Change history

Last Updated: February 28, 2025

Platform Collaboration Cycle communication and updates. Please note that links in older posts may be invalid or may have been removed. Please contact Governance team with any questions.

2025

February 28, 2025

• PO Sync touchpoint expanded to include VES teams. Effective February 28, 2025, the PO Sync is a required touchpoint for all VFS teams within OCTO and VES. Non-OCTO and non-VES teams should not schedule this touchpoint.

February 26, 2025

• Logging Silent Failures QA Standard now requires verification in Datadog. On March 12, 2025 the Logging Silent Failures QA Standard will require VFS teams to link to a Datadog dashboard that visualizes StatsD metrics sent from their applications. VFS teams are still required to link to places in code that send metrics to StatsD.

January 29, 2025

• Teams must communicate known issues at Staging Review. For all Collaboration Cycle kickoffs after January 30, 2025, teams will be expected to communicate if there are known issues or bugs before Staging Review and include information on the progress of those initiatives accordingly. This new requirement has been added to the artifacts list in the Staging Review section of future Collaboration Cycle Kickoff tickets.

January 28, 2025

• All QA Standards are now launch-blocking. On February 10, 2025 all QA Standards will become launch-blocking and will be enforced at Staging Review. Teams must satisfy all standards to launch a product on VA.gov.

January 13, 2025

• We have clarified Staging Review requirements. Teams bringing a product through Staging Review must verify that the product/feature is ready for production, with no additional development planned outside of addressing findings from Staging Review. This is not a change so much as a clarification of existing practice.

2024

November 6, 2024

• We have added a new standard regarding appropriate notifications to the VA.gov Experience Standards. As a part of the Zero Silent Failures effort, we discovered that some instances of silent failures were related to situations where notifications were not sent to the user. In an effort to mitigate this problem, we have created a new VA.gov Experience Standard. If the user does not receive appropriate notifications from the VA or VA.gov products, it will be flagged as a VA.gov Experience Standards violation at the Collaboration Cycle Staging Review.

October 21, 2024

• Logging Silent Failures requirement has been added to the QA Standards. A logging silent failures requirement has been added to the VA.gov QA Standards. This standard requires VFS teams to log all silent failures to StatsD according to this guide, and to provide links to the code that accomplishes this objective.
  The logging silent failures is not a launch-blocking standard. This standard is intended to help achieve zero silent failures (silent to the Veteran) across the http://VA.gov Platform. Enforcement of this standard at staging reviews will begin on Monday, October 21, 2024.

September 27, 2024

• Mobile wireframes and prototypes now required. When VFS teams provide wireframes, high-fidelity mockups, or prototypes at a Design Intent or Midpoint Review, Governance team will now require them to provide versions designed for mobile devices. See the VA.gov Design Principles for a discussion of the importance of mobile-first design.

• Midpoint Review user flow requirements clarified. VFS teams must provide an up-to-date user flow at Midpoint Review, with any changes made since the Design Intent meeting reflected in that artifact. Likewise, VFS teams that skip a Design Intent must provide a user flow for their product at Midpoint Review. Guidance on Midpoint Review required artifacts have been been updated to clarify this requirement.

September 10, 2024

• A new touchpoint, the PO Sync, has been added to the Collaboration Cycle. VFS teams within OCTO kicking off the Collaboration Cycle for a new initiative will now be required to schedule and complete a PO Sync before any other touchpoint meetings. The PO Sync is an opportunity for the OCTO-DE practice area leads, Governance team, and the VFS team to align before the Collaboration Cycle begins. In the meeting, the OCTO PO will walk the OCTO-DE team through their product outline, and receive feedback such as historical context of similar initiatives, organizational context, and scope as it relates to other teams' workloads to promote a smooth and successful Collaboration Cycle for all new initiatives.

September 6, 2024

• Endpoint Monitoring requirement has been added to QA Standards. An endpoint monitoring requirement has been added to the VA.gov QA Standards. This standard requires that all endpoints that the product accesses need to be monitored in Datadog, and that VFS teams complete a playbook that details how they will respond to any errors that fire.

