Difference between revisions of "Wiki Organisation"

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[[Wiki Organisation]] is about our vision to create an organisational framework that has specific procedures but is also generic,  usable by any group working together on any mission. Wiki Organisation is a good start toward this, but the vision is not a specific technology, it is a way of working that can be encapsulated by or implemented within almost any collaborative environment. The system and its definition are continuously refined, as we use it to organise and manage our own jobs and projects. The whole system is encapsulated in an tree structure named the Organic Ontology, under which top-level aspects are called classes. We are working toward this structure's definition being such that a complete description of the system can be exported into an official ontology language such as OWL.
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{{legacy}}
  
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MediaWiki software (functionally) and projects like Wikipedia (in terms of application) exhibit a key feature where content as well as administration and organisation are described in the same collaborative environment, giving rise to a basic form of self-containment. In Wikipedia it is the actual content of articles and categories (Wikipedia: User administration, policy documentation, deletion or article improvement workflows, etc.).
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== Introduction ==
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At Organic Design we've been developing a "wiki organisation package" for the last few years which extends the basic wiki functionality to work as a project management and organisational system, while at the same time requiring user to only have a basic knowledge of the wiki.
  
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The reason we chose MediaWiki is because it fulfilled our basic technical criteria, and it is also being used to run Wikipedia, which has a large and active community. The code is well-tested and under continuous development, and possesses proven scalability. We agree with the philosophy of Wikipedia's parent organisation (the Wikimedia Foundation): "Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment." Using MediaWiki aligns us with that philosophy and with its development momentum. There are many people familiar with the software interface, and much freely accessible content and knowledge.
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The wiki organisation package essentially offers the ability to have a custom made application created within the wiki environment which can even be modified by the users themselves after they've become familiar enough with it. This "collaborative application" aspect gives it a huge advantage over the standard desktop application paradigm, but on top of this, every change made to the application or any of the work being carried on within it is fully auditable and reversible since it's all part of the wiki's content which inherently comes with full history. The image below shows a few examples taken from some wikis currently using the wiki organisation package.
  
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== Simple Wiki Organisation ==
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[[Image:Form examples.jpg|627px]]
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Many organisations and projects are using wikis for more than just their content management needs. The wiki environment also works very well as a project management system due to it's inherent collaboration and auditing facilities. A basic wiki installation can be used for this by adopting working conventions that all of the wiki users in the organisation are familiar with and can refer to when necessary.
 
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To be able to use a wiki in this capacity it is important that all the users take the advanced wiki training session which covers categorisation, article history, watch-lists, permissions and portals. With these skills the users can document their standard procedures and work on jobs together in accordance with a simple workflow model called the [[w:blackboard metaphor|blackboard metaphor]]. This is how the administrators collaborate on work together for the Wikipedia online encyclopedia project which the MediaWiki software was created for.
 
  
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The blackboard metaphor is a very good system for users who are scattered around the world in different time zones, speak different languages and work casually in their roles whenever they have time available. But for organisations working on an intranet together their needs are often more complex and dynamic, requiring tight schedules, records and reporting and a generally higher level of structure. This could still be done with a basic wiki installation and the blackboard metaphor, but would require extremely well defined practices and a very high level of skill from all the users. This is where our concept of "wiki organisation" enters the picture.
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== Personal Information Management ==
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Usually when wikis are used within organisations much more detailed information is required about the users, and information is usually required for many other people the organisation is affiliated with even when they are not users of the wiki. For this reason, we prefer to "hide" the concept of a ''user'' and instead work with '''Person records''' which can have much more detailed, structured and customisable information associated with them.
  
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== Advanced Wiki Organisation ==
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The form associated with ''Person'' records is integrated into the user account-creation process and user preferences forms so that details can be maintained and entered from a single point rather than having to maintain information about both user ''and'' person aspects. The images below show screenshots of the account-creation and preferences forms from a wiki which is running the organisational package.
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At Organic Design we've been developing a "wiki organisation package" for the last few years which extends the basic wiki functionality to allow for an arbitrary level of complexity in terms of the organisational system that can be run in the wiki environment, while requiring the users to undergo only a few hours of additional training.
 
