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  • XPath: Nodes that have a child node that have an attribute

    - by Jonathan Allen
    XML Fragment <component name='Stipulations'> <group name='NoStipulations' required='N'> <field name='StipulationType' required='N' /> <field name='StipulationValue' required='N' /> </group> </component> <component name='NestedParties3'> <group name='NoNested3PartyIDs' required='N'> <field name='Nested3PartyID' required='N' /> <field name='Nested3PartyIDSource' required='N' /> <field name='Nested3PartyRole' required='N' /> <group name='NoNested3PartySubIDs' required='N'> <field name='Nested3PartySubID' required='N' /> <field name='Nested3PartySubIDType' required='N' /> </group> </group> </component> <component name='UnderlyingStipulations'> <group name='NoUnderlyingStips' required='N'> <field name='UnderlyingStipType' required='N' /> <field name='UnderlyingStipValue' required='N' /> </group> </component> What I want is all "group" nodes which have a child node of type "field" and a name "StipulationType". This is what I've tried so far: dictionary.XPathSelectElements("group[field[@name='StipulationType']]") dictionary.XPathSelectElements("group[./field[@name='StipulationType']]")

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  • Django ManyToMany Membership errors making associations

    - by jmitchel3
    I'm trying to have a "member admin" in which they have hundreds of members in the group. These members can be in several groups. Admins can remove access for the member ideally in the view. I'm having trouble just creating the group. I used a ManytoManyField to get started. Ideally, the "member admin" would be able to either select existing Users OR it would be able to Add/Invite new ones via email address. Here's what I have: #views.py def membership(request): group = Group.objects.all().filter(user=request.user) GroupFormSet = modelformset_factory(Group, form=MembershipForm) if request.method == 'POST': formset = GroupFormSet(request.POST, request.FILES, queryset=group) if formset.is_valid(): formset.save(commit=False) for form in formset: form.instance.user = request.user formset.save() return render_to_response('formset.html', locals(), context_instance=RequestContext(request)) else: formset= GroupFormSet(queryset=group) return render_to_response('formset.html', locals(), context_instance=RequestContext(request)) #models.py class Group(models.Model): name = models.CharField(max_length=128) members = models.ManyToManyField(User, related_name='community_members', through='Membership') user = models.ForeignKey(User, related_name='community_creator', null=True) def __unicode__(self): return self.name class Membership(models.Model): member = models.ForeignKey(User, related_name='user_membership', blank=True, null=True) group = models.ForeignKey(Group, related_name='community_membership', blank=True, null=True) date_joined = models.DateField(auto_now=True, blank=True, null=True) class Meta: unique_together = ('member', 'group') Any ideas? Thank you for your help.

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  • Rails exit controller after rendering

    - by codysehl
    I have an action in my controller that I am having trouble with. This is my first rails app, so I'm not sure of the best practices surrounding rails. I have a model called Group and a few actions that go in it's controller. I have written a test that should cause the controller to render an error in JSON because of an invalid Group ID. Instead of rendering and exiting, it looks like the controller is rendering and continuing to execute. Test test 'should not remove group because of invalid group id' do post(:remove, {'group_id' => '3333'}) response = JSON.parse(@response.body) assert_response :success assert_equal 'Success', response['message'] end Controller action # Post remove # group_id def remove if((@group = Group.find_by_id(params[:group_id])) == nil) render :json => { :message => "group_id not found" } end @group.destroy if(!Group.exists?(@group)) render :json => { :message => "Success" } else render :json => { :errors => @group.errors.full_messages } end end In the controller, the first if statement executes: render :json => { :message => "group_id not found" } but @group.destroy is still being executed. This seems counter-intuitive to me, I would think that the render method should exit the controller. Why is the controller not exiting after render is called? The purpose of this block of code is to recover gracefully when no record can be found with the passed in ID. Is this the correct way of doing something like this?

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  • In a SQL GROUP BY query, what value is used for the non-aggregate columns?

    - by Queencity13
    Say I've got the following data back from a SQL query: Lastname Firstname Age Anderson Jane 28 Anderson Lisa 22 Anderson Jack 37 If I want to know the age of the oldest person with the last name Anderson, I can select MAX(Age) and GROUP BY Lastname. But I also want to know the first name of that oldest person. How can I make sure that, when the Firstname values are collapsed into one row by the GROUP BY, I get the Firstname value from the same row where I got the max age?