  The endpoint monitoring standard is a launch-blocking standard. Products that do not meet these requirements will not be able to launch to the VA.gov Platform.

  This standard is intended to help achieve zero silent failures (silent to the Veteran) across the VA.gov Platform. Enforcement of this standard at staging reviews will begin on Tuesday, September 10, 2024.

• Entry point guidance updated for staging reviews. Staging review guidance now indicates that VFS teams are required to provide either a Drupal or Staging URL for the primary entry point for their product. “Primary entry point” means the main way Veterans will access the tool through site navigation (not search). Any updates to this entry point must be complete and available for review at the same time as the product.

  This update clarifies ambiguity about entry point requirements for staging review.

• Which staging review artifacts are required has been clarified. Guidance on staging review artifacts now clearly identifies which artifacts are required in order for reviews to proceed, consistent with the updates to QA Standards and entry point requirements. VFS teams are encouraged to review this updated guidance. The staging review section of each open Collaboration Cycle ticket has also been updated to reflect these changes.

August 13, 2024

• VFS teams no longer need to make use of a Slack workflow to notify the Platform Governance team of their intent to participate in a Collaboration Cycle touchpoint. VFS teams only need to schedule their touchpoint in Calendly. VFS Collaboration Cycle Request tickets have been updated to reflect this change.

• A CMS touchpoint has been added to the Collaboration Cycle. The Collaboration Cycle Kickoff request will now include a question to determine if the CMS request should be recommended to the VFS team. If a team is making a change that a VA content editor may notice, the team will be directed to fill out a CMS request. The CMS Team will give feedback and guidance on their product/feature to ensure it meets experience standards for design, content, information architecture, quality assurance, accessibility, and research.

May 13, 2024

• Collaboration Cycle tickets no longer tracked via Epics. The Platform Governance team will no longer be using Epics to track and group Collaboration Cycle tickets. Governance will continue to use GitHub milestones to associate the Collaboration Cycle request with touchpoint feedback and findings.
  

  Epics, a ZenHub feature, were introduced to the Collaboration Cycle process in order to link tickets together (eg. linking a VFS team’s Collaboration Cycle request ticket with feedback and findings generated at each touchpoint). Grouping tickets together can also be accomplished using GitHub Milestones, and recent feedback from VFS teams has indicated that many teams prefer Milestones over Epics. After a period of time in which Governance has been using both, we are now discontinuing our use of Epics.
  

  Moving forward, VFS teams will be able to find tickets related to their Collaboration Cycle request by following the Milestone link in the sidebar of their ticket.

April 22, 2024

• The Governance Team has rewritten the VA.gov Experience Standards. The Experience Standards are the criteria that the Governance team uses to assess VFS products for design, IA, content, and accessibility as VFS teams bring their work through the Collaboration Cycle. The new Experience Standards are broader and more focused on the Veteran experience, supplementing the specific guidance found in the Design System.

  • The new Experience Standards are now hosted on the Design System website.

• Staging Review tickets have an improved design. Issues found at Staging Review are documented in GitHub tickets, and the formatting of those tickets has been updated to reflect the new standards, clearly explain the issue found, and provide detailed links to corresponding parts of the Design System.

  • Anatomy of a Staging Review Issue ticket has been updated to show the new layout of Staging Review tickets.

March 18, 2024

• Effective immediately, use of imposter components and V1 Design System web components will be flagged as VA.gov Experience Standards violations at Collaboration Cycle Staging Reviews. An imposter component is one that emulates the look and function of a Design System web component and should be replaced with the Design System web component absent a legitimate technical reason why the Design System web component is inadequate. In addition, the V1 versions of Design System web components, with some exceptions, should not be used if there exists a V3 version that can meet the product's needs.

March 13, 2024

• WCAG 2.2 will now be enforced at Staging Reviews. As of March 13, 2024, products built by VFS teams will be required to meet version 2.2 of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) as part of the Collaboration Cycle.
  
  The new version of WCAG adds nine new success criteria while deprecating one outdated rule. (See What’s New in WCAG 2.2.) Note that the new success criteria related to authentication (3.3.8 and 3.3.9) will not be enforced, as they are outside of the scope of the Collaboration Cycle.

