[MIA MOORE] Describe the Forum in one word.
[JEAN ROBERT] I think the best word to describe it is community and the forum is the greatest example of how good the Camunda community is for me.
[THOMAS HEINRICHS] I would go with open, because it's, you have all the information there. The people are open and welcoming to, to new questions, to new community members.
[NIALL DEEHAN] Hello and welcome along to the Camunda Community Podcast, where you’ll learn all sorts of things about Camunda, BPMN, DMN, and, of course, general orchestration topics. I’m Niall Deehan, senior developer advocate here at Camunda, and I’m host of the podcast.
Today, we’re going to focus on one of my favorite places. If you’ve already been part of the Community, it’s likely been your first touch point. And if you have a question about Camunda, it’s probably exactly where you need to go. It is, of course, the Camunda Forum.
And today, we’re going to hear from some forum veterans–basically how they started on the forum, why they’ve stuck around to help folks, and even some suggestions for newbies who are just joining the forum.
And, of course, just like the community and the forum, this episode will span the globe. From Northwest America, Mia will be chatting with Jean Robert who is based in Brazil and Thomas who is in Germany. Both, of course, share a lot of about how they feel about the community and the culture of the forum. They really have good perspectives about what makes the forum quite a welcoming and great place to start for new Camunda users.
So, let’s kick things off with Mia chatting to Jean Robert.
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[MIA MOORE] Please introduce yourself. What is your name, your role. And how are you using Camunda? And also, what is your forum username?
[JEAN ROBERT ALVES] My name is Jean Robert Alves, and I work at Agi Bank, where we have been using Camunda since 2017 mainly to orchestrate business process for the sale of credit products like loan, credit card, current account, and things like that.
I just talked about our process at the last Camunda Summit, too. So you can find the video of it.
[MIA] Yeah, we'll put a link in the description. And what is your forum username?
[JEAN ROBERT] My username at the Forum is my name Jean Robert Alves with underscore.
[MIA] Yeah. And you're also one of our our champions as well!
[MIA] If you could describe the Forum in one word, what would it be?
[JEAN ROBERT] I think the best word to describe it is community and the forum is is the greatest example of how good the Camunda Community is for me.
[MIA] I love hearing that that's great. That's incredible. I’ve found that the community is very welcoming in a way that not all tech communities can be. So I, I totally agree that the Forum is all about the people helping each other. And I've just been surprised over and over again how much time and effort people will put into helping strangers on the Internet with their problems. I think it's awesome.
[JEAN ROBERT] Yeah, we we've all been there before. We all needed some help in the start. So I guess the community likes to to give it back to the community.
[MIA] I love that about it. It's awesome. How did you first find the Forum?
[JEAN ROBERT] So I-I think I found the Forum in the same way as most people will find it. I was starting to just give it a try at Camunda at 2017, and it was all really new for me. I never worked with BPMN, with business process, and I was full of questions and errors.
And I'm lucky that I found persons that give me help in every question I had at the Forum.
I remember that I had Niall and Thorben as my heroes in the first two years, starting with Camunda. So the Forum was great for me in the start.
[MIA] Yeah, yeah, I think a lot of people are surprised how many, not only community members, but also Camundi are active there and answering. I know, when I interviewed, I had looked at like the Camunda YouTube and things like that. And then when I met Niall, I was like, “Oh, you're Niall from the YouTube.” If you see people on the YouTube page, you see people on the Twitch, likely those are the same people that are maybe likely to check the Forum and things like that.
[JEAN ROBERT] Yeah, for me, it's a little magic to talk with Niall at a call, or at Camunda Summit–we have many, many talks, and he is still my hero. So it's a little magic to meet him.
[MIA] Yeah, I feel that way, too, and I work with him. When did you start answering questions?
[JEAN ROBERT] The first year was a little hard for me, with many errors. I was giving a try and building the infrastructure to have Camunda at Agi Bank. But after the first year, maybe the second year, I just felt confident enough with it. And, little by little, I decided to try and give back some of the help they gave me there. So I just entered every day at the Forum, looked at the questions, and started to answer them.
[MIA] Is it part of your daily routine to go to the Forum?
[JEAN ROBERT] Yeah, it still is today.
[MIA] Oh, that's awesome.
[MIA] What is the best part about being active on the Forum?