  
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The wiki organisation package essentially offers the ability to have a custom made application created within the wiki environment which can even be modified by the users themselves after they've become familiar enough with it. This "collaborative application" aspect gives it a huge advantage over the standard desktop application paradigm, but on top of this, every change made to the application or any of the work being carried on within it is fully auditable and reversible since it's all part of the wiki's content which inherently comes with full history.
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{|
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|valign=top|[[File:Mw116-createaccount-person.jpg|400px]]
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|valign=top|[[File:Mw116-prefs-person.jpg|400px]]
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|}
  
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Even our basic installations come with all the wiki organisation extensions at no additional cost, but to have the structured content fully implemented for your organisation can take a lot of work to initially set up depending on the complexity of the aspects of your organisation you wish to model. The image below shows a few examples taken from wikis currently using the wiki organisation package.
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=== User Administration ===
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Non-sysop users can only make changes to the properties of their Person record via the preferences page or at account-creation time. Person records have an administration section which is not included in the preferences or account-creation forms. This means that security and other administration data can be maintained in the Person record to be updated by sysops. When users are created by sysops the administration section is included so that they can set the administration properties and general properties in one go. Currently the administration section allows control over what roles are assigned to a person and whether the person has SSH, FTP and/or CRM access.
  
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[[Image:Form examples.jpg|627px]]
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=== Email Settings ===
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For wiki organisations running on a local intranet that has a server installed with our [[install a new server]] procedure the email settings in the Person records can be tied to the servers email configuration via our [[Wiki daemon|robot framework]]. The settings allow wiki users to have one or more corresponding IMAP accounts, and each of these accounts can have any number of email aliases or forwarders. Users can also set an optional auto-responder message from their Person record. The aliases and forwarders settings are administration settings that are only settable by sysops currently.
  
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== Fundamental Records ==
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=== Roles ===
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The fundamental records in a Wiki Organisation are Person, Organisation, Project, Issue and Activity. Together these offer a basic form of project and time management. records are created for the people and organisations that your organisation deals with, and for each of the projects your organisation is involved with. These then provide a context for raising Issues and performing Activities.
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In the same way that we've replaced the standard wiki ''user'' with a ''Person'' record, we've also replaced the standard wiki ''group'' with the ''Role'' record. Role records contain properties concerning duties and rights and can also have a single IMAP account associated with them that can have an auto-responder and any number of email address aliases and forwards. Currently the rights supported offer control over shared file access and mediawiki group membership. There is also a ''ReportsTo'' property in the role form which allows a ''role hierarchy'' to be created whereby roles inherit all the rights of their child roles.
  
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These are called the fundamental records because they form the basis from which all other work can be done, including refining and expanding the system and its records.
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=== External Contributors ===
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Users who are created with this administration option set are able to log in to the wiki, but only have access to the public articles. These users can then be added to roles which give them access to specific documents or categories.
  
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== Wiki Organisation Extensions ==
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== Project management ==
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We include many extensions in our standard wiki installations (included in the [[Config:GeneralExtensions.php|GeneralExtensions.php]] file). Our organisational system is dependent on most of these for its functionality. However most of them do not need to be discussed here as they offer technical functionality such as additional [[M:Help:Magic words|magic words]] etc which, while important, don't contribute to the high level concepts of the system. Following is a brief description of the key extensions contributing to the wiki organisation concept.
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Each wiki user's personal page is no longer '''User:Bob''', but rather their full name, e.g. '''Bob McFoo''' automatically has a special template added which offers useful information about their profile, activities and [[issue]]s (tasks) assigned to them and about the project's they're involved with. This user's Person record is automatically created when they sign up, and can be updated any time via the user preferences page. The normal wiki User page is automatically redirected to the associated Person record. Here's an example of a typical Person page in a wiki organisation.
  
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=== CategoryWatch ===
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[[Image:PersonTemplate.jpg|548px]]
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A feature that's missing from the MediaWiki [[M:Help:Watching pages|Watchlist]] functionality is that if you watch a category page, you will only be notified when the content of the category page text changes. You won't be notified when pages are added to or removed from that category though which is probably the main information you were wanting when deciding to watch a category page. The reason we developed the CategoryWatch extension was to allow roles to be notified when work items have changed state and been moved into a category they're responsible for.
 
  
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Another feature of this extension is "auto-watched" categories. These are categories that use the naming format of '''Category:Automatically watched by <USERNAME>''' and are automatically watched by the associated user even if the user mistakenly un-watches it. One example of how we use this feature is to have categorisation links in our "Issues" template which are based on their "Assigned to" and "Needs attention from" values such that these users will be automatically notified when new issues are assigned to them, or require their attention. Before this auto-watch feature was available, the system administrator would have had to first check with all the roles to ensure they were watching the necessary categories.
 
  
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=== DynamicPageList ===
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As with ''Person'' records, each ''Issue'' also has a similar set of tabs (as do all the different kinds of records such as ''Project'', ''Role'' or ''Invoice'' etc). Below is an example of an ''Issue'' record showing some useful information about the activities associated with it.
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A very important aspect of efficient workflow in an organisation is that the roles have access to the "portals" or "workspaces" which contain up to date information about the current work, issues, requirements, reports and other information relevant to their context. In MediaWiki, the [[MW:DPL|DynamicPageList extension]] (usually simply referred to as "DPL") is the most common way of generating this dynamic information.
 