  
  The impact on VFS teams is expected to be minimal. Teams should review 3.3.7 (Redundant Entry), a new requirement to limit how often users are expected to re-enter information that they have previously entered.

  
  Beyond this change, most WCAG success criteria are not changing, and many of the changes will be (or have already been) addressed by the Design System Team. Moreover, Staging Reviews often identify accessibility barriers that may be encountered by users with disabilities beyond just a strict application of WCAG. No significant changes are expected to testing procedures or the findings logged at Staging Reviews.

  
  Please share any questions you may have about changes to WCAG and accessibility in the Collaboration Cycle in the #accessibility-help channel.

• The Governance Team has added a video to the Design Intent page. In an effort to help VFS teams better understand this touchpoint, an informational video was added to the Design Intent page.

December 11, 2023

• The Governance team has changed how practice area labels are applied to Staging Review findings tickets for the VA.gov Experience Standards. Before this change, practice area labels for VA.gov Experience Standards were pre-defined, meaning that every finding that had the same VA.gov Experience Standard violation defaulted to the same practice area labels. Beginning with FY24Q1, all Staging Review findings tickets have been updated so that the only practice area labeled on the ticket is that of the Governance Team specialist who identified the issue. For example, if a VA.gov Experience Standards issue is identified by the Governance Team Accessibility specialist, only the accessibility label will be applied to the ticket. This will allow the Governance Team to identify practice area-specific issues more clearly.

December 4, 2023

• Midpoint Review feedback will be provided EOD the next business day. In an effort to allow more time for Governance team members to provide feedback at Midpoint Reviews, feedback will now be provided EOD the next business day following the meeting.

October 17, 2023

• QA standards for Regression test plan and Test plan will be enforced as launch-blocking as of November 1, 2023. In an effort to better ensure the quality of products launching on VA.gov, the following updates to the VA.gov QA Standards will be applied at all staging reviews starting November 1, 2023:

  • QA1 will be enforced as a launch-blocking issue. Products that do not have a regression test plan that verifies the product changes do not cause previously integrated functionality to break will not be allowed to launch on VA.gov.

  • QA2 will be enforced as a launch-blocking issue. Products that do have have a test plan that describes the method by which changes to the product will be verified will not be allowed to launch on VA.gov.

September 27, 2023

• QA standard for unit test coverage will be strengthened and enforced as launch-blocking as of October 12. In an effort to better ensure the quality of products launching on VA.gov, the following updates to the VA.gov QA Standards will be applied at all staging reviews starting October 12, 2023:

  • QA5 will require 80% or higher unit test coverage (increased from 75%).

  • QA5 will be enforced as a launch-blocking issue. Products that do not have 80% or higher unit test coverage will not be allowed to launch on VA.gov.

August 21, 2023

• Collaboration Cycle requests and touchpoint scheduling now using Slack slash commands. This is a refinement of the changes announced on August 2, 2023. When a VFS team submits a Collaboration Cycle kickoff or a Collaboration Cycle touchpoint scheduling request, they should notify the Governance team of their request using a Slack workflow (or “slash command”) in their public team channel.

  To initiate a Slack workflow, start typing /collab cycle. A menu of possible workflows will appear, with options for the Collab Cycle Kickoff, Design Intent, Midpoint Review, and Staging Review. Selecting the appropriate workflow will launch a modal that will collect necessary information, record that information in Slack, and notify the Governance team.
  

  

August 2, 2023

• Collaboration Cycle requests and touchpoint scheduling now in VFS team channels. To help the Platform Support team better track support requests, Governance team will no longer process Collaboration Cycle kickoff and touchpoint scheduling requests via the #vfs-platform-support Slack channel. Moving forward, each VFS team should post its kickoff and scheduling requests in its own team channel. We are hopeful that this solution will also be more convenient to VFS teams.

  In the coming sprints, all active Collaboration Cycle tickets will be updated with instructions for how to schedule new touchpoints. After scheduling a touchpoint in Calendly, VFS teams should post one of the following keywords in their team’s public Slack channel, and then follow the instructions provided by Slackbot:

  • collab-cycle-kickoff after creating your Collaboration Cycle request ticket.

