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Issue List

Hugo Bernier edited this page Jun 12, 2020 · 6 revisions

On this page, learn how we use the issue list in this repo, including:

How we use the issue list

This repo contains two things:

  • SharePoint developer documentation
  • Comments left on developer documentation pages
  • Developer issues (questions, suspected bugs, problems, etc.)

All documentation found at https://docs.microsoft.com/sharepoint/dev/ is stored in the code in this repo. Find a typo, feel free to submit a pull request (PR) contribute to making the docs even better!

When you leave a comment in the footer of one of the developer docs on the site, it's saved as an issue here in this list.

The list is monitored and managed by Microsoft, the SharePoint PnP team, and numerous developers from the SharePoint community.

Issue templates

In early 2020, we introduced templates to the issue list. Now, when you create an issue, you're presented with three options for the type of issue to create:

  • bug report: for submitting bugs
  • question: for submitting questions
  • something else: for all other posts

Each of these templates contains sections with guidance on what to complete

What belongs in this issue list

The issue list is used as the primary place for people to ask questions & report bugs. While we try to address everything in the issue list, some problems may require opening a ticket with Microsoft support.

What types of things belong on the issue list?

  • Questions related to SharePoint development
  • Questions about the SharePoint development documentation
  • Suspected bugs or problems with SharePoint

What doesn't belong in the issue list

Equally important to what belongs in the issue list are those things that shouldn't be in the list. This includes the following things:

  • Anything not directly related to SharePoint development topics
  • Anything that is a SharePoint product issue
  • Anything feature requests / suggestions (those go on the SharePoint Dev Platform UserVoice)
  • Anything directly related to another project (for example, PnP PowerShell issues should be posted to that project's issue list)
    • When possible, we'll transfer issues from this repo's issue list to the correct repo. However, we can only do this for repos in the same SharePoint Github organization.

Issues submitted to this repo's issue list incorrectly are tagged with one of two labels: type:invalid or type:invalid-not-dev-issue. This will automatically close the issue with a message explaining why.

Our approach to closed issues

Like most public repos on GitHub, we consider closed issues as a completed conversation.

Closed issues are not monitored for future comments. If you believe an issue was closed prematurely/incorrectly, please don't leave a comment on it... no one managing the list will see it.

Instead, create a new issue and reference the old issue using GitHub's automatic linking feature. Simply reference an issue with the # prefix (for example, issue 0000 would be #0000). This will also create a backlink from the target issue to your new issue.

Our approach to locked issues

Issues that have been closed for at least 7 days are locked automatically. We primarily lock issues to prevent people from adding comments that generally won't be seen by anyone.

If you believe an issue was locked prematurely/incorrectly, follow the same guidance above for closed issues: create a new issue and reference the locked issue.

List automation - the "msft-github-bot" bot

There is a special process hooked up to the issue list that automates some tasks for us. This activity is performed by the @msft-github-bot. Some of the things it does:

  • add comments to issues when they're tagged with certain labels
  • close issues when they're tagged with certain labels
  • tag issues with certain labels when issues become stale
  • lock issues that have been closed for a period of time

Refer to the following sections for details on some of these automations:

No response from the original issue author

At times we will ask the original poster (OP) of an issue for additional information on the issue they created. We do this by tagging the issue with the Needs: Author Feedback label.

If the OP doesn't respond within seven (7) days, the bot will add a reminder comment and the label no-recent-activity label to the issue.

If the OP still doesn't respond in another (7) days, the bot will automatically close the issue.

Special actions

This section details specific actions taken on the issue list.

January 22, 2020 - Closed all old & un-tracked issues

These changes were discussed in a PnP call on January 23, 2020. Jump to the 15:28 part of the PnP call recording where it was discussed.

In January 2020, we initiated a cleanup project on our issue list. The motivation was to remove old issues that had no activity for over six months and were not being tracked by the Microsoft SharePoint engineering team.

At times, issues are submitted with no follow-up from the original poster making it impossible to move forward on them. These can include bug/error reports that have since been addressed/resolved by updates to the SharePoint platform or to new library/tool releases. Outdated issues and those that are no longer relevant confuse developers when these are left as open.

Furthermore, we implemented a new practice to lock issues that have been closed with no activity for more than 7 days. As addressed on this page, closed issues are seen as resolved questions/bugs/discussions. Closed issues aren't monitored and therefore, people who add a comment to a closed issue can get frustrated that no one is paying attention to it. We are now following a common practice in the industry to lock these threads blocking future comments.

The specific changes implemented were as follows:

  • Closed & locked all issues with no labels assigned to them (impacted ~80 issues)
  • Close & locked all un-tracked issues with no activity prior to July 2019 (impacted ~250 issues)
  • Locked all issues that had been closed for more than 7 days (this includes all previously closed issues and those closed as part of the above actions)
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