  
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DPL is a querying and reporting mechanism for the MediaWiki environment exhibiting an extremely rich variety of options and formats from simply generating a list of articles in a category or namespace to generating complex reports based on revision properties, template usage or article content and rendered through other templates or tables.
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[[Image:ActivitiesTab.jpg|714px]]
  
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=== RecordAdmin ===
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== See also ==
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*[[Workflow]]
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== Wiki Organisation Templates ==
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*[[MW:Flow Portal]] ''- a new large-scale workflow system for Wikimedia''
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*[http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/inline_documentation_cms_mindtouch.php In-context help product by MindTouch] A feature of wiki organisation being offered as a premium product...
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== Organisational Structure ==
 
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== Setting up Wiki Organisation ==
 
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*Extensions
 
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*Templates
 
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*Sample records
 
  
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== See also ==
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[[Category:Documents]][[Category:Legacy Projects]]
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*[[W:Critical Path Method|Critical Path Method]]
 
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[[Category:Documents]][[Category:Projects]][[Category:Featured projects]]
 

Latest revision as of 22:53, 14 July 2013

Legacy.svg Legacy: This article describes a concept that has been superseded in the course of ongoing development on the Organic Design wiki. Please do not develop this any further or base work on this concept, now this page is for historic record only.


Introduction

At Organic Design we've been developing a "wiki organisation package" for the last few years which extends the basic wiki functionality to work as a project management and organisational system, while at the same time requiring user to only have a basic knowledge of the wiki.

The wiki organisation package essentially offers the ability to have a custom made application created within the wiki environment which can even be modified by the users themselves after they've become familiar enough with it. This "collaborative application" aspect gives it a huge advantage over the standard desktop application paradigm, but on top of this, every change made to the application or any of the work being carried on within it is fully auditable and reversible since it's all part of the wiki's content which inherently comes with full history. The image below shows a few examples taken from some wikis currently using the wiki organisation package.

Form examples.jpg

Personal Information Management

Usually when wikis are used within organisations much more detailed information is required about the users, and information is usually required for many other people the organisation is affiliated with even when they are not users of the wiki. For this reason, we prefer to "hide" the concept of a user and instead work with Person records which can have much more detailed, structured and customisable information associated with them.

The form associated with Person records is integrated into the user account-creation process and user preferences forms so that details can be maintained and entered from a single point rather than having to maintain information about both user and person aspects. The images below show screenshots of the account-creation and preferences forms from a wiki which is running the organisational package.

Mw116-createaccount-person.jpg      Mw116-prefs-person.jpg

User Administration

Non-sysop users can only make changes to the properties of their Person record via the preferences page or at account-creation time. Person records have an administration section which is not included in the preferences or account-creation forms. This means that security and other administration data can be maintained in the Person record to be updated by sysops. When users are created by sysops the administration section is included so that they can set the administration properties and general properties in one go. Currently the administration section allows control over what roles are assigned to a person and whether the person has SSH, FTP and/or CRM access.

Email Settings

For wiki organisations running on a local intranet that has a server installed with our install a new server procedure the email settings in the Person records can be tied to the servers email configuration via our robot framework. The settings allow wiki users to have one or more corresponding IMAP accounts, and each of these accounts can have any number of email aliases or forwarders. Users can also set an optional auto-responder message from their Person record. The aliases and forwarders settings are administration settings that are only settable by sysops currently.

Roles

In the same way that we've replaced the standard wiki user with a Person record, we've also replaced the standard wiki group with the Role record. Role records contain properties concerning duties and rights and can also have a single IMAP account associated with them that can have an auto-responder and any number of email address aliases and forwards. Currently the rights supported offer control over shared file access and mediawiki group membership. There is also a ReportsTo property in the role form which allows a role hierarchy to be created whereby roles inherit all the rights of their child roles.

External Contributors

Users who are created with this administration option set are able to log in to the wiki, but only have access to the public articles. These users can then be added to roles which give them access to specific documents or categories.

Project management

Each wiki user's personal page is no longer User:Bob, but rather their full name, e.g. Bob McFoo automatically has a special template added which offers useful information about their profile, activities and issues (tasks) assigned to them and about the project's they're involved with. This user's Person record is automatically created when they sign up, and can be updated any time via the user preferences page. The normal wiki User page is automatically redirected to the associated Person record. Here's an example of a typical Person page in a wiki organisation.

PersonTemplate.jpg


As with Person records, each Issue also has a similar set of tabs (as do all the different kinds of records such as Project, Role or Invoice etc). Below is an example of an Issue record showing some useful information about the activities associated with it.

ActivitiesTab.jpg

See also

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