Microsoft Teams Swimlanes

Getting Started​​

Minimize customer impact and get to resolution faster with the Blameless Microsoft Teams swimlanes feature.

Depending on the complexity of the problem being investigated in this incident channel, more than one swimlane can be created at the same time and managed in parallel, bringing different parties with the right subject matter expertise to investigate various theories concurrently.

In Teams, when a user enters the following command in an incident channel, you can retrieve a list of available Blameless commands:

@blameless+ type ENTER, then click the “SEND” (arrow icon)) or type ENTER a second time.

Refer to the Add Swimlane section for more information.

Administrating Swimlanes​

To return to any Swimlane (or conversation) in your incident channel, use the@blamelesscommand (type ENTER then click the Send button or type Enter again) to show the list of Blameless commands.

Add Swimlane​

1. Select the “Swimlanes" + "Select a command” drop down.

2. Click on “Add a Swimlane”.

3. Click on the “Run Selected Command” button.

4. Fill in the required (*) fields or use the provided drop down options.

5. Click on the “Add Swimlane” button.

Once a Swimlane has been added, the Bot will display the information regarding that newly created Swimlane in a new conversation from which you can start exploring the theory, invite users and create new tasks.

Refer to the next section regarding Editing Swimlane Theory.

Edit Swimlane Theory​

1. Click on the desired pencil icon. That field opens in a new sub window for you to edit.

2. Click on the “Edit Swimlane Theory” Button to close the edit window when complete. The updated information will be displayed in the Swimlane Thory window.

Edit Swimlane Owner​

1. Edit the Owner if desired. If you click on the edit pencil associated with the Owner field, the drop down appears, listing the people invited to the Incident.

2. Select a new owner.

3. Click on “Edit Swimlane Owner” to save your changes.

Show Swimlane​

The Blameless Bot allows you to display all created swimlanes, whether closed or not.

1. Enter the “@Blameless command” to display the list of Microsoft Teams Bot commands.

2. Select “Show Swimlane” from the dropdown associated with the Swimlane header.

3. Select Show “Swimlane”.

4. Click on the “Run Selected Command” button.

Close Swimlane​

Once the swimlane has been dealt with, you can close it. Closing a swimlane is straightforward:

1. Select the Swimlane for the incident you wish to close.

2. Click on the “Close Swimlane” button. A summary window opens for the swimlane you are attempting to close.

3. Enter the Resolution (if known) and confirm the cause (if known).

4. Click on the “Close Swimlane” button. Once completed, Microsoft Teams bot reports the closure.

Show Swimlanes​

The "Show Swimlane" option allows users to list and find a swimlane of interest, whether the swimlane is still open or closed.

1. To go and work on a specific Swimlane, which is a conversation thread in your incident channel: Click the "Toggle Details" button and select the "Go to Conversation" button.

2. Enter the “@Blameless command” to display the list of Microsoft Teams Bot commands.

3. Select “Show Swimlanes” from the dropdown associated with the Swimlane header.

4. Select “Show Swimlanes”.

5. Click on the “Run Selected Command” button.

Accessing Swimlanes in MST Bot

Going to a specific Swimlane​

1. Click on the "Toggle Details" button for the swimlane you want to go to.

2. Click on the "Go to Conversation" button to be automatically redirected to that Swimlane, which is a Microsoft Teams conversation within your incident channel.

Reopen Swimlane​

The Microsoft Teams Bot also allows you the option to reopen a closed swimlane. Maybe, for example, you are reconsidering the actual cause; maybe you closed the swimlane by accident--regardless, you can select to reopen a closed swimlane.

1. Select the closed swimlane in question.

2. Click on the “Reopen swimlane button”. Microsoft Teams Bot will then prompt you for when to reopen the swimlane.

3. Click on the “Reopen swimlane button”.

4. Select“X”hours and or“X”minutes in the “Due in” fields and click on the “Reopen Swimlane” button.

When the swimlane reopens, you have the ability to edit the Theory and Owner fields as well as add a Task.

Working in a Swimlane​

Users working within a Swimlane (conversation) can start collaborating and sharing information by entering messages, sharing pictures and attach documents directly to this dedicated conversation thread and selectively capture them into Blameless event timeline.

In addition, to help with the investigation of the theory presented to this Swimlane, users can execute a subset of the Blameless commands available at the incident channel level.

The following subset of the Blameless commands can be executed from within a Swimlane:

• Tasks

• Tags

• On-Call

• Time Events

• Swimlane

1. To show the list of these commands: Go to the Swimlane.

2. Click on “Reply” and type the following:@blameless+ "ENTER", then click on the "SEND" (arrow icon) or type "ENTER" again.

Start a conversation​

1. Click on the "Reply" to start collaborating and sharing information such as comments, findings, pictures, screenshots and attach documents.

Capture data as highlight into the incident timeline​

During an incident, users can also capture important messages, files, and images as highlights to the incident timeline via the messages action menu.

1. To launch a capture, click on the ellipse (...) in the top right of the message box to bring up the “More actions” menu.

2. Select “Capture as Blameless highlight” to automatically capture the text as a new timeline event.

The following message will appear to confirm the capture of the highlight:

Create Follow Up Actions​

Directly from within the conversation thread, any message can be converted to a follow up action in Blameless. If you have integrated Blameless with your Ticketing system (i.e., Jira), it will also automatically create a new ticket in the Ticketing system.

1. Click on the ellipse (...) in the top right of the message box, to bring up the “More actions” menu.

2. Select “Capture as Blameless follow up” to automatically create a follow up action in Blameless.

The following message will appear to confirm the follow up action has been captured: