FAQ|Email Adapter

Q: Adding items and follow-ups via email to Menturio

Q: How can I create a new Category?

Q: What are the item Types
Q: What are the Privacy levels
Q: What are the Severity levels
Q: What are the user rights?
Q: I have inserted a link but it does not work.
Q: What is the difference between "System admin" and "Superuser"?
Q: What is the small red frame in the upper left corner?
Q: Why does the filter or any other setting change between two refreshes?
Q: The navigation panel under the bug list has disappeared.

Adding items and follow-ups via email to Menturio

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A: Menturio is an Item based mailing list (too!:-). What is a Mailing List? A mailing list is simply a device to which you can send an email that will be sent to all parties who may be interested in it. The receiving party can reply to your mail, and everyone in the list will receive his reply as well. Then anyone else can reply, and so on. This way you can discuss things through email very conveniently. Now Menturio takes this a step further. By simply sending an email to Menturio, you can create a real item in the project of your liking, and the discussion you and your mates do through email will be recorded by Menturio and affixed to the original item as follow-ups. Some benefits: - it is easy to create an email; - it is even easier to reply to an email; - you don’t have to bother with not forgetting someone out of the list – Menturio will take care of this for you; - you will have a searchable track record of who said what and when, so no information will be lost; - you can manage the lifecycle of the item with the very same tools you can use for ordinary Menturio items (the item has Status, Privacy, Priority, Assigned To, etc. properties; it is under full version control, etc.). How can I Send a Message to Menturio? You can add items to Menturio by simply sending an email to <project short name>.add@menturio.com (for example, you can add a new item to the Demo project by sending an email to demo.add@menturio.com). Menturio adds the email to the specified project (Created by = the sender; Type = Email; Category = ‘Inbox’). The sender must be a valid Menturio user with sufficient privileges in the given project. Later anyone can change the item type or any other property to a more appropriate value (actually, being of Email type should indicate that the item has not been processed/classified/confirmed yet). After creating the item, Menturio flags the item to all project users (who requested email notification on the project), that is, sets the Flagged property for each user, so in the future the user will be notified about changes to the item. Then Menturio forwards the email to all users for whom the item is flagged. Specifying Who will be Notified You can narrow/specify which users will be included in the mailing list by putting a list at the beginning (in the first line) of your email body. In the list you can use any of the following user or company properties: User name, User ID, User Alias, User Email address, Company Name, Company ID. Menturio flags the item only to the users listed explicitly or to the users belonging to the company included in the list and also flags the item to the original sender. For example: [PannonRex; pilles@pannonrex.com; Balazs Turi] will forward and flag the item to all PannonRex members, to Peter Illles, and to Balazs Turi, and to whomever send the email. The list must be separated by commas or semicolons, and enclosed in '[' and ']'. Follow-ups You can reply to the email you received from Menturio (or anytime send an email to <M#>.add@menturio.com). Menturio adds this email as a follow-up to the specified M# (or to the item you replied to). In this case the forwarding mechanism is the same as above. You can extend the list of users notified by including a user/company list at the beginning of the follow-up mail. Attachments You can attach any attachment to your emails, and Menturio stores these files as an attachment to the original (list head/parent) item. If you send an attachment with a follow-up, Menturio adds files to the original item. If you send a file that already exists in the item, Menturio updates the old file with the new one, and the old file will be archived. Menturio Notification Email At the bottom of these mailing list emails you receive from Menturio there are some commands (in the Menturio Dashboard): - Reply: reply to the specified email, and add it as a follow-up to the specified item. - Open: opens the item in Menturio. You can access the attachments, all the follow-ups, and other item properties this way. - Unsubscribe: opens a new email form in your default email client that will instruct Menturio to unflag the specified item for you. You can also achieve this by sending an email to <M#>.unflag@menturio.com - Re-subscribe: opens a new email form in your default email client that will instruct Menturio to flag the specified item for you. You can also achieve this by sending an email to <M#>.flag@menturio.com - Projects: opens a new email form in your default email client that will instruct Menturio to send you a Project and user list. You can also achieve this by sending an email to getprojects@menturio.com Menturio Projects and Users Email You can receive a list of all projects (and users) you are involved in by sending an email to <getprojects@menturio.com>. The returned message will contain a list of projects you have access to, together with a list of users for each project. - You can click on a project name to add an item to that project. (Please be aware that the displayed project name is the full name, and not the short name required to create an item, so please click on the project name to create a properly addressed email.) - You can click on a user name to add an item to the project, notifying that user only (the user list will include only that user). - You can click on a company name to add an item to the project, notifying the users of that company only (the user list will include only the company name). You can also copy and paste user/company names form this list to extend a user list. Command Summary <project short name>.add@menturio.com: add a new item to the project <M#>.add@menturio.com: add a follow-up to item M# <M#>.flag@menturio.com: flag the item M# for notifications (subscribe and re-subscribe to a list) <M#>.unflag@menturio.com: un-flag the item M# for notifications (unsubscribe from a list) getprojects@menturio.com: get a list of projects and users Recommendations on Usage - The most important: stick to discussing only one task/issue/etc. in one message and in its follow-up messages only. This way it can be easily converted to an appropriate task item, assigned to someone, and life-cycle managed. Open new emails if you have multiple items to discuss. This is a key to efficiently using this feature. - Send text-format (versus HTML-format) messages: Menturio will disregard most formatting anyway, and this way you will see exactly what gets into the message. - Don't include other recipients (To: or CC: or BCC:) in messages only Menturio, so that the receiving user won't be confused about to which message to reply -- if he/she replies to the direct message from you, it won't be tracked by Menturio. - When you reply to a message, start blank (use the Reply command or delete the Original Message: quotation - Ctrl+A and Del in most cases will do the trick), so that the follow-ups will be free of redundant repetitions -- you can open the original item at any time in Menturio to see the whole track record. - Refrain from using greetings and the like (Dear XY, Kind regards, etc.): they will be distracting in the follow-ups. - You can get to the whole item and all the follow-ups at any time by clicking on the Open command in the Menturio Dashboard of the item or any follow-up. The item will be opened in Menturio, in your default web browser (you may have to log in first, if you don’t have an active Menturio session open). Using Microsoft Outlook If you are using Microsoft Outlook, you can do the following to ease your list discussions: - create a new Outlook folder (e.g. Menturio) - create a new rule with the Rules Wizard: -- Apply this rule after the message arrives -- with $M: in the subject -- move it to the Menturio folder -- and stop processing more rules - in the Menturio folder: group by From and Subject and sort by Received This way you will get (under each Subject group) an ordered list of items and follow-ups. Please note that all other notifications will get into this folder as well, keeping you inbox clean.

