Should We Train or Trick End Users? Or...
A couple of weeks ago, Greg Eldred wrote
about a trick/tip posted on SearchDomino,
wherein the writer of the tip "changed the labels on the "Reply
with History" and "Reply without Attachments" actions.
So my "Reply with History" button uses the code from the original
"Reply without Attachment" and I have a "Reply with Attachment"
action which is just the original "Reply with History" action.
My users hardly noticed and they don't send those attachments back with
their replies anymore. " Greg called this 'subversive and effective!',
and I have to agree. But I also have to ask a simple question.
Would such a trick even be necessary
if a) IBM/Lotus had just reordered the actions to have those that strip
out the attachments listed first; or b) the administrator who wrote the
tip had spent time training or informing the users about the new options?
But then again, maybe the administrator
did spend the time training and finally said 'enough is enough'. Then 'subversive
and effective!' are the right words, as long as the administrator has documented
the changes and received management approval before making the changes.
Why? Because template changes could void any IBM Support paid for by a
company. And *THAT* needs to be documented.
Comment posted by Chris Whisonant08/01/2005 09:17:11 AM
Homepage: http://cwhisonant.blogspot.com
I believe I may have read that at Gregg's blog or somewhere else. Good little hack.
I would wager that a good majority of companies have modified the template in some fashion. How many of you have added a time column for the Inbox? I've had to add a Subject sort as well. And wouldn't it be a "change" to the template to update the Out of Office agent's schedule from the 6 hour default to 20 minutes? But that's one of the reasons I haven't rolled out the openntf template to all my users.
Sometimes user training just doesn't cut it... =)
08/02/2005 08:12:58 AM
Comment posted by Nathan T. Freeman08/02/2005 08:04:49 AM
*cough*OpenNTFTemplate*cough*
You might note that we made all those rules configurable in the preferences. And... it's not too tough to set some user's preference FOR THEM as an administrator. Though we probably ought to build better facilities for doing so.
08/03/2005 09:58:58 AM
Comment posted by Gregg Eldred08/03/2005 09:37:21 AM
Homepage: http://www.ns-tech.com/blog/geldred.nsf
Admins seem to fighting a losing battle when it comes to disk space. While we may train the users to archive, delete attachments, etc., it sometimes falls on deaf ears. So, changing the way that a button works may be a defensive position. I agree that I am leery of changing a major template like the mail template without proper documentation - that will bite you at the next upgrade.