Syften Keyword Alerts¶

Tip

Have you been assigned a keyword alert task and are looking for what to do? See the replying to users or documenting keyword alerts sections for next steps.

Keyword alerts refer to Mathesar-related keywords tracked across the web. We use a tool called Syften to monitor these keyword alerts, similar to Google Alerts, but more robust and tailored to technical products like Mathesar.

Keyword alerts need to be triaged daily to ensure timely engagement, community building, and brand reputation management.

Understanding keyword alerts¶

We currently classify three types of keyword alerts. In order of their importance, they are:

Mention. Direct references to Mathesar. Actual discussions or mentions of our product in technical contexts (e.g., blogs, forums, social media). These are occasionally references to Galaxy Quest’s character of the same name. These mentions help us:
- Collect user feedback.
- Understand where users are coming from.
- Find opportunities to respond to users directly.
Recommendation. Opportunities to recommend Mathesar to users of competitors, spreadsheets, or other products. these mentions help us:
- Promote Mathesar to new users.
- Identify user pain points.
Competitor. References to competing products. These mentions help us:
- Identify user pain points.
- Discover feature requests or gaps in competitors’ products.
- Gauge general sentiment and understand use cases within our space.

Keyword alerts are configured in Syften.

Daily keyword alert triage¶

Tip

See the daily checklist for a systemized “runbook” of the approach outlined here.

Keyword alerts are triaged daily by the Technical Community Advocate (TCA). A script runs every 30 minutes to convert the keyword alerts to asana tasks in the “Community - Syften Keyword Alerts” Asana project.

The goals of the triage are to:

Close inactionable, irrelevant keyword alerts
Identify keyword alerts that need a response from the Mathesar team.
User support
User feedback
Opportunities to recommend Mathesar in a natural, relevant way.
Identify product feedback and user pain points to document, including from competitor and recommendation alerts.

Assessing keyword alerts¶

Each keyword alert should be evaluated for any action items. If the keyword alert is actionable it should be moved to either the “Reply to user” or “Document” sections in Asana. If neither of these sections seem appropriate for an alert, it likely isn’t actionable! Keyword alerts moved to these categories are assigned to a Mathesar maintainer and given a due date by the TCA.

The TCA will leave on each task explaining its importance. For example:

The keyword alert: “I am running nocodb and n8n currently. What are the benefits of using Postgres instead of sticking with what nocodb defaults with (i think it’s SQLite)?”
The task comment: “This user wants to learn more about Postgres. We should provide general advice but disclose we work on a competing product called Mathesar {link to our homepage}”

Keyword alerts are not actionable when:

The mention is not about Mathesar, a competing product, or the data needs of a potential user.
- Examples:
  - “Mathesar was my favorite character in Galaxy Quest!”
  - Social media posts mentioning “Mathesar” in unrelated contexts like gaming or pop culture.
  - Repeated or low-value mentions like SEO-generated spam posts.
The mention is a duplicate of an already reviewed entry.

Response schedule¶

Ideally users are responded to as quickly as possible by the assignee. Social media communications move quickly. Other products in this space also monitor their keyword alerts and perform similar outreach.

Replies to users: 1 business day
Documentation: 2-3 business days

It is important that we reply to users as quickly as possible and prioritize outreach over documentation.

Assigning maintainers¶

Keyword alert tasks should be assigned to the most appropriate team member based on complexity and expertise, starting with @amandaj, then progressing to engineers or leads as needed.

Through this process we should develop and maintain a list of stock replies (link here when created) to facilitate quick responses to common keyword alert types.

Questions and feedback¶

If you have questions about this process of suggestions to improve it, feel free to reach out to community@mathesar.org with your ideas.

Daily TCA checklist¶

This is the checklist for the daily triage of Keyword Alerts used by the Technical Community Advocate.

Tip

If you do not see a particular category visible in Asana, it means there are currently no keyword alerts for that category.

In the Syften Keywords Asana project:

Replying to users¶

If you’ve been assigned a user reply, follow the below steps:

Read the original keyword alert and any comments left on the Asana task.
Draft your reply and leave it as an Asana comment.
Assign the Asana task back to the Technical Community Advocate (TCA) for review.
When your reply is approved, post it and leave a link on the Asana task.
Mark the task as completed.
Log the interaction in the CRM.

Documenting keyword alerts¶

TODO

We need a process for documenting “competitors” and “competitor” feature requests. Really, a mechanism to track broad user needs across the “database-backed spreadsheet” ecosystem.

For now, responses to keyword alerts should be documented in our CRM.