Plugin Repo Feature: Assign plugins to reviewers

[mrfoxtalbot]

With the plugins review process going from one person to a team, we need to add a system for plugin reviewers to be able to quickly locate the plugins they have been working on recently. This is particularly important in the case of plugins marked as pending as they will need to be reviewed again once the plugin author gets back to us. It will save everyone time if subsequent reviews are done by the same person.

• The system could be as simple as auto-assigning a plugin to the last user who changed its status.
• There should be a drop-down to select a different user if needed, as they will sometimes need to be re-assigned.
• It should be possible to re-assign tickets via bulk-edit.
• There would be an "assignee" column added to the Plugin Repo section to allow for sorting.
• Ideally, when filtering plugins, it should be possible to combine the assignee with the ticket's status.

[dd32]

In 12591:

Plugin Directory: Introduce assigned reviewer functionality.

Previously the group of reviewers was so small that they knew who was handling which submission, now that we have a larger set of reviewers being onboarded we need to keep track of review assignments a bit better.

See #6993.

[dd32]

My Notes:

• The reviewer doesn't auto-clear, yet (should it? I guess so, upon pending => approved, or closed/disabled => publish)
• The Helpscout widget should probably mark who is assigned to the review, to allow emails to be re-assigned as needed.
• The bulk actions only appear at the top, I'm not sure why it's coded to only be at the top..
• It doesn't auto-assign, but does have a single button click to do so, and it's ajax saved upon being changed

[dd32]

In 12593:

Plugin Directory: Move the bulk actions dropdown actions into between the Bulk Action dropdown and it's Apply button.

This also causes the bulk action options to be available at the bottom of the table as well as the top.

See #6993.

[dd32]

In 12594:

Plugin Directory: Clear the assigned reviewer on the appropriate status transitions (->approved and ->publish).

See #6993.

[dd32]

In 12595:

HelpScout: Plugins: Display who the plugin is assigned to, if assigned to anyone.

See #6993.

[dd32]

Marking as fixed, I think the functionality required is now present.

[mrfoxtalbot]

Thank you so much @dd32!

It doesn't auto-assign, but does have a single button click to do so, and it's ajax saved upon being changed.

I am not going to reopen this, as the basic functionality is more than covered but I am curious: Would it be possible to auto-assign a plugin to the last person who changed its status or are there some practical reasons to not do this? I am asking because it is easy to forget and automating it would also save everyone time in the long run.

Thanks again!

[dd32]

Replying to mrfoxtalbot:

It doesn't auto-assign, but does have a single button click to do so, and it's ajax saved upon being changed.

I am not going to reopen this, as the basic functionality is more than covered but I am curious: Would it be possible to auto-assign a plugin to the last person who changed its status or are there some practical reasons to not do this?

I guess there's two parts to it in my mind:

• You start reviewing the plugin before you change it's status, and it should be done upon loading the plugin screen and you start reviewing it (or by bulk assigning yourself a bunch of plugins to process). I guess the Post Locking feature lets others know you're looking at it though? That's primarily what's been used in the past to let others know you're working on the plugin.
• Closing a plugin (The other place where the assignments are used) doesn't mean that the person who closed it is going to be the one to follow up.

Perhaps upon moving from new to pending if it doesn't have an assignment and assigning to the user who does that would be beneficial though? Just incase someone started and didn't assign themselves..

Thinking about scenario's where someone might mark a plugin as pending, but not actually be the reviewer of it though... I can imagine that sometimes there's followup questions that need to be asked (For example; "Are you this trademark owner??") that might make someone move a plugin to pending but doesn't necessarily mean they should be the reviewer.

Leave it with me, I might see if it makes sense to adjust the Publish/Pending meta-box to integrate it.

[dd32]

In 12597:

Plugin Directory: Review: Change the first action from 'Mark as Pending' to 'Mark as Pending & Assign Review' to self-assign and mark it as needing dev-feedback in one go.

Fixes #6993.

[dd32]

I ended up going with a dedicated button, let's see how it ends up being used by the new reviewers, if it ends up being that the Mark as Pending is never used or those closing plugins end up wanting to be the person to review it in 100% of cases, then we can add it via the post_status change instead.

[mrfoxtalbot]

Thank you for thinking this through, @dd32. I feel that the solution you have come up with is a very good approach and will reduce significantly the chances of a reviewer forgetting to assign a plugin to themselves, which was my main concern.

[dd32]

In 12680:

Plugin Directory: Don't log an unassigned change if the post doesn't have a reviewer currently assigned.

See #6993.

[mrfoxtalbot]

I shared an idea to enhance this feature in #7147

[mrfoxtalbot]

I have noticed that only Plugin Admin (and I presume Plugin Reviewer) roles are listed in the dropdown to assign. I would be useful to have Admins listed there. The reason for this is that we need some of the reviewers to be Admins in order to access the Stream tool.

[dd32]

Replying to mrfoxtalbot:

I have noticed that only Plugin Admin (and I presume Plugin Reviewer) roles

Correct.

I would be useful to have Admins listed there too alongside the two other roles.
The reason for this is that we need some of the reviewers to be Admins in order to access the Stream tool.

I don't think this is ideal. The users should simply be assigned both roles, like as is done for some others on the site already: Plugin Admin, Administrator.

Admittedly, the UI doesn't allow setting multiple roles, has to be done via Code or CLI.

I've marked the two site Administrators who do reviews who were not in a Plugin * role as Plugin Admins.