Our Meetup and WordCamp vetting queue might sometimes be a bit long. It causes a delay, sometimes almost a month, between sending the application and deputy vetting it. The long gap between submitting the application and receiving an update might be frustrating for some applicants. Some do also come to #community-events Slack channel and ask to confirm that their application is received.
Public application report page helps a little with this, but not all applicants know about it. Even if they do, it does not feel like personal contact with Community Team.
I propose the following change to our application workflow, to keep applicants informed and to add a bit more personal touch after sending the application:
- Create a HelpScout ticket and in that ticket:
- Send a short warm confirmation that the Community Team has received the application.
- Keep ticket open and mark it with the tag “application-confirmation.”
- The application tracker on central.wordcamp.org is updated with a link to the ticket for later communication.
This can be done pragmatically leveraging HelpScout API, so manual deputy work is not needed.
After this process has been set up, we could use HelpScout workflows to do different things. For example, send a short message if there hasn’t been any activity for two weeks after the application was received. This message could contain an apology that we have a bit of queue right now and promise that we will vet the application as soon as possible.
Possible advantages for deputies:
- Deputies can view the queue from HelpScout and not require to visit the application tracker queue to figure out which one to conduct a vetting
- Easier and trackable way to assign applications to deputies
What do you think, is this a good idea? Do you already imagine how the messaged are phrased? Tell it in the comments! Deadline for comments is 2019-10-04.
Thanks to @adityakane for brainstorming this proposal with me and commenting the draft.