How can I create a new Category?

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A: To add a new category, you have to add a new item (or modify an existing item) by specifying the new category in the Category field (e.g. "Project Plan", without the quotes:). You will have to press the Refresh button in the Category tree for the new category to show up. If you click on a category in the Category tree, items of only that category (or any sub-categories) will be displayed. You can create sub-categories by using the "|" (pipe) character in the category name (e.g. "Project Plan|Requirements", without the quotes again:).

What are the item Types

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A: General item types: Milestone: Represents a milestone in the project plan. Bug: Represents an error in the product. Question: A question concerning the product. Idea: Can be added in the planning and development phase of the project. They work like a brainstorming session if every idea is analyzed. Ideas may become tasks, but only later will it be decided if they will be part of the final product. Those not included may be included in a future version of the product. Request: A new feature that the customer wants in the product. FAQ: A common question-answer pair attached to the product or the project. To-do: A personal memo or small task usually attached to a bug, idea, request or task. Usually for personal use. News: A small note to all or to specific (e.g.: end-users) stakeholders about the progress of the project. Task: All milestones are broken up into smaller (digestible) assignments. Follow-up: A reply in a discussion. KBase: Used for any knowledge base entry. Be aware that milestones and "task types" (task, bug) differ: milestones are time points while tasks and bugs represent a process. Attachment item types: Report: A report is usually attached to a milestone. Download: A commonly used tool/program, visible to all users in the download section. Build: A release of the product (usually after the development period (alpha) and during the testing period (betas) but before the final test. Attachment: Any file (no special meaning).

What are the Privacy levels

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A: Privacy levels are tied to pre-defined user categories User categories (from less to more restrictive): - Everybody: All users who connect to Menturio in any way (including those who view the portal or those who actually log in to Menturio) - no authentication required. - Portal users: Those users who logged in to the product portal. - Power users: Those users who are beta testers/power users of the product. - Project users: Those users who belong to the project the item belongs to. - Company users: Those users who belong to the Company of the item's creator. - Owners: The user who created the item and the user(s) who is/are assigned to the item (trusted users). Privacy levels: Public - Everybody Portal - Portal users Power - Power users Project - Project users Company - Company users Private - Owners (through the assignment mechanism, any type of confidential material can be handled this way)

What are the Severity levels

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A: Severity levels: Crash - Very serious problem, crashes the software or causes data loss. Blocker - This problem will prevent the use of a (major) feature of the product and it is not avoidable (there is no workaround). Workaround - This problem is avoidable, but is a functional issue. Cosmetics - Something is not too nice on the user interface, in the documentation, etc. (for example: misspelling or an ugly color, a partially off-screen button, etc.).

What are the user rights?

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A: The available user rights are: Guest: A special, read-only account type. Normal user: This is the default user right. This user is able to log in to Menturio, add items, and modify item properties. Some properties are not visible (for example: Assigned to), some other properties are read-only. This right is project specific. Superuser: The superuser right is same as the normal user, but it can modifiy all of the item's properies (except: Creation date or Created by). This right can add global things (for example: global Filter or global Reports) and is able to modify them too. This right is project specific. Project administrator: This right can administer the users who are in the same project as the Project administrator. She/He can create new users, assign users to a project, reset the user's password, change the user's rights or create authorization code for public registration, or view the session log. This right is project specific. System administrator: This user can do all the above, plus (s)he can create new projects or modify the project's name. Only this right can delegate the System administrator right to others. This right is user specific and system wide (on the particular Menturio system). The user can access the special system administrative features if (s)he is a Project administrator as well in the current project.

I have inserted a link but it does not work.	Top
A: You always have to insert http:// to the begining of the link.

What is the difference between "System admin" and "Superuser"?	Top
A: The system admin can reach the admin page the superuser cannot otherwise they are the same.

What is the small red frame in the upper left corner?	Top
A: Your session has expired, you can login again there without loosing the current state.

Why does the filter or any other setting change between two refreshes?	Top
A: You are logged in at two different locations with the same account and your settings differ from each other. The system will use you latest global settings to refresh the views and lists.

The navigation panel under the bug list has disappeared.	Top
A: You must have pressed the Back button of your browser accidentally over the naigator panel. Press the Forward button or refresh the page.