Welcome to Workstream! You're on your way to supercharging your analytics workflows, and empowering your stakeholders with a single place to discover, access, and contextualize your data assets. This article gives an overview of how to navigate conversations in your workspace.
Contents
Introduction
Conversations are a powerful tool that allows you to communicate directly with stakeholders in the context of the asset they are exploring. Conversations can be as simple as a quick question about how to filter a graph, or as involved as a request for major changes to a dashboard.
Conversations Queue
Workspace Owners can see a list of all conversations by navigating to the "Conversations" option from the left nav.
You can expand the Conversations menu item to filter by active or solved conversations, or simply click on the Conversations button to jump straight to active conversations.
The conversations page shows a queue of all conversations in your workspace. The list shows the type (question or request), title, created date, requester, owner, and status of the conversation. You can change both the owner and the status directly from this view.
Workstream currently supports the following statuses for conversations:
New: the request has been created but the analytics team hasn't triaged it yet
Seen: the team has seen the request, but has not yet started working on it. When requests are initially triaged can be a good time to assign the conversation an owner, depending on your workflow
In Progress: The request or question is being actively addressed by the team
Solved: the request or question has been resolved. The conversation will now be moved from the "active" to the "solved" conversation views throughout the app
Keep in mind that the conversation status is always visible to anyone who can see the conversation.
The conversations list supports filtering by the conversation status, using the options in the top right corner of the page.
You can also create a new conversation using the "+ Add New" option:
You can view any conversation in more detail by clicking on it from the list.
Conversation Details
At the top of the conversation's details page, you can see the title of the conversation and the initial question or request. Below that are several buttons and fields to navigate:
Make Public/Private: Click on the pin icon to make a conversation public. Public conversations will be available for anyone viewing the asset. This can be useful if the question is one that comes up frequently, and you want the answer available to everyone
Copy link: This button copies a link to the conversation to your clipboard so you can share it easily
View in JIRA: If you have JIRA connected to your workspace, you can click to view the JIRA ticket that is synced with the conversation
Please note: Workspaces that do not have JIRA connected will not see this option. Learn more about connecting your JIRA instance in this article.Update status: View and update the conversation's status
Conversation content: This is where you can see the actual conversation, and write your response. The composer supports rich-text formatting and embedded Loom videos, as well as @ mentions. When sending your response, you have the option to also update the status.
The information panel on the right-hand side shows you information about the requester and owner, as well as the associated asset. You can update the owner of the conversation here.
It is not required that a conversation be related to a particular asset, so you may see some conversations with no asset displayed. If appropriate, you can use the search bar here to associate the conversation with an asset.
Click "View on asset" if you would like to see the conversation within the asset details page.
Conversations in Context
One of the things that makes conversations in Workstream so useful is that they live side-by-side with your assets. Clicking on the "View on asset" button from the conversations page, or opening the conversation from the asset details, leads you to a view of the conversation next to the asset.
All conversation functionality is available here, just in a slightly more condensed view.
At the bottom of the conversation you can see a list of the participants. These are the users who have access to the conversation, and will be notified when it is updated. Click the "+ Add" button to add additional participants to the conversation.
Annotations
In addition to having conversations with text, you can also include an annotation to provide more context. The annotation options within Workstream include free-hand drawing, pre-built shapes, and the ability to add text on top of the asset.
To create an annotation, locate the "Draw" button from within the conversation.
Annotations can be added both when initially creating the conversation, and when adding a new comment. The annotation is saved and presented along with your comment.
Be sure to hit "save" on your annotation before you post it, so you can be sure it gets added to your current comment.
Annotations are an easy way to make your conversations clearer, because you can visually present information rather than having to explain solely with text. If you need to clarify a question for a stakeholder, or want highlight an interesting facet of your data for your team, annotations make collaboration that much easier.