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  • PowerPoint save group as picture creates asymmetric edge, how to fix?

    - by Se Norm
    I created tons of figures for my thesis in PowerPoint and now I realized that when I try to save the grouped items (= one figure) as a picture (EMF), it somehow asymmetrically adds a border on the left and the bottom. First one is original group, second is the same pasted as a picture. Original group: Pasted as a picture: Does anyone have an idea how to fix that for a huge number of figures? I think it only started happening when I used a page size of 1m x 1m in PowerPoint to be able to zoom in more for some figures. However, I cannot not simply change the page size now as it messes up font and object sizes. Also, copying it into a smaller page and then saving as EMF doesn't do the trick. Maybe it is not related to the page size after all. Cropping every figure individually would be a lot of work, so I hope there is a different solution. I found the origin of the problem: the text label in the left bottom corner of each image (0s, 8s, 16s). I still do not understand why it is happening though, since the text label does not expand over the edge of the image (it was aligned using the align left function). It would still be great if there was an easy way to fix this, especially as I want to keep the text where it is.

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  • Linq-to-SQL: How to perform a count on a sub-select

    - by Peter Bridger
    I'm still trying to get my head round how to use LINQ-to-SQL correctly, rather than just writing my own sprocs. In the code belong a userId is passed into the method, then LINQ uses this to get all rows from the GroupTable tables matching the userId. The primary key of the GroupUser table is GroupUserId, which is a foreign key in the Group table. /// <summary> /// Return summary details about the groups a user belongs to /// </summary> /// <param name="userId"></param> /// <returns></returns> public List<Group> GroupsForUser(int userId) { DataAccess.KINv2DataContext db = new DataAccess.KINv2DataContext(); List<Group> groups = new List<Group>(); groups = (from g in db.Groups join gu in db.GroupUsers on g.GroupId equals gu.GroupId where g.Active == true && gu.UserId == userId select new Group { Name = g.Name, CreatedOn = g.CreatedOn }).ToList<Group>(); return groups; } } This works fine, but I'd also like to return the total number of Users who are in a group and also the total number of Contacts that fall under ownership of the group. Pseudo code ahoy! /// <summary> /// Return summary details about the groups a user belongs to /// </summary> /// <param name="userId"></param> /// <returns></returns> public List<Group> GroupsForUser(int userId) { DataAccess.KINv2DataContext db = new DataAccess.KINv2DataContext(); List<Group> groups = new List<Group>(); groups = (from g in db.Groups join gu in db.GroupUsers on g.GroupId equals gu.GroupId where g.Active == true && gu.UserId == userId select new Group { Name = g.Name, CreatedOn = g.CreatedOn, // ### This is the SQL I would write to get the data I want ### MemberCount = ( SELECT COUNT(*) FROM GroupUser AS GU WHERE GU.GroupId = g.GroupId ), ContactCount = ( SELECT COUNT(*) FROM Contact AS C WHERE C.OwnerGroupId = g.GroupId ) // ### End of extra code ### }).ToList<Group>(); return groups; } }

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  • Delphi: How to set the default project in a project group?

    - by Ian Boyd
    i have two projects in a project group: ProjectA ProjectB Whenever i open the ProjectGroup.bpg in Delphi, it always starts with the 2nd project as the active one: ProjectA ProjectB And every time i have to flip it to the the "real" project: ProjectA ProjectB How can i make ProjectA the default project that opens with the project group? ProjectGroup.bpg #------------------------------------------------------------------------------ VERSION = BWS.01 #------------------------------------------------------------------------------ !ifndef ROOT ROOT = $(MAKEDIR)\.. !endif #------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAKE = $(ROOT)\bin\make.exe -$(MAKEFLAGS) -f$** DCC = $(ROOT)\bin\dcc32.exe $** BRCC = $(ROOT)\bin\brcc32.exe $** #------------------------------------------------------------------------------ PROJECTS = ProjectA.exe ProjectB.exe #------------------------------------------------------------------------------ default: $(PROJECTS) #------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ProjectA.exe: ProjectA.dpr $(DCC) ProjectB.exe: childfolder\ProjectB.dpr $(DCC)

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  • How to update a table using a select group by in a second one as the data source in MySQL?

