What is a Discussion?
A discussion is a hierarchy of comments for an item. The discussions in Cradle concept is similar to email threads:
- Every item can have arbitrarily many, arbitrarily large, discussions
- Each discussion has a hierarchy of 1 or more comments
- Each discussion can have a decision
People can contribute to a discussion.
The discussions mechanism is very powerful. We suggest it can be used:
- To record discussions as part of formulating requirements and other items in the database
- As a change proposal system
- As an informal CM system
Contents of a Discussion
A discussion contains:
- A decision – this applies to the entire discussion containing a status with a value of Open, Agreed, Rejected or Suspended, a reason which is a short summary of why the decision was reached, the Cradle username of the person who recorded the decision and the date and time that the decision was made
- A hierarchy of comments, each comment containing a subject, a block of text that constitutes the comment, the Cradle username of the person who created the comment and the date and time that the comment was created
Creating Discussions
When created your new discussion, its decision is set to Open. You can respond to a comment by adding a new comment that is then attached to the existing comment. The same user or another user could respond to either of these comments. Therefore creating a hierarchy of comments.
Please note that comments cannot be changed once committed.
Querying and Reporting on Discussions
Discussions can be reported and included in documents. You can also search the database for items based on their discussions, for example:
- Discussions where you have made a comment
- Discussions where comments have been made in the past week
- Where you need to make a decision on a discussion
For further information on discussions in Cradle’s WorkBench click here. If you would like to see how to work with discussions in Web Access click here.