Implementation of New Features Policy

Summary

• We encourage and display customer comments and votes openly in our issue tracking system, track.openspecimen.org
• We do not publish roadmaps.
• Krishagni reviews the most popular issues on a regular basis.
• We schedule features based on a variety of factors.

How to track what features are being implemented

When a new feature or improvement is scheduled, the 'fix-for' version will be indicated in the JIRA issue. This happens for the upcoming release only. 

How Krishagni chooses what to implement

In every major release we aim to implement highly requested features, but it is not the only determining factor. Other factors include:

• Customer contact: We get the chance to meet customers and hear their successes and challenges at site visits, conferences, calls, etc.
• Community forums: There are large volumes of posts on answers, of votes and comments on forums.openspecimen.org
• Customer Support: Our support team provides clear insights into the issues that are challenging for customers, and which are generating the most calls to support
• Evaluator Feedback: When someone new tries our products, we want to know what they liked and disliked and often reach out to them for more detail.
• Usage data: Are customers using the features we have developed?
• Product strategy: Our long-term strategic vision for the product.

How to contribute to feature development

Influencing OpenSpecimen's release cycle 
We encourage our customers to comment on issues that have been raised in our public forums - forums.openspecimen.org. Please find out if your request already exists - if it does, comment on it. If you do not find it you may wish to create a new one. 

We do not encourage direct emails for new features. Use public forums helps in involving the whole community and seek feedback.