Bugs, Feature Ideas, Troubleshooting¶

How improvements are made to Mattermost¶

Every month, the Mattermost community plans, builds, tests, documents, releases and supports new product improvements for Team Edition to benefit the user community, and the Mattermost Enterprise Team does the same for Enterprise Edition to benefit the subscriber community.

1. When a feature idea is within the scope of Team Edition, as defined in the Mattermost Manifesto and considered a priority, a Jira ticket is created to define its implementation:
   1. If the change is not complex, an Accepting Pull Requests label may be added to the Jira ticket for any developer to contribute the change to the Mattermost Team Edition code base via the contribution process. A list of tickets accepting pull requests is offered to all contributors who read the contributor’s guide, and these provide a steady stream of improvements to Team Edition month after month.
   2. If change is considered high priority without pre-requisites, a Fix Version may be applied to the Jira ticket for the Mattermost core team or key contributors to add for an upcoming bi-monthly release. Priority decisions are influenced by discussion and voting in the feature idea forum and community systems as well as feedback from key contributors.
   3. If change is not seen as high priority or has pre-requisites, it is assigned a Fix Version of backlog and will be considered bi-monthly for inclusion in a future release.
2. When a feature idea does not fit the scope of Team Edition, as defined in the Mattermost Manifesto, but benefits Enterprise Edition subscribers, a similar process as above is undertaken by the Enterprise Team.
   1. If change is considered high priority without pre-requisites, a Fix Version may be applied to the Jira ticket for the Mattermost Enterprise Team to add for an upcoming bi-monthly release. Priority decisions are influenced by discussion with Enterprise Edition subscribers, with special attention paid to members of the Core Access program.
   2. If change is not seen as high priority or has pre-requisites, it is assigned a Fix Version of backlog until this situation changes.
   3. If an existing or potential Enterprise Edition subscriber needs a specific change that has not yet been assigned a Fix Version, they can contact the Mattermost Enterprise Team to discuss sponsoring the feature with Non-Recurring Engineering (NRE) funding to have it delivered before it would otherwise be added. Feature sponsorship can only be applied to features where Jira tickets exist.
3. If a feature idea is not within the scope of either Team Edition or Enterprise Edition, you might consider:
   1. Building an integration using Mattermost webhooks or Slash commands. There are dozens of open source examples to help you start. Example: Suppose you want a link preview for an esoteric file type that Mattermost isn’t able to support, you can create an outgoing webhook to reply with an image that offers a preview.
   2. Building a client application using the Mattermost Web Service API. This is useful if you want to customize the user experience to your specific needs. Example: You can re-create the Mattermost web interface using Windows controls to define front end logic, similar to the MattermostWPF project.
   3. Creating an open source variation of Mattermost using the Team Edition source code. Example: The Mozilla Foundation created their own open source Mattermost variation, which includes changes specific to their needs.

Drafting a Ticket for New Features¶

Before a new feature can be implemented, it needs a ticket specifying how it should work. To speed up the process of implementing feature ideas, community members are welcome to propose what the ticket should say for a new feature.

When drafting a ticket for a new feature, please include:

1. Title: A clear, concise title describing the new feature
2. Description: Instructions on how the feature should be implemented.

When writing the description, the following checklist should be addressed:

1. Does this feature require an Account Setting, Team Setting, or System Console Setting?
   1. If yes, please include the proposed: Location, Title, Setting Options, Default Setting, and Help Text (see example).
2. Is there any ambiguity in the ticket?
   1. If yes, please update description to remove ambiguity.
   2. The ticket should not include multiple potential solutions. (The exception to this is if a second solution is suggested as an alternative if the first is too much work).
   3. The ticket should include specific numbers where necessary. (For example, it should not say to “increase” or “decrease” the length of something without specifying what number to increase/decrease it to).

GitHub Issues Workflow¶

To minimize response times, templates and automation are used across community systems for common requests. When misfiled requests are posted in GitHub close them soon so the community does not confuse them as being appropriate.

Thanks @[GITHUB_USERNAME] for your question, 

Because this seems to be more a troubleshooting discussion than a product defect, could we have your help posting this to the [Troubleshooting Forum](http://www.mattermost.org/troubleshoot/)? 

Per above link, please include repro steps to make it easier to solve your issue. Also, please link back to your new post from this issue? 

Thanks @[GITHUB_USERNAME], appreciate your feedback, 

To keep feature idea discussions in one place, could we have your help: 

1. [Contributing this in the feature idea forum](http://www.mattermost.org/feature-requests/) so it can be discussed, upvoted and considered for a [ticket accepting pull requests](http://docs.mattermost.com/process/accepting-pull-request.html)? 

   Please include a link back to this GitHub Issue. If you're interested in implementing, please say so and we'll prioritize the review. 

2. Posting a link back from the feature idea forum to this thread? 

Thanks @[GITHUB_USERNAME] for the bug report, 

Can you help [add more information](http://www.mattermost.org/filing-issues/) so we can reproduce the issue? 

Please rebase this Pull Request

Thanks @[GITHUB_USERNAME] for your feedback. 

This ticket requires design review. Asking help from @[Core Team PM]

Thanks @[GITHUB_USERNAME], [Jira ticket]([LINK_TO_JIRA_TICKET]) created for this issue. 

Thanks @[GITHUB_USERNAME] for the issue report, 

Would anyone from the community be able to help repro this issue to verify it can be reproduced? 

Thanks @[GITHUB_USERNAME] for the report, 

We have a [Jira Ticket]([LINK_TO_JIRA_TICKET]) tracking the issue.