Locking historic updates to prevent editing

[Sing Chen]

Hi Community,

I submitted this via the feedback form in Atlas but wanted to share with this group as well. As we continue our pilot, we get to see the "passage of time" and the questions surfaced through that experience, that go beyond the functional capabilities of the product.

As an Atlas user, especially as a project owner, contributor, and senior leader/executive who consumes updates, I would like to have confidence in the integrity of historic updates. Currently, it is possible for me to edit an update posted for a 'past' week.

I can't think of a use case where this would be needed and knowing that an update posted, which likely has reactions and discussion comments, can be edited to potentially change the narrative and context of comments and reactions related to the update is a concern.

Locking or freezing historic updates (and potentially even their related comments) would be a way to preserve an accurate historical record of a project's updates.

Would like to get a sense from the community of the importance of this. Something you've come across? Something that's important? Use cases where its important to be able to edit last week's update or an update from 4 weeks ago?

Thanks everyone!

Sing

[Matthew McGarity]

If by "past week" you mean the most-recent update, I think the use case for allowing edits = the idea that "final updates" are those which are circulated every Monday morning (via the dashboards & email digests), and that allowing for editing up until then ensures the highest-quality message as you gather inputs.

For example, we use Atlas for publicizing the dates & state of each release. Sometimes I'll get preliminary input that a feature within that release is off-track, so I'll post that information immediately to Atlas. Then during the course of the week, we learn that the update requires more-nuance — that X portion of it will be available, but that Y is being descoped to the future because of Z.  That collected update eventually gets "pinned" in Atlas when the next week arrives, but at least up to that point we've been able to curate the most-accurate status.

[Alexandre Krammel]

I understand 'past week' as the previous updates and not for the current one you can write a preview/draft but must have a final version on friday.

[Matthew McGarity]

In my instance, I cannot edit anything except for the current week's update. Once the weekend has passed, it gets fixed in amber.

[Alexandre Krammel]

I agree with freezing, but a smooth alternative to freezing 'past' historic updates could be:

• If it get updated, there should be a icon or "Updated" status in the update and a way to view when it was updated (can be a tooltip of the "Updated" word)
• As in Jira issues, there should be a change history of the week update, for every change after it get published on Mondays, so one can investigate what has changed
  
  
  

[Sing Chen]

@Matthew McGarity Interesting! I wonder if it's because we're in a sandbox. Will check with our Atlassian administrator. The edited update shows (edited) so there is an indicator that it has been changed from the original.

@Alexandre Krammel In relation to your earlier comment about 'past week', yes, I'm referring to any week that isn't the current week that will be 'published' on Friday. Below is an example where the original update was posted 6 days ago, which I edited this morning. While it's not a significant issue and can be addressed by education, the "6 days (edited)" could initially be interpreted as "the update was edited 6 days ago".