  • collab-cycle-design-intent when scheduling your Design Intent.

  • collab-cycle-midpoint-review when scheduling your Midpoint Review (both synchronous and asynchronous).

  • collab-cycle-staging-review when scheduling your Staging Review.

June 16, 2023

• Tuesday and Thursday Collaboration Cycle Time Slots have changed.

  • The Tuesday 11:00 am ET Design Intent / Midpoint Review time slot has moved to 3:30 pm ET.

  • The Thursday 2:00 pm ET Staging Review time slot has moved to 3:30 pm ET.

June 5, 2023

• Accessibility labels in GitHub have been renamed. GitHub issue labels related to accessibility have been updated to remove explicit references to “508” and instead use neutral accessibility terms. “508” refers to compliance with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which is currently aligned to WCAG 2.0. All VA.gov products are evaluated against the VA.gov experience standards, which currently align to WCAG 2.1 and additional best practices—a more rigorous standard than Section 508 compliance. This change better reflects the Modernized VA.gov Accessibility Strategy and Platform’s commitment to accessibility beyond compliance, and makes accessibility labels more consistent with other practice areas.

  The following labels are being renamed in the va.gov-team, vets-design-system-documentation, and va.gov-cms repositories:

  • 508/Accessibility is now accessibility

  • 508-defect-0 is now a11y-defect-0

  • 508-defect-1 is now a11y-defect-1

  • 508-defect-2 is now a11y-defect-2

  • 508-defect-3 is now a11y-defect-3

  • 508-defect-4 is now a11y-defect-4

• Accessibility defect severity rubric has been updated. The accessibility defect severity rubric has been updated to better align with the post-launch audits conducted by the VA Section 508 Office. The defect severity scale has not changed, but the description given for each severity level is now consistent with the issue categories listed in the Section 508 Office’s audit reports.

March 28, 2023

• Changes have been introduced to the Midpoint Review synchronous meeting. The Governance team will now ask VFS teams to share what changes they have made to their product since Design Intent. In addition, the Governance team will ask VFS teams if there are specific areas of their product where they have questions or would like clear guidance.

March 13, 2023

• New requirements have been introduced for the Staging Review. The Governance team created new requirements for the Collaboration Cycle to help VFS teams understand what criteria their product must meet to schedule a Staging Review. The Governance team may postpone the review if VFS teams do not meet these requirements.

February 27, 2023

• QA has been removed from Midpoint Review. QA will no longer participate in Midpoint Reviews and VFS teams will not be asked to provide QA artifacts at Midpoint Review. The Midpoint Review touchpoint page has been updated to reflect this change. QA Standards will continue to be enforced at the Collaboration Cycle Staging Review.

January 9, 2023

• VA.gov Platform QA Standards are now being enforced in the Collaboration Cycle Staging Review. VFS teams will be expected to uphold the QA Standards at all Staging Reviews. Similar to previous Staging Reviews, VFS teams will receive 1 QA feedback ticket in alignment with the QA Standards. The VFS product at hand will be evaluated, with the Governance team QA specialist determining whether each standard has been met. A written explanation will be provided for any standards not met. Standards not met may be classified as launch-blocking or as warnings (not launch-blocking). The Staging Review touchpoint page has been updated to reflect this change.

December 1, 2022

• New accessibility testing artifact is now required. VFS teams are required to complete foundational accessibility tests prior to staging review. However, there has not previously been a standardized format for reporting those results. In an effort to assist VFS teams with completing required testing and to streamline accessibility reviews, the Governance team has:

  • Created a new accessibility testing artifact. This artifact is required for staging reviews, and provides instructions for completing and documenting the results of the foundational accessibility tests.

  • Updated supporting documentation, particularly the ”Prepare for an accessibility staging review” guidance. The revised guidance includes expanded descriptions of both the foundational and advanced accessibility tests in order to make them more actionable for VFS teams.

