Hello,
I'm analyzing Review Assistant functionality with intention to use it in our Team as a peer review tool with TFS VCS. After installing trial version and trying the main flows I have few questions left:
1. When I add review comment, it is published to an author before I complete the review. It may lead to spam and distraction with many comments added. Is it possible to send updates in bulk only when I mark the whole review as completed? I saw refresh period configuration, but that's not exactly what I wanted to see...
2. Refresh period delays notifications to an author. So while on one hand you publish each comment separately (probably so that person could see them ASAP), on the other hand you delay notifications, making discussions non-instant and not user-friendly. Is it possible to make notifications instant, as advertised in your demonstration video?
3. It seems that review workflow assumes review is not required by default and will only be done if author requests it. I don't want to be too restrictive from the very beginning by implementing pre-commit review process, but what I would really like is review request created by default unless cancelled. This would stop people from "forgetting" (or not willing) to ask for review. This should be especially important for new/temporary/junior team members - I'd like to make review for them mandatory and automatically created (post-commit for now) with no ability to cancel it from their side.
4. Do I understand correctly that to initiate a review developer should Shelve his changes manually and then ask for review separately? Is there some way to simplify that process and either make Shelve automatic, or embed review request creation in shelving dialog?
5. It seems that every time you create a review request you should populate reviewer(s) again and again. It may be nice for real peer reviews when every your checkin is reviewed by different person, but the reality is that our junior developers are linked to supervisors and we have only 2 supervisors. Juniors should take part in all code reviews, but they should not be the only reviewer approving a change. Is there some functionality of team-roles and assigning default reviewers? This seem to be minor thing as well as 4th, but it would improve usability significantly.
Review Process Clarifications
Re: Review Process Clarifications
Hi, Oleksandr!
Thank you for your feedback.
As for items 1,2, we are planning to change notification behavior, and we will
take your suggestions into account.
3. Unfortunately, Review Assistant does not support features which you suggested. However, you can write your suggestion at User Voice:
https://devart.uservoice.com/forums/145 ... -assistant. If your suggestion receives enough votes, we will implement it in one of the next versions.
4. If you want to create review automatically, you can use Pre-commit Code Review Policy.
You can find a full description at https://www.devart.com/review-assistant ... olicy.html
5. Thank you for your suggestion to automatically add reviewers to review. We will consider it. Also, you can add your idea to the user voice https://devart.uservoice.com/forums/145 ... -assistant.
Thank you for your feedback.
As for items 1,2, we are planning to change notification behavior, and we will
take your suggestions into account.
3. Unfortunately, Review Assistant does not support features which you suggested. However, you can write your suggestion at User Voice:
https://devart.uservoice.com/forums/145 ... -assistant. If your suggestion receives enough votes, we will implement it in one of the next versions.
4. If you want to create review automatically, you can use Pre-commit Code Review Policy.
You can find a full description at https://www.devart.com/review-assistant ... olicy.html
5. Thank you for your suggestion to automatically add reviewers to review. We will consider it. Also, you can add your idea to the user voice https://devart.uservoice.com/forums/145 ... -assistant.