The default sort of the meetings should display most recent meetings at the top

[ilieandriuta]

STEPS TO REPRODUCE

1. Go to Meetings Pro
2. Create several meetings with different Start Dates
3. Observe the sorting of the meetings on the Meetings homepage

EXPECTED RESULTS

The meetings should be sorted starting with the most recent meetings first (at the top), as it's a common use case, indicated also in #36.

ACTUAL RESULTS

The meetings are sorted with the most recent meetings at the bottom.

Environment: Windows 10 Pro 64-bit, Chrome 70, using a local instance of XWiki 10.9 on Oracle 11.2.

[lucaa]

So, let me understand @ignatescustefan , the fix for this issue reverted partially the fix for #36 , it changed the order of meetings to ascending by startDate?

As @acotiuga explained on #36 , we need to properly define what "most recent" means, otherwise we'll do these kind of reverts all the time.
For me (#36) , "most recent" means in the past, closest to the current moment.
However, since here we have this issue that a meeting may also be in the future, if I'd have to extend this interpretation of "most recent" to the future, I would say it has to mean a reverse chronological order, regardless of whether the meeting is in the future or in the past. This is also because I expect this application to be used mainly to store notes for meetings from the past and only rarely for having lots of meetings planned and not yet finished.
For this ticket, as far I understand, the usecase that was used was with only meetings in the future, and the interpretation that was given to "most recent" is "closest to the current date". This causes an unpleasant situation on a wiki where lots of meeting notes have accumulated, in which the first page of the table will display the oldest meeting notes, which makes little sense...

Otherwise put, the main usecase for the meeting application should be: many meetings in the past and rather little meetings in the future, even if, during a test, this usecase may not be so obvious...

[lucaa]

So, I re-read the commits and the code more attentively, and now I understand better: there is a new behaviour that was invented in order to somewhat satisfy this strange understanding of "recent" as a thing in the future. Note that it's best to explain functional behviour changes on the issue rather than in the pull request. As a user, I don't read pull requests but I do read issues.

So, if I understand correctly, it now works like this:

• by default, the table does not display all meetings but only the future ones, ordered ascending by start date, which means the first one that will occur will display first in the table . Just note that "meetings available for a year" as it appears in the message on the screen is a very difficult to understand concept (what is an "available meeting"? what makes a meeting "available for a year"?)
• if one wants to see all meetings, they need to click the "see all meetings" button, in which case they will see everything, as before, in reverse chronological order.

Given this:

Otherwise put, the main usecase for the meeting application should be: many meetings in the past and rather little meetings in the future, even if, during a test, this usecase may not be so obvious...

and the fact that:

• "meetings available for a year" is strange to understand and also raises the question of "why one year? why not one month? why not all meetings in the future?" (so it may turn out not the best either),
• users don't read texts on the screen to understand what that table is displaying and, more importantly, why it's not displaying everything,
• this homepage was intended as an index of the data, not as a smart "see my meetings agenda" thing, so it should list everything. Also, as far as I can think right now, there are not many applications that have a "smart index" not displaying everything by default,

I consider this ticket to be uselessly complicating the functioning of this application.
Can we revert it? Or at least change the default display to all meetings ("index") and have the "future" ones available with a button.

[silviamacovei]

My interpretation of “most recent” was also as reverse chronological order. It’s how I initially understood the ticket, thinking the attached image was the expected behavior. (BTW, it would be useful for attached images to explain whether they describe the current or the expected state.)
But after reading the comments here and on issue 36 I see how the expected behavior was interpreted in the opposite manner.

I also agree that the application is usually used mainly to log info about past meetings. If the app were used mostly to plan and have the meetings, it would make sense to only display current and future events and archive past meetings. But the main purpose of the app is to track past events and store old notes for future reference.

• 1 to display to all meetings by default and have the "future" ones available with a button.

WDYT @ilieandriuta @ignatescustefan @acotiuga @mflorea

[mflorea]

@lucaa @silviamacovei I don't agree with you. From my point of view seeing an overview of the next planned meetings on the application home page is more useful (and easier to understand) than seeing all the meetings (from past and future). Being able to access all the meetings is obviously important, which is why we added a link. Ideally I would have liked to have the live table filters prefilled so that it was more clear that there is a filter applied on the listed meetings (the next planned meetings filter) but I think some live table limitation prevented us to do this.

Now let's see what you propose:

• show all meetings sorted by start date descending? You think seeing the meetings that are planned for the next weeks is more important than seeing the meetings that are planned this week? I disagree. And the fact that @ilieandriuta reported this issue shows that some users will find this default sort awkward.
• show all meetings sorted by abs(now - start date), ascending? Good luck explaining this to the users, especially when they will see meetings planned after 7 days next to meetings that happens 7 days ago; and if both are at the same distance from now, which one should be displayed first?

[lucaa]

You think seeing the meetings that are planned for the next weeks is more important than seeing the meetings that are planned this week? I disagree.

No, I am saying that having by default access to all the meetings that have happened in the past and have written meeting notes is more important than seeing the planned meetings.
"Meeting planning" is, from my pov, a usecase that is not the main usecase of this application, it's the main usecase of an application of type calendar (like google calendars or outlook calendars or something like this), which would also manage presence (a way to send invitations and to confirm or refuse, etc). Even if this application has some of these features, is not the main usecase. Its main benefit is that it can store properly knowledge which is in the meeting notes and allow people to access these notes , search in them, link to them from other documentation, etc, which you usually cannot do with a meeting planning application (such as a calendar).

And the fact that @ilieandriuta reported this issue shows that some users will find this default sort awkward.