    - by Jader Dias
    I can't do this in MySQL UPDATE tableA, tableB SET tableA.column1 = SUM(tableB.column2) WHERE tableA.column3 = tableB.column4 GROUP BY tableB.column4 ; Neither can I UPDATE tableA, ( SELECT SUM(tableB.column2) sumB, tableB.column4 FROM tableB GROUP BY tableB.column4 ) t1 SET tableA.column1 = sumB WHERE tableA.column3 = column4 ; Besides it being illegal code, I think you can understand what I tried to do with the queries above. Both of them had the same intent. How can I do that in MySQL?

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  • How to access items by "group" in an Outlook VB macro?

    - by Noah Yetter
    By "group" I mean the collapsible classifications that you get when you enable View-Arrange By-Show in Groups. This divides e.g. messages in a folder into Today, Yesterday, Last Week, Two Weeks Ago, and so on. What I'd like to be able to do is iterate over the messages that are currently classified within a given group. Is this possible?

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  • Help With LINQ: Mixed Joins and Specifying Default Values

    - by Corey O.
    I am trying to figure out how to do a mixed-join in LINQ with specific access to 2 LINQ objects. Here is an example of how the actual TSQL query might look: SELECT * FROM [User] AS [a] INNER JOIN [GroupUser] AS [b] ON [a].[UserID] = [b].[UserID] INNER JOIN [Group] AS [c] ON [b].[GroupID] = [c].[GroupID] LEFT JOIN [GroupEntries] AS [d] ON [a].[GroupID] = [d].[GroupID] WHERE [a].[UserID] = @UserID At the end, basically what I would like is an enumerable object full of GroupEntry objects. What am interested is the last two tables/objects in this query. I will be displaying Groups as a group header, and all of the Entries underneath their group heading. If there are no entries for a group, I still want to see that group as a header without any entries. Here's what I have so far: So from that I'd like to make a function: public void DisplayEntriesByUser(int user_id) { MyDataContext db = new MyDataContext(); IEnumberable<GroupEntries> entries = ( from user in db.Users where user.UserID == user_id join group_user in db.GroupUsers on user.UserID = group_user.UserID into a from join1 in a join group in db.Groups on join1.GroupID equals group.GroupID into b from join2 in b join entry in db.Entries.DefaultIfEmpty() on join2.GroupID equals entry.GroupID select entry ); Group last_group_id = 0; foreach(GroupEntry entry in entries) { if (last_group_id == 0 || entry.GroupID != last_group_id) { last_group_id = entry.GroupID; System.Console.WriteLine("---{0}---", entry.Group.GroupName.ToString().ToUpper()); } if (entry.EntryID) { System.Console.WriteLine(" {0}: {1}", entry.Title, entry.Text); } } } The example above does not work quite as expected. There are 2 problems that I have not been able to solve: I still seem to be getting an INNER JOIN instead of a LEFT JOIN on the last join. I am not getting any empty results, so groups without entries do not appear. I need to figure out a way so that I can fill in the default values for blank sets of entries. That is, if there is a group without an entry, I would like to have a mostly blank entry returned, except that I'd want the EntryID to be null or 0, the GroupID to be that of of the empty group that it represents, and I'd need a handle on the entry.Group object (i.e. it's parent, empty Group object). Any help on this would be greatly appreciated. Note: Table names and real-world representation were derived purely for this example, but their relations simplify what I'm trying to do.

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  • How to use Linq to select and group complex child object from a parents list.

    - by Daoming Yang
    How to use Linq to select and group complex child object from a parents list. I have an OrderList each of order object has a OrderProductVariantList(OrderLineList), and each of OrderProductVariant object has ProductVariant, and then the ProductVariant object will have a Product object which contains product information. My goal is to select and group the most popular products from the order list. Can anyone help me with this? Many thanks.

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  • Firefox url / link to a group of saved bookmarks?

