topic Re: Workato Product Thought in Workato Pros Discussion Board

Workato Product Thought

Prudvi — Fri, 17 Jan 2025 10:06:21 GMT

Hi Workato Team/All,
Whenever we save a Recipe/Custom Connector. A version number gets incremented and a space is provide to comment.

Just a thought, whenever we save a Recipe/Customer Connector, it would prompt to provide your comment and then save.
If no comment is passed, It would just save.

Not sure if this is being implemented or anyone has already shared.

Regards,
Prudvi

Re: Workato Product Thought

shivakumara — Fri, 17 Jan 2025 13:14:34 GMT

Hi @Prudvi ,
Here are my thoughts on the requirement:
As a best practice, it is the developer's responsibility to provide clear and detailed comments to explain the changes made, ensuring future understanding and maintainability. If Workato were to handle this automatically, developers might lose insight into the specific changes made at the recipe or connector level, requiring additional effort to review and comprehend the code later.

Here are some reason for the above context:

Context Awareness: Developers have a complete understanding of the logic and the intent behind their changes. Automated comments may lack the context needed to fully explain why a specific approach was taken or what problem it solves.
Developers providing comments ensures a more comprehensive, clear, and useful explanation of the changes made.

Thanks and Regards,
Shivakumar K A

Re: Workato Product Thought

Prudvi — Fri, 17 Jan 2025 12:55:19 GMT

Hi @shivakumara,
I want the user to provide the comment and not to automate the comment.
Whenever a user clicks on the Save button, it would give a popup to provide user comment and then save.
And if no comment is provided by the user, it gets saved without any comment.
Regards,
Prudvi

Re: Workato Product Thought

shivakumara — Fri, 17 Jan 2025 13:13:17 GMT

Hi @Prudvi ,
While the intent behind enforced prompts is good, over-reliance on them might lead to diminished developer autonomy and productivity. Instead, a balanced approach combining guidelines, peer reviews, and selective enforcement is likely to yield better results.

Thanks and Regards,
Shivakumar A

Re: Workato Product Thought

Prudvi — Fri, 17 Jan 2025 13:53:27 GMT

Hi @shivakumara,
A balanced approach combining guidelines, peer reviews, and selective enforcement is likely to yield better results. - Yes I agree to this point

Its my personal experience as whenever I make change to a recipe and save, I have go to the version tab to give my comment.
Regards,
Prudvi

Re: Workato Product Thought

gary1 — Fri, 17 Jan 2025 18:01:51 GMT

This would drive me insane. I save excessively and I don't want to be prompted for comments every single time.

When I start working on a recipe or connector, I will make a comment on the latest version like "this version works, but I'm going to start making changes."

Thirty versions/saves later when I am done-done with the updates, I will add a comment on the latest version like "updates are done, and this is working again." In other words, this version is a "release" (on recipes).

Also, for complex recipes I add a skipped logger as the first action to act as a README file. I use this logger to describe the recipe and any important updates. But I only do this when necessary, and not on every recipe.

My preference would actually be to group the versions into "releases". This is kind of available on the connector SDK because it marks which versions are released, but that doesn't exist on recipes. That's why I use my comments to indicate "this is a release."

At the end of the day, this can be solved with behavior and process and not with pop-ups!