Ilie's is not a real-life usecase, it's a test usecase, he only has future meetings in his example, no past meeting notes stored. Since time has this funny habit of passing, if there is one thing that we are sure of is that everything will become past at some point. So the usecase where there is no past is, to me, an artificial one (that can happen in a test setup or in an initial phase of a real-life usecase but not on the long term).
Also, part of the "fake usecase" is the fact that he created lots and lots of meetings planned (in the future). When the meetings application is used for storing and consulting meeting notes, there are usually not that many meetings planned in advance.
This all started with my report for #36 , which says reverse chronological (the opposite of Ilie), and that usecase came from a real-life usage feedback, not from my imagination, so if we're counting how many users will see this as strange, let's say that we're 1:1.

[ilieandriuta]

Hi! I understand the rationale described by Anca and the one presented by Marius.
On my side I saw the application as a meeting tracking app (for both future and past meetings) and after reading the comments I saw that I misinterpreted the meaning of 'most recent' from #36.
Now if the main scope of the application is to track past meetings and store notes from them (and this use-case is backed up by real life app usage feedback), maybe the Name and Description of the application should be updated/changed to reflect this and to inform users of what to expect from the usage of the application.

[mflorea]

No, I am saying that having by default access to all the meetings that have happened in the past and have written meeting notes is more important than seeing the planned meetings.

@lucaa the application is not called Meeting Notes but Meeting and it's description says:

Create and manage meetings. See the meetings inside a calendar. Send email invitations to participants.

On its home page it says:

Use this application to organise meetings, send invitations and have a calendar overview of all the meetings.

Organizing a meeting is not only about keeping meeting notes. Meeting notes are obviously very important, but preparing the meeting, agreeing on a meeting agenda, adding links to resources, inviting people are also important. The point of listing the next planned meetings on the home page is to help the users prepare for their meetings (check the meeting agenda, see who confirmed the invitation).

[lucaa]

@mflorea I see. Then there is an important problem of app definition and usage according to this definition, which, as Ilie also said, would need to be fixed, in one direction or the other.

Organizing a meeting is not only about keeping meeting notes. Meeting notes are obviously very important, but preparing the meeting, agreeing on a meeting agenda, adding links to resources, inviting people are also important. The point of listing the next planned meetings on the home page is to help the users prepare for their meetings (check the meeting agenda, see who confirmed the invitation).

Of course it's a valid usecase around meetings and a very important one, it's just, from my pov, a market where this application cannot necessarily stand a fight, whereas the knowledge management of the notes is one.

[silviamacovei]

The description we currently have on the store was mostly reused from the initial description on exo. While there have been many bug fixes and improvements in the paid app, due higher demand on other apps, we haven’t spent time on trying to redefine the main use cases for this one.

Right now the app does a bit of everything and is based on the 2012 version. Back then it made sense to have a full meeting lifecycle. Nowadays, meeting management and planning continue to be valid use cases, but the reality is most users plan their meetings through their Google Calendar, Outlook etc. And while these tools handle the planning and actual meeting parts very well, they don’t offer an easy way to store and search through meeting notes. This is why, on deeper consideration, I agree that while all use cases are valid, this is the main use case where we can bring the most value. I think we should update the documentation to reflect this, if we'll all agree.

Of course, one could also argue that we could keep improving it to get the app to satisfy all of the use cases really well. However, because people sync with their existing calendars, we haven’t seen demand for the planning part. And there are many other cool things we could be working on, apps wise, that could bring extra value to our users, value that they can't easily get in other places.

[mflorea]

To be clear, by planning a meeting I don't understand just setting a date for the meeting and inviting the people. I wouldn't keep the meeting agenda and resources on Google Calendar or Outlook but closer to the meeting notes, so that for instance I can check afterwards easily if all the topics from the agenda were covered.

In any case, my proposal is to have two tabs (as in the page index) on the application home page:

• a "Meeting Notes" (or "Past Meetings") tab that shows a live table with just the meetings that already took place (end date is in the past), sorted by end date descending (meetings that ended recently will be on the top). This should cover the use case of accessing meeting notes (of past meetings obviously).
• a "Planned Meetings" (or "Future Meetings") tab that shows a live table with just the meetings that have not been finished (ether they are in progress or they haven't started yet, so end date is in the future), sorted by start date ascending, without any upper limit for the start/end date (the meeting can be in 2 or 10 years). The point of this tab is not to access meeting notes because these future meetings don't have (complete) meetings notes yet. The goal of this tab is to help the users prepare for the next meetings (e.g. by reading the meeting agenda and linked / attached resources).

I'm fine to select the first tab, Meeting Notes, by default, based on @lucaa and @silviamacovei feedback.

[lucaa]

@mflorea very good idea the tabs, it will do the job perfectly, easy to access for users and clear (no long text to read to understand).
I think the main criteria for deciding where a meeting is displayed is whether the end date is in the past or not (or maybe even start date, wondering on which tab I would expect an ongoing meeting to be), I don't think we should add any filtering criteria based on the status of the meeting or anything else, to keep things simple to understand for the user, in terms of where to look for what.

While at it, we could also add the calendar view as a tab, it would really make sense, rather than a link like it is today.

[mflorea]

While at it, we could also add the calendar view as a tab, it would really make sense, rather than a link like it is today.

+1

[silviamacovei]

The three tabs sound good! For the proposed naming of the first two tabs I would go for:

• “Past meetings” (not “Meeting Notes”). We could imagine past meetings that don’t have meeting notes, as they weren’t written down or the meetings didn’t take place in the end, as they were cancelled or left in preparation.
• "Future Meetings" (not “Planned Meetings”), since “Planned Meetings” could also refer to past meetings that were planned and never took place.