Categories re-organisation

julien · October 17, 2020, 5:23pm

Hi there.

One of the task we have to run after the migration is to rethink about the current categories. The migration script have just copied the previous organization coming from phpBB2, but I think it is not optimal:

Discourse doesn’t recommend to have more than a 2-level hierarchy (we have 3 levels)
The content is better shown (especially on mobile) if there is only a 1-level hierarchy (see below screenshot) as the last topics are shown

screenshot

Screen Shot 2020-10-17 at 12.49.521440×2960 367 KB
Discourse is providing a powerful tag feature that can replace sub or sub-sub categories,

So I am suggesting to setup the following categories:

- General Discussion
- BOBJ Reports
- BOBJ Semantic Layer
- BOBJ Server Administration, Installation, Upgrades
- BOBJ Enterprise Scheduling and Distribution
- BOBJ Security and User Administration
- BOBJ Other Products
- BOBJ SDK
- SAP DataServices (to replace DataIntegrator)
- SAP Analytics Cloud
- BOB's Downloads
- Regional User Groups and Conferences
- About BOB

And additionally setup dedicated tags to replace all the other existing sub-categories. There is some nice feature to require a tag when someone create a topic in a specific category.

Waiting for your feedback !

Switch to 1-level categories and tags
Keep the actual category hierarchy
Other idea ? Comment below !

0 voters

dtolley · October 18, 2020, 12:16am

Being able to tag/categorize to separate areas like WebI vs Crystal, UDT vs IDT are helpful when posting and searching.

julien · October 18, 2020, 8:22pm

Yes:

Under BOBJ Reports (or maybe a Reporting category ?) I suggest to have a mandatory tag between Webi, Crystal, Lumira, etc…
Under Semantic Layer we can have multiple tags like IDT, UDT, …

julien · October 24, 2020, 1:53am

Some update on this project.

I have already created some default tags: one per reporting engine (deski, webi, lumira, crystalreports…) and one per semantic layer style (udt idt).

The pool will close in a few hours, there is only 5 votes but we have some kind of agreement on my proposition ! I will slowly move to a mixed category / tag setup. Do not hesitate to ping me on this subject here.

Mohammed · October 25, 2020, 12:32pm

Sounds good! Thank you and the moderators for your time & effort!

Mohammed · October 25, 2020, 12:32pm

Makes sense! Thanks!

julien · October 25, 2020, 1:13pm

I have done the first step of the reorganization : flatten the hierarchy. I have mainly removed the whole Business Object section to show building reports, building semantic layer, etc… at top level. The objective is to make an easier mobile navigation.

I have also used the discourse meta look, with category name in lower case. It seems less formal for me like that (I like it). And you ?

I still need to work on sub-categories now:

rename it in lower case and shorter name (like I have done on dataservices)
still wondering if moving from categories to tag is a good idea: I will not run this task in the next days, I prefer to see how users are using this current new organization.

Let me know