    - by This_Is_Fun
    In Firefox you can easily save a group of tabs together. When (re-)accessing this group, the 'cascading' bookmark menu shows each individual bookmark (and under a line) it says "open all in tabs" I'm looking for a way to launch those tabs without going up through the bookmark menu. Possible options: A) Record a simple macro w/ any number of "superuser" utilities* ('A' is not the preferred option, since many 'little-macros' are hard to keep track of) b) Use Autohotkey (similar to option 'A' and more flexible once you learn the basics) c) How does Firefox load all those tabs? The info must be stored somewhere (as a type of URL??) Quick Summary: The moment I click on "open all in tabs", I am clicking on something very similar to a hyper-link. How do I find the content (exact code) of that 'hyper-link', and / or "How do I easily launch the tabs?" .. . New EDIT #1: I'm looking for a way to launch those tabs without going up through the bookmark menu, or cluttering the bookmarks toolbar which I hide anyway :o) .. . New EDIT #2: I tried to keep the question simple and not mentioning Autohotkey programming. The objective is to launch all tabs using a button on an AHK gui. When grawity said, "It's just an ordinary folder containing ordinary bookmarks," he (she) reminds me I can easily find the folder / Now how to launch to urls inside that folder? .. FYI: (Basic-level) AHK works like this: ; Open one folder ButtonWinMerge_Files: Run, C:\Program Files\WinMerge\ Return .. ; Use default web browser for one link ButtonGoogle: Run, http://google.com Return .. . Question still open: The moment I click on "open all in tabs", I am clicking on something very similar to a hyper-link. "How to 'replicate' the way Firefox launches the tabs with one click?"

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  • Cakephp beforeFind() - How do I add a JOIN condition AFTER the belongsTo association is added?

    - by michael
    I'm in Model-beforeFind($queryData), trying to add a JOIN condition to the queryData on a model which has belongsTo associations. Unfortunately, the new JOIN references a table in the belongsTo association, so it must appear AFTER the belongsTo in the query. Here is my Tagged-belongsTo association: app\plugins\tags\models\tagged.php (line 192) Array ( [Tag] => Array ( [className] => Tag [foreignKey] => tag_id [conditions] => [fields] => [order] => [counterCache] => ) [Group] => Array ( [className] => Group [foreignKey] => foreign_key [conditions] => Array ( [Tagged.model] => Group ) [fields] => [order] => [counterCache] => ) ) Here is the JOIN added in Tagged-beforeFind(), notice that the belongsTo joins have not yet been added: app\plugins\tags\models\tagged.php (line 194) Array ( [conditions] => Array ( [Tag.keyname] => europe ) [fields] => Array ( [0] => DISTINCT Group.* [1] => GroupPermission.* ) [joins] => Array ( [0] => Array ( [table] => permissions [alias] => GroupPermission [foreignKey] => [type] => INNER [conditions] => Array ( [GroupPermission.model] => Group [0] => GroupPermission.foreignId = Group.id [or] => Array ( ... ) ) ) ) [limit] => [offset] => [order] => Array ( [0] => ) [page] => 1 [group] => [callbacks] => 1 [by] => europe [model] => Group ) When I check the output, it fails with "1054: Unknown column 'Group.id' in 'on clause'" because the Permissions join appeared BEFORE the Groups join. SELECT DISTINCT `Group`.*, `GroupPermission`.* FROM `tagged` AS `Tagged` INNER JOIN permissions AS `GroupPermission` ON (`GroupPermission`.`model` = 'Group' AND `GroupPermission`.`foreignId` = `Group`.`id` AND (...)) LEFT JOIN `tags` AS `Tag` ON (`Tagged`.`tag_id` = `Tag`.`id`) LEFT JOIN `groups` AS `Group` ON (`Tagged`.`foreign_key` = `Group`.`id` AND `Tagged`.`model` = 'Group') WHERE `Tag`.`keyname` = 'europe' But this SQL (with Permissions joined moved to the end) works fine: SELECT DISTINCT `Group`.*, `GroupPermission`.* FROM `tagged` AS `Tagged` LEFT JOIN `tags` AS `Tag` ON (`Tagged`.`tag_id` = `Tag`.`id`) LEFT JOIN `groups` AS `Group` ON (`Tagged`.`foreign_key` = `Group`.`id` AND `Tagged`.`model` = 'Group') INNER JOIN permissions AS `GroupPermission` ON (`GroupPermission`.`model` = 'Group' AND `GroupPermission`.`foreignId` = `Group`.`id` AND (...)) WHERE `Tag`.`keyname` = 'europe' How do I add my join in beforeFind() after the belongsTo join?

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  • Jquery Content Cycle Next/Previous not working

    - by user340745
    I have a definition list with a lot of text inside of it. When a user comes to the page, I want the jQuery to hide two thirds of that content, add a next and previous button where appropriate, and fade the content in and out. The first third of the content is .issue-group-1, the second third is .issue-group-3, the third, .issue-group-3. I am trying to set it so that when the user hits the next button, the next button changes classes, and thus acts differently the next time the user clicks it (that is, it takes them to the third page instead of the second. Right now, the next/previous buttons are working on the first and second "pages" but the next button to the third page won't work. My code is probably too long and this is maybe not the best way to do it--I'm new to jquery. Any suggestions would be helpful. $(document).ready(function(){ $('.issue-group-2, .issue-group-3').hide(); $('a#next-button.page1').fadeIn(500); $('a#next-button.page1').click(function() { $(this).removeClass('page1').addClass('page2'); $('.issue-group-1').fadeOut(500, function() { $('.issue-group-2').fadeIn(500); }); $('a#previous-button').fadeIn(500); }); $('a#previous-button.page2').click(function() { $('#next-button.page2').removeClass('page2').addClass('page1'); $('.issue-group-2').fadeOut(500, function() { $('.issue-group-1').fadeIn(500); }); $('a#previous-button').fadeOut(500); }); $('a#next-button.page2').click(function() { $('a#previous-button').removeClass('page2').addClass('page3'); $('.issue-group-2').fadeOut(500, function() { $('.issue-group-3').fadeIn(500); }); $('a#next-button').fadeOut(500); }); $('a#previous-button.page3').click(function() { $(this).removeClass('page3').addClass('page2'); $('.issue-group-2').fadeOut(500, function() { $('.issue-group-2').fadeIn(500); }); $('a#next-button').fadeIn(500); }); });

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  • How to update a table using a select group by in a second one and itself as the data source in MySQL

    - by Jader Dias
    I can do this: SELECT t2.value + sum(t3.value) FROM tableA t2, tableB t3 WHERE t2.somekey = t3.somekey GROUP BY t3.somekey But how to do this? UPDATE tableA t1 SET speed = ( SELECT t2.value + sum(t3.value) FROM tableA t2, tableB t3 WHERE t2.somekey = t3.somekey AND t1.somekey = t3.somekey GROUP BY t3.somekey ) ; MySQL says it's illegal since you can't specify target table t1 for update in FROM clause.

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  • Microsoft 2010 Product Tour

    - by dmccollough
    Randy Walker, Co-Founder of the Northwest Arkansas .Net User Group and Microsoft MVP has arranged for a couple of Microsoft experts, Sarika Calla Team Lead on the IDE Team and Kevin Halverson to give presentations on newly released Visual Studio 2010.   June 1 – Bentonville, Arkansas Wal-Mart .Net User Group June 1 – Rogers, Arkansas Northwest Arkansas SQL Server User Group (lunch meeting) June 1 – Springdale, Arkansas Tyson devLoop June 1 – Fayetteville, Arkansas Northwest Arkansas .Net User Group June 2 – Fort Smith, Arkansas Datatronics June 2 – Little Rock, Arkansas Little Rock .Net User Group June 3 – Fort Worth, Texas Fort Worth .Net User Group   Please contact Randy Walker with questions at [email protected].

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  • West Palm Beach Developers&rsquo; Group June 2013 Meeting Recap &ndash; ASP.NET Web API and Web Sockets with Shervin Shakibi

    - by Sam Abraham
    Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/wildturtle/archive/2013/07/02/west-palm-beach-developersrsquo-group-june-2013-meeting-recap-ndash.aspxOur West Palm Beach Developers’ Group June 2013 meeting featured Shervin Shakibi, Microsoft Regional Director and Certified Trainer. Shervin spoke on the ASP.NET Web API and Web Sockets, two new features shipped along with ASP.NET MVC4. Talk was simply awesome and very interactive as Shervin answered many audience questions. Our event was sponsored by Steven Douglas Associates and hosted by PC Professor. Below are some photos of our event (Pardon my flash malfunction):   Shervin Presenting on the Web API A partial view of the standing-room only meeting.