  • Moved the “Prepare for an accessibility staging review” guidance from the Developer Docs section to the Collaboration Cycle section, in order to make it more discoverable and to reflect the cross-functional nature of accessibility testing.

• TestRail accessibility template still available, but no longer accepted as a staging review artifact. Platform provides an accessibility testing template in TestRail, which includes test cases for the foundational accessibility tests and several additional WCAG success criteria. Previously, VFS teams could complete this TestRail template and submit it as a staging review artifact to document their foundational accessibility testing. The template will remain available for use in QA and accessibility testing, but will no longer be accepted as a staging review artifact. Instead, the Governance team will require VFS teams to complete the new accessibility testing artifact.

November 29, 2022

• The previous version of the Design Intent, Midpoint Review, and Staging Review templates are being deprecated. The Governance team requests that all VFS teams now use the Collaboration Cycle Request template. All Collaboration Cycle Requests can be viewed on the Collaboration Cycle Reviews ZenHub board.

November 17, 2022

• Updated Platform QA Standards are now published. The QA Standards were originally published in summer of 2022, however there was no announcement made to VFS teams. Governance team has made the following changes to the QA standards:

  • Reference to the Lighthouse Accessibility Standard Area is omitted as this is covered by the Accessibility review during the Collaboration Cycle.

  • The columns in the QA Standards table are reduced to remove extraneous information.

  • The How Standards are Validated section clarifies that a team can use TestRail to generate QA artifacts but is not required to do so.

Governance team will not begin enforcing the QA Standards in the Collaboration Cycle until January 9, 2023.

November 14, 2022

• The Must, Should, and Consider Framework for Feedback guidance has been updated to remove references to launch-blocking issues. Governance team has updated this document to reflect guidance that is more accurate and in-line with the VA.gov Experience Standards. The previous version contained inaccurate and misleading guidance pertaining to feedback. The updated Must, Should, and Consider Framework for Feedback clarifies that the feedback category has no impact on whether or not the issue will be launch-blocking.

October 13, 2022

• The Release Plan is being removed from the list of requested artifacts at Staging Review. Governance team members do not need the Release Plan to evaluate whether standards for the VA.gov Platform have been met. While it is still advisable that VFS teams complete a Release Plan in coordination with their Product Owner, it is no longer necessary to share the Release Plan with Governance team at the Staging Review.

August 3, 2022

• VA.gov Experience Standard on new component research published. VFS teams may need to create new components to solve their product's problems when the VA.gov Design System doesn't currently have a component that meets the product's needs. The Governance team has published VA.gov Experience Standard 04.13 to require new components and patterns be tested with Veterans and/or VA.gov users following Platform research guidelines.

August 2, 2022

• Must, Should, and Consider Framework for Feedback documentation is now available on Platform Website. Since the inception of the Collaboration Cycle, the Governance team has structured feedback at the Design Intent and Midpoint Review using the terms must, should and consider. In order to provide VFS teams with a greater understanding of what these terms mean and how to interpret feedback that uses this framework, the Governance team has published the Must, Should, and Consider Framework for Feedback guidance.

May 26, 2022

• Collaboration Cycle Request ticket is replacing Collaboration Cycle Kickoff ticket, Design Intent ticket, Midpoint Review ticket, and Staging Review ticket in GitHub. VFS teams will now use 1 ticket in GitHub to track all Collaboration Cycle touchpoints managed by the Governance team. The name of this ticket is the Collaboration Cycle Request. Instead of having to open a new ticket to request a Design Intent, Midpoint Review and/or Staging Review after answering kickoff questions, VFS teams will be instructed to use the same ticket throughout their product/features journey through the Collaboration Cycle. To begin engaging with the Collaboration Cycle, the process still starts with the Collaboration Cycle Kickoff.

• All VFS teams that submitted a Collaboration Cycle Kickoff ticket for their initiative prior to May 26, 2022 will still use the old ticket/process through the remainder of their Collaboration Cycle journey. In order to introduce this new process seamlessly, all VFS teams will be permitted to complete their Collaboration Cycle journey for any current initiatives using the old tickets. The guidance for Design Intent, Midpoint Review and Staging Review are updated to include request instructions for teams mid-initiative as of May 26, 2022, and any initiatives that began after May 26, 2022.

