Atlassian Projects - Hide "empty updates" when there has been no update. It fills up the feed...

Question

As we all know, it is currently not possible to change the frequency of the built-in updates digest option globally. Projects = weekly, Goals = monthly.

However, we have created an internal policy that projects only need to be updated every 4 weeks. Maybe we are not the only ones...

The feeds and mails are now filled with “Updates: No updates was posted.” As a result, the feeds and emails are losing attention.

If it is not already a planned feature to be able to change the frequency time globally, it would be helpful if no post appeared when there was no update.

What do others think about this?

Silvio · Answer

Thank you both, @Walter Buggenhout and @Jonathan Prisant , for your feedback and contributions.

The view Walter mentioned via Atlassian Home > Status updates is indeed very helpful. However, many of my colleagues are not aware of this. Because, as Jonathan says, more casual users / stakeholders often have a link to a project, etc. 
We need to train people to use it. I don't think anyone has figured it out on their own yet. Unlike the rest of Projects, which is very intuitive. But maybe something will change there anyway when Projects becomes its own app like Goals.

It also remains a fact that we have longer projects where a monthly update is fixed. (not all!)

I appreciate the rest of your input, Jonathan, and I would also say that B offers more value.

Jonathan Prisant · Answer

@Walter Buggenhout I appreciate what you are saying with

"Looking at a project with no updates at all as in the above screenshot offers signal about (lack of) progress / communication."

However, there is a lot of value in at lead being able to globally or per-project control the Updates view in my experience...

1. Many projects do not need weekly updates.

2. After a project is "complete" there is value in continuing to post learnings and updates / performance metrics for the project.

3. Aid in discoverability of shared learning for related projects in the future.

4. Help with onboarding future team members into related project history & context.

Currently, the experience of seeing multiple pages with no updates (i.e. multiple Show More clicks) buries the perceive value of the project updates & history value into irrelevancy really quickly.

In the longer tail of company-wide adoption of Projects & Goals... this results in historical value being so deep and hidden in the history that most users would assume updates were note added and not bother even looking.

Most the more casual users/stakeholders aren't going to curate status update feeds with filters... they want to be able to drop into a space and get information & context quickly and sufficiently.

Between the options of the value of being...

A. See all these empty entries! There haven't been any updates in a while

B. Items 1-4+ above

I think B offers substantially more value for everyone.

Walter Buggenhout · Answer

Hi @Silvio and welcome to the Community!

I understand what you are saying, but also understand the philosophy behind this. Looking at a project with no updates at all as in the above screenshot offers signal about (lack of) progress / communication.

This view (in the details of a single project) shows the entire update history of the project as a whole and - in my experience - is rarely used. Unless some concern is raised about the project at some point in time and the question pops up if there weren't any signals historically announcing the upcoming issue. If that were the case with the above project, that is the signal I am referring to.

Another view, the weekly overview of project updates, however is more practical. It has the overview of all status updates across projects and can be filtered by status. So over there, you can really zoom into just the updates for that week that you're interested in. And that is also the view you land on when you are reviewing the weekly status updates.

You can also find that view from Atlassian Home > Status updates.

Hope this helps!