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  • That Escalated Quickly

    - by Jesse Taber
    Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/GruffCode/archive/2014/05/17/that-escalated-quickly.aspxI have been working remotely out of my home for over 4 years now. All of my coworkers during that time have also worked remotely. Lots of folks have written about the challenges inherent in facilitating communication on remote teams and strategies for overcoming them. A popular theme around this topic is the notion of “escalating communication”. In this context “escalating” means taking a conversation from one mode of communication to a different, higher fidelity mode of communication. Here are the five modes of communication I use at work in order of increasing fidelity: Email – This is the “lowest fidelity” mode of communication that I use. I usually only check it a few times a day (and I’m trying to check it even less frequently than that) and I only keep items in my inbox if they represent an item I need to take action on that I haven’t tracked anywhere else. Forums / Message boards – Being a developer, I’ve gotten into the habit of having other people look over my code before it becomes part of the product I’m working on. These code reviews often happen in “real time” via screen sharing, but I also always have someone else give all of the changes another look using pull requests. A pull request takes my code and lets someone else see the changes I’ve made side-by-side with the existing code so they can see if I did anything dumb. Pull requests can facilitate a conversation about the code changes in an online-forum like style. Some teams I’ve worked on also liked using tools like Trello or Google Groups to have on-going conversations about a topic or task that was being worked on. Chat & Instant Messaging  - Chat and instant messaging are the real workhorses for communication on the remote teams I’ve been a part of. I know some teams that are co-located that also use it pretty extensively for quick messages that don’t warrant walking across the office to talk with someone but reqire more immediacy than an e-mail. For the purposes of this post I think it’s important to note that the terms “chat” and “instant messaging” might insinuate that the conversation is happening in real time, but that’s not always true. Modern chat and IM applications maintain a searchable history so people can easily see what might have been discussed while they were away from their computers. Voice, Video and Screen sharing – Everyone’s got a camera and microphone on their computers now, and there are an abundance of services that will let you use them to talk to other people who have cameras and microphones on their computers. I’m including screen sharing here as well because, in my experience, these discussions typically involve one or more people showing the other participants something that’s happening on their screen. Obviously, this mode of communication is much higher-fidelity than any of the ones listed above. Scheduled meetings are typically conducted using this mode of communication. In Person – No matter how great communication tools become, there’s no substitute for meeting with someone face-to-face. However, opportunities for this kind of communcation are few and far between when you work on a remote team. When a conversation gets escalated that usually means it moves up one or more positions on this list. A lot of people advocate jumping to #4 sooner than later. Like them, I used to believe that, if it was possible, organizing a call with voice and video was automatically better than any kind of text-based communication could be. Lately, however, I’m becoming less convinced that escalating is always the right move. Working Asynchronously Last year I attended a talk at our local code camp given by Drew Miller. Drew works at GitHub and was talking about how they use GitHub internally. Many of the folks at GitHub work remotely, so communication was one of the main themes in Drew’s talk. During the talk Drew used the phrase, “asynchronous communication” to describe their use of chat and pull request comments. That phrase stuck in my head because I hadn’t heard it before but I think it perfectly describes the way in which remote teams often need to communicate. You don’t always know when your co-workers are at their computers or what hours (if any) they are working that day. In order to work this way you need to assume that the person you’re talking to might not respond right away. You can’t always afford to wait until everyone required is online and available to join a voice call, so you need to use text-based, persistent forms of communication so that people can receive and respond to messages when they are available. Going back to my list from the beginning of this post for a second, I characterize items #1-3 as being “asynchronous” modes of communication while we could call items #4 and #5 “synchronous”. When communication gets escalated it’s almost always moving from an asynchronous mode of communication to a synchronous one. Now, to the point of this post: I’ve become increasingly reluctant to escalate from asynchronous to synchronous communication for two primary reasons: 1 – You can often find a higher fidelity way to convey your message without holding a synchronous conversation 2 - Asynchronous modes of communication are (usually) persistent and searchable. You Don’t Have to Broadcast Live Let’s start with the first reason I’ve listed. A lot of times you feel like you need to escalate to synchronous