• The Collaboration Cycle Reviews ZenHub board can be used to track your Collaboration Cycle journey. The Resources page has a link to the Collaboration Cycle Reviews ZenHub board, including definitions of the various pipelines and how the board is used. Governance team will use this board moving forward to track status and improve visibility of which VA.gov products/features are engaging with Collaboration Cycle via the Collaboration Cycle Request tickets.

• The Platform Collaboration Point Tracker is being semi-retired. While we will still be using the Platform Collaboration Point Tracker, available on the Resources page, to track the teams, products, and features that are brought through the Collaboration Cycle, the tracker will no longer hold dates/times of scheduled touchpoints and Zoom recordings. This information will now be stored in the Collaboration Cycle Request ticket.

April 28, 2022

• Post-Launch Check-In has been retired. VFS teams no longer need to follow up on their Release Plan in the Collaboration Cycle through the Post-Launch Check-In. Governance team recognized that the information captured in this touchpoint was not critical information for Platform teams to know. VFS teams are still encouraged to follow up on their Release Plan with their OCTO-DE Product Owner. The Governance team is continuing to research post-launch needs within the Collaboration Cycle.

April 7, 2022

• Research Plan Review touchpoint renamed to Research Review. The Collaboration Cycle touchpoint offers support beyond the research plan. The touchpoint’s new name, Research Review, better indicates that this support continues through research completion.

• Research practice area added to Design Intent and Midpoint Review. To offer guidance earlier in the Collaboration Cycle, research as a practice area will now be represented in the Design Intent and the Midpoint Review touchpoints. VFS teams will not see any change in requested artifacts, however they can expect to receive earlier feedback and guidance on their planned veteran research.

• Full Accessibility & 508 Office Audit has been retired. VFS teams are no longer expected to complete an additional touchpoint in the Collaboration Cycle, however VFS teams will still be required to communicate known accessibility issues not addressed prior to launch to the VA 508 Office via Audit Request. This guidance has been added to the Outcome section of the Staging Review touchpoint page as well as in the Staging Review request GitHub ticket.

March 16, 2022

• Sitewide Content, Accessibility, and Information Architecture (CAIA) Intake Request is now an official touchpoint in the Collaboration Cycle. In order to ensure that VA.gov products are getting consistent content and IA guidance, the Sitewide CAIA Intake Request will be a formally recommended touchpoint in the Collaboration Cycle. VFS teams will collaborate with the Sitewide CAIA team on the Content and IA strategy, receive support for the IA design, and also receive additional support detailed in the Sitewide CAIA Intake Request touchpoint page.

January 21, 2022

• Anatomy of a Staging Review issue ticket guidance now available. To better help VFS teams interpret issue tickets created by Collaboration Cycle reviewers at the Staging Review, the Governance team has written guidance to explain the various headings, labels and information included in a Staging Review issue ticket. Please refer to the Anatomy of a Staging Review issue ticket for additional details.

January 14, 2022

• Product Support team name updated to Governance team. The Platform team responsible for managing the Collaboration Cycle has undergone a name change. The Product Support team has been renamed to the Governance team.

December 10, 2021

• The Privacy, Security, Infrastructure Readiness Review template has been updated. The issue template now asks for more germane & concrete information with better guidance on how the review will be handled. These reviews will be asynchronous moving forward with all conversations done in the issue itself to provide an audit trail.

December 7, 2021

• New Collaboration Cycle time slots added. To better accommodate VFS teams' development cycles and to allow for more flexible scheduling, the Platform Product Support team has added three half-hour time slots to the Scheduling Calendars in Calendly. Please view our Resources page for details.

  • In addition to Design Intent and Midpoint Reviews, these time slots are now available for Staging Reviews:

    • Tuesday at 11:30 am ET

    • Friday at 2:00 pm ET

  • Design Intent and Midpoint Reviews can be scheduled in this new timeslot:

    • Friday at 11:30 am ET

December 2, 2021

• Collaboration Cycle Midpoint Review and Staging Review meetings will use the new scheduling tool, Calendly. VFS PMs will follow the directions in the Midpoint Review ticket and Staging Review ticket to find an available date/time. VFS PMs are now responsible for inviting their own team members. This will eliminate back and forth conversations with Product Support, and simplify the scheduling process.

