiarism.
  • Save a copy of the article featuring your project as it originally appeared in the publication. Although you will need to acquire the rights to the article before you can put the article up on your project's site, having the article will allow you to create and put up a summary of the article more quickly.
  • Add new items on a regular basis. A page that has been static a long time suggests a lack of momentum. If you have no announcements to report, you can make announcements and post them. You might also consider placing announcements that, if not directly relevant to your project, relate to issues your project members will find interesting.
  • Be sure to notify members of recently posted announcements. You can do this using the project's mailing lists.