communication because you’re having difficulty describing something that you’re seeing in words. You want to provide the people you’re conversing with some audio-visual aids to help them understand the point that you’re trying to make and you think that getting on Skype and sharing your screen with them is the best way to do that. Firing up a screen sharing session does work well, but you can usually accomplish the same thing in an asynchronous manner. For example, you could take a screenshot and annotate it with some text and drawings to illustrate what it is you’re seeing. If a screenshot won’t work, taking a short screen recording while your narrate over it and posting the video to your forum or chat system along with a text-based description of what’s in the recording that can be searched for later can be a great way to effectively communicate with your team asynchronously. I Said What?!? Now for the second reason I listed: most asynchronous modes of communication provide a transcript of what was said and what decisions might have been made during the conversation. There have been many occasions where I’ve used the search feature of my team’s chat application to find a conversation that happened several weeks or months ago to remember what was decided. Unfortunately, I think the benefits associated with the persistence of communicating asynchronously often get overlooked when people decide to escalate to a in-person meeting or voice/video call. I’m becoming much more reluctant to suggest a voice or video call if I suspect that it might lead to codifying some kind of design decision because everyone involved is going to hang up the call and immediately forget what was decided. I recognize that you can record and archive these types of interactions, but without being able to search them the recordings aren’t terribly useful. When and How To Escalate I don’t mean to imply that communicating via voice/video or in person is never a good idea. I probably jump on a Skype call with a co-worker at least once a day to quickly hash something out or show them a bit of code that I’m working on. Also, meeting in person periodically is really important for remote teams. There’s no way around the fact that sometimes it’s easier to jump on a call and show someone my screen so they can see what I’m seeing. So when is it right to escalate? I think the simplest way to answer that is when the communication starts to feel painful. Everyone’s tolerance for that pain is different, but I think you need to let it hurt a little bit before jumping to synchronous communication. When you do escalate from asynchronous to synchronous communication, there are a couple of things you can do to maximize the effectiveness of the communication: Takes notes – This is huge and yet I’ve found that a lot of teams don’t do this. If you’re holding a meeting with  > 2 people you should have someone taking notes. Taking notes while participating in a meeting can be difficult but there are a few strategies to deal with this challenge that probably deserve a short post of their own. After the meeting, make sure the notes are posted to a place where all concerned parties (including those that might not have attended the meeting) can review and search them. Persist decisions made ASAP – If any decisions were made during the meeting, persist those decisions to a searchable medium as soon as possible following the conversation. All the teams I’ve worked on used a web-based system for tracking the on-going work and a backlog of work to be done in the future. I always try to make sure that all of the cards/stories/tasks/whatever in these systems always reflect the latest decisions that were made as the work was being planned and executed. If held a quick call with your team lead and decided that it wasn’t worth the effort to build real-time validation into that new UI you were working on, go and codify that decision in the story associated with that work immediately after you hang up. Even better, write it up in the story while you are both still on the phone. That way when the folks from your QA team pick up the story to test a few days later they’ll know why the real-time validation isn’t there without having to invoke yet another conversation about the work. Communicating Well is Hard At this point you might be thinking that communicating asynchronously is more difficult than having a live conversation. You’re right: it is more difficult. In order to communicate effectively this way you need to very carefully think about the message that you’re trying to convey and craft it in a way that’s easy for your audience to understand. This is almost always harder than just talking through a problem in real time with someone; this is why escalating communication is such a popular idea. Why wouldn’t we want to do the thing that’s easier? Easier isn’t always better. If you and your team can get in the habit of communicating effectively in an asynchronous manner you’ll find that, over time, all of your communications get less painful because you don’t need to re-iterate previously made points over and over again. If you communicate right the first time, you often don’t need to rehash old conversations because you can go back and find the decisions that were made laid out in plain language. You’ll also find that you get better at doing things like writing useful comments in your code, creating written documentation about how the feature that you just built works, or persuading your team to do things in a certain way.

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