November 30, 2021

• Foundational accessibility test videos are available. Video recordings of how to complete the foundational accessibility tests for Staging Review have been shared in the How to prepare for an accessibility staging review guidance.

October 20, 2021

• Collaboration Cycle Design Intent meetings will pilot use of new scheduling tool, Calendly. VFS PMs will follow the directions in the Design Intent ticket to find an available date/time. VFS PMs are now responsible for inviting their own team members. This will eliminate back and forth conversations with Product Support, and simplify the scheduling process. Calendly will be piloted with Design Intent first, and will be rolled out to Midpoint Review and Staging Review at a later date.

September 21, 2021

• Collaboration Cycle touchpoint guidance and GitHub templates have been updated. Artifact lists and guidance has been streamlined for improved readability. All GitHub templates referenced on Platform Website are up to date.

• FAQ page has been released. There is a new page on Platform Website answering all of your frequently asked questions about the Collaboration Cycle.

• Platform practice area table has been added. In order to communicate which Platform practice area reviewers are involved in which Collaboration Cycle touchpoints, an easy referenceable table has been added to the Touchpoints page.

August 26, 2021

• Staging Review feedback tickets will now be issue-focused, not practice area-focused. To support the new VA.gov Experience Standards launched last month, Collaboration Cycle reviewers will now create feedback tickets for each issue found during Staging Review. We’ll no longer create feedback tickets by practice area. (The exception to this is QA feedback.) VFS teams should close Staging Review tickets only after the issue has been resolved. OCTO plans to use these tickets to assess the overall experience and health of VA.gov (in a soon-to-be-released Domo dashboard).

August 9, 2021

• The IA request has transitioned out of the Collaboration Cycle. To receive support from VA's information architect, teams will now submit an IA request using the Sitewide CAIA Intake Form.

July 29, 2021

• Collaboration Cycle documentation and guidance is moving to Platform Website. If you’re reading this right now, then you’ve successfully navigated to the Collaboration Cycle space in Platform Website. Please be patient with us as we migrate our guidance from GitHub. All deprecated GitHub pages will include links to the new location on Platform Website.

• VA.gov Experience Standards are published. The VA.gov Experience Standards are the set of criteria that the Platform Product Support team will use to assess VFS products for design, IA, content, and accessibility as teams bring their work through the Collaboration Cycle. The VA.gov Experience Standards have been reviewed and approved by OCTO-DE practice area leads. Platform Product Support team is still piloting the implementation of the VA.gov Experience Standards in the Collaboration Cycle Staging Review (more to be announced soon), however, they are available now for you to review.

• WCAG 2.1 guidance will now be applied in Collaboration Cycle reviews. The VA.gov Experience Standards have been written to include new WCAG 2.1 guidelines. The Accessibility Staging Review preparation doc has been updated to reflect the new changes. In addition, we’ve created a new WCAG 2.1 on Platform Website detailing the success criteria and foundational testing we’ll use for reviews.

• Accessibility test case templates in TestRail have been created to help ensure your product meets accessibility requirements. The How to: Adding Accessibility Test Cases in TestRail guide can be referenced to make certain your test runs are set up correctly. Each TestRail test case can be mapped back to 1 or several of the VA.gov Experience Standards.

June 28, 2021

• Design Intent, Midpoint Review, and Staging Review templates updated. Templates have been updated to reflect that Staging Reviews can only be scheduled on Thursday during the 1:30pm and 2:00pm time slots. Design Intent and Midpoint Review templates have also been updated to reflect that these touchpoints can only be scheduled on Monday, Tuesday, or Friday.

June 27, 2021

• Design Intent template and touchpoint and readme updated. Platform accessibility specialists will be temporarily removed from Design Intent’s. Platform accessibility specialists will no longer both support the same Collab Cycle Reviews. The table below has been added to the Contact us document.

