Allow feedback and discussion

Users can set up discussions and provide feedback to plan or project scenarios in Urban. Discussions happen between users who have access to the plan or project, including those in the groups with which the plan or project has been shared. Discussions are held in channels. A channel allows you to control who can participate in a discussion.

You need to share the plan or project before you can use discussions. To learn more about how to share, see Share a plan that you own or Share a project that you own. Once a plan or a project has been shared, you can create a channel. Within a channel, users can comment with or without geolocation, add categories to comments, reply, resolve, edit, or delete their comments.

Note:

• Only the owner of a plan or a project can configure the sharing settings.
• Share a plan or project with Everyone (public) if you want to enable public discussions.
• Discussions for the whole organization or public discussions can only be set up by an administrator of the organization.

Open the discussions mode

To open the discussions mode in plans or projects, complete the following steps:

1. In the overview, select the plan or project for which you want to enable discussions or provide feedback.

   The plan or project opens.

2. If you work with a plan, complete the following step:
   1. Click the Discussion button to the right of the header.

      The side panel switches into discussion mode.

3. If you work with a project, complete the following step:
   1. Click the Discussion button on the left toolbar.

      The side panel switches into discussion mode.

Enable discussions

As the owner of a plan or project, you can set up new channels to facilitate discussions, and add and remove channels.

Set up new channels

To add a new channel to a discussion in a plan or project, complete the following steps:

1. Open the discussions mode.

   See Open the discussions mode to learn how to access this mode in plans and projects.

2. Open the Edit list of channels panel:
   • If there are no channels yet, click the Add channels button.
   • If there are already channels, click the Edit button in the side panel's header.
3. Click the New channel button to add a new channel.

   The Create channel side panel appears.

4. Provide a descriptive name for the channel.
5. Select your preferred sharing level in the Set sharing level drop-down menu.
   • Select Private to share it only with selected groups.
   • Select Organization to give access to the channel to any user in the organization.
   • Select Everyone (public) to make the channel accessible to any authenticated user.

     Note:

     The Organization and Everyone (public) options are only available if you are an administrator of the organization. Additionally, the Everyone (public) option only becomes available if the plan or project is shared with the public.

6. Optionally, select groups in the Selected groups section that you want to share the channel with.

   Hover over the group name to see members of the group.

7. Click Create to create the channel.

   The channel is shown in the list of channels.

8. Click the Return button in the header.

   The Discussion panel appears.

9. Select the channel in the Select channel drop-down menu.

   The new channel is added to the plan or project. Any user with access can add comments in the channel.

Add existing channels

If the channel you want to add already exists, complete the following steps to add it to the plan or project:

1. Open the discussions mode.

   See Open the discussions mode to learn how to access this mode in plans and projects.

2. Open the Edit list of channels panel:
   • If there are no channels yet, click the Add channels button.
   • If there are already channels, click the Edit button in the header.
3. Type the name of the channel in the Add existing channels search bar and select the channel you want to add.

   The channel is added to the list of channels.

Remove a channel

To remove a channel from a plan or project, complete the following steps:

1. Open the discussions mode.

   See Open the discussions mode to learn how to access this mode in plans and projects.

2. Click the Edit button in the header.

   The Edit list of channels panel appears.

3. Find the channel you want to remove in the list and click the Remove button next to it in the list.

   The channel is removed from the list of channels.

Start a discussion

To provide feedback for a plan or project scenario within a discussion, complete the following steps:

1. Open a plan or project by clicking it in the view or in the list of plans or projects.
2. Open the discussions mode.

   See Open the discussions mode to learn how to access this mode in plans and projects.

3. Select a channel from the Select channel drop-down menu.
4. Use the scenario switcher in the header to select the scenario that you want to comment on.

   Comments are saved for each scenario.

5. Type your comment in the text box at the bottom of the side panel.
6. Optionally, assign your comment to a location. Click the pin button at the bottom of the text box and click the map to place it.

   After placing a pin, you can click it and use the handles to reposition the pin. You can also move the pin of an existing comment in comment edit mode.

7. Optionally, click the speech bubble at the bottom of the text box to select a feedback category.

   You can configure feedback categories in the data manager. See Manage feedback categories to learn more.

8. Click Send.

   Your feedback is added to the Discussion side panel as text and to the map view if a pin was placed.

9. If you need to make changes to your comment, click the Options button and select Edit.

Work with comments

Learn how you can reply to comments, resolve or unresolve threads, and delete or duplicate comments for effective moderation. Complete the following steps to access these options on comments:

1. Open a plan or project by clicking it in the view or in the list of plans or projects.
2. Open the discussions mode.

   See Open the discussions mode to learn how to access this mode in plans and projects.

3. Select the channel in the Select channel drop-down menu.
4. For every comment in the list of feedback, you can choose from the following options by clicking the Options button on the comment:
   • Click Reply to react to your own comment or to a comment from another user.

     Note:

     • Type your response in the text box at the bottom of the side panel and click Send to add your reply.
     • When a comment has a number of replies, you can view them by clicking the replies at the bottom of the comment.
     • To hide the list of replies, click Hide replies at the end of the list.
   • Click Resolve to collapse your own comment.
   • Click Unresolve to expand your own comment again after you resolved it.
   • Click Delete to remove your own comment from the list. If you are the owner of the channel, you can also remove comments from others.
   • Click Duplicate to to move a comment to a different channel in the same plan or project if you are a member of other channels.
   • Click Duplicate with replies to to move a comment to a different channel in the same plan if you are a member of other channels, and the comment has one or multiple replies.