June 7, 2021

• Contact Center - Product Guide Best Practices has been updated. The Product Guide Best Practices (aka Self-Service Product Guide Template) has been updated to better equip Contact Centers to more swiftly help Veterans trying to complete tasks on VA.gov. For more information about this change, contact the Contact Center team via #vsp-contact-center-support on Slack.

May 3, 2021

• Process changes for Design Intent touchpoint. The Platform team recognized that the meeting output was not consistent. Platform and OCTO-DE had different expectations of the meeting purpose/objective. The following changes have been put in place to address these inconsistencies:

  • Asynchronous reviews will no longer be supported. The Design Intent meeting is intended to be a collaboration between the VFS team, Platform, and OCTO-DE. Collaboration cannot take place if the meeting is asynchronous.

  • Platform reviewers will no longer be writing feedback tickets prior to the meeting. Platform reviewers will now be given the opportunity to hear reasoning behind the design decisions as well as OCTO-DE input prior to creating feedback tickets for VFS teams. This change will allow for improved efficiency with Platform reviewers and less re-writing and editing of tickets post-meeting. Instead...

  • Feedback tickets will be made available to VFS teams no later than EOD the next business day following the meeting.

  • Design Intent issue template has been updated. A couple additional questions have been added to the template to ask about engagement with OCTO-DE Design Lead and Sitewide CAIA team. This will help Platform understand the current state and status of the product.

  • Content feedback will no longer be provided. Since it is likely that Design Intent is too early for content feedback, and content guidance will be communicated by the Sitewide CAIA team, Platform will not be providing content feedback at Design Intent. Exceptions may be made if the product is an iteration or if Sitewide CAIA will not be supporting the product/team.

April 16, 2021

• The Collaboration Cycle Kickoff issue template has been updated Based on findings during the first month of the new template in place, the following changes have been made:

  • Examples and/or additional information have been added to the template to help provide context around the question being asked.

  • The questions have been numbered, making them easier to identify (now that there is additional verbiage) and easier to reference.

  • The questions have been reordered to improve the flow.

  • The Analytics question will still be asked, however Domo support is on pause until June 2021.

  • The content and static content questions have been combined and modified for clarity.

February 19, 2021

• Asynchronous Collaboration Cycle Kickoff will replace the Project Kickoff meeting. Instead of having a Project Kickoff meeting, we’ll ask VFS teams to review the guidance in Getting Started with the Collaboration Cycle. This guidance will walk VFS teams through a list of questions to determine what level of support, which practice areas, and which touchpoints are needed for their work. If a team doesn’t know the answer to a question, then it’s too early for them to engage with the Collaboration Cycle. Once teams begin building or iterating on their product, they should submit a Collaboration Cycle Kickoff ticket. This is an asynchronous step and should happen later than a Project Kickoff did.

• Usability Testing Prep is now the Midpoint Review. This touchpoint hasn’t always aligned with usability testing, so we’re renaming it to better suit VFS needs.

• Weekly Collaboration Cycle office hours. Starting on Wednesday, February 24, we’ll begin hosting weekly Collaboration Cycle office hours from 11:30-12:00 ET. Meeting Zoom information is listed in the VSP Collaboration Meetings Calendar.

• More asynchronous reviews. VFS teams will now have the option to make Design Intent and Midpoint Review touchpoints asynchronous.

• Github organization improvements. We’ve updated the Collaboration Cycle document so guidance is more findable and intuitive.

• Issue template updates. We’ve updated the Collaboration Cycle issue templates to reflect artifact requirements and who’s responsible for which tasks. Major changes can be seen with the Privacy & Security Review and the new Collaboration Cycle Kickoff.

• Requirements for Full Accessibility and 508 Office Audit. VFS teams will be required to fix all accessibility defects found at Staging Review before they can request a Full Accessibility and 508 Office Audit.

• Updated communication protocols. VFS teams should no longer reach out to Platform Collaboration Cycle team members directly for support. This means VFS teams should not assign Platform Collaboration Cycle team members to their Github tickets. See the Contact us section in the VSP Collaboration Cycle README for how to request support from the Collaboration Cycle.

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