[JEAN ROBERT] I think that, practically, every problem you have, you are not the first person to have it. In the Forum, you will have the the best chance of find other people with the same problem, and maybe you find the answer to your problem. And maybe, even in the case, even in in scenarios where you don't have a problem, you can find a best solution for something.
Forum is about community, it’s about shared experiences. And I think the Camunda Forum is the best forum I use every day.
[MIA] Yeah, I totally agree. I'm often, even though I work at Camunda, finding out information from the Forum about things that are happening, because there's so many different teams and so many different things going on, that when I see a team post about something I'm like, “Oh, that's nice.” Like, it's it's a good way to keep updated about product updates and things like that, too.
[JEAN ROBERT] Yeah, right now with Camunda 8, we started to see questions that we solved, problems that we solved at Camunda 7. But as Camunda 8 have a new audience, a lot of people is starting to to know Camunda, at Camunda 8, they have the same questions that Camunda 8. And I just can help them even with my knowledge of Camunda 7. So we have many new questions of old problems to help.
I have a lot of experience with Camunda 7. But with Camunda 8, I'm just a newbie again. I'm just a starter again, so I guess I have the two hats. I have the hat of the teacher who can teach about Camunda 7. But every day I go to the Forum to learn about Camunda 8. So this is the best for me. I keep using it after 5 years, 6 years of Camunda.
[MIA] Yeah, totally. Totally. Do you have any interesting questions or topics that you've seen in the Forum?
[JEAN ROBERT] I think the question I read and answered, most in recent years is about the cases of race condition with message correlation. So you send a message and you receive a result in another message. And Camunda, if you build it in a, in a way that most people will try the first time, you will have haste condition, you will have problems, you will lose message. And I-I remember that I saw a tip from Niall, years ago–
[MIA] Of course.
[JEAN ROBERT] And I just share it, this same tip, many times, dozens of times already. It, it works. Every time it works. So I think the most most answered question for me is about race conditions in Camunda.
[MIA] That's so interesting, bccause, you know, as as the person running the Forum, I try a lot to see like, “What are the trends? What are people asking about? Is there like some sort of gap in our documentation, or in our content, that we could create?” And I don't think that's one that's come up. But maybe it's because mostly people are finding the answer that they want on the Forum.
[JEAN ROBERT] If you, if you see, I have many hearts in the in the answer I posted with a link to Niall answered. So every week, I earn a new badge or things like that because someone give a heart in my answer about special. And, at Agi Bank, I answer this question a lot. So they just don't post it in the Forum, because I already answered it at AgiBank.
[MIA] Exactly like some of our most popular posts are actually years old, but they answer a common error or common question. So it's interesting that, you know, when I first joined, I was like, “Oh, we can take this information and then maybe write a blog post.” And it's like, “Well, actually, it's just this one-line error, and there's already solution in the Forum. So we don't really need like a whole blog post.”
[JEAN ROBERT] It's easy to to find it. And and you start to teach the the people to to work in the Forum.
[MIA] Do you have any tips for someone who is new to the Forum, or might be hesitant to get more involved, but wants to start replying to posts and answering questions.
[JEAN ROBERT] I think, just try it. Everyone will have something to share. Everyone will have their own experience. And maybe everyone has the same feeling that, “Ah, I-I don't know much of this. I don't have this much experience.” But everyone have something to to share, to teach, and to learn with other people. So, in the Forum, I never saw a wrong answer.
We had many discussions, many solutions to the same problem, but no one is wrong in their answers so just try it.
[MIA] Yeah. And even if you come up with something that it's like, “Oh, that's not actually how that works,” or something, someone else will probably come in there and be like, “Well, I see why you started there. But what if we did it this way?”
[JEAN ROBERT] You will learn teaching others. So I think it's a win-win.
[MIA] Yeah, totally agree, I think just jump in.
Well, it's interesting. When one of our new dev advocates joined, she was like, “You know, there's not a ton of questions I feel comfortable answering in there yet.” And that's because if it was a really simple question. It's probably either already been answered or it's in the docs. So you know, it's easy to find. So a lot of times you get these really, really specific questions. But maybe think of something that you have solved before, and search for that, or just browse through and see if there's something you know about. Yeah.
[JEAN ROBERT] I think you have many classifications, many types of questions. If you are feeling confident with code, you can help with code, you can help with error, with the bug. If not, you can help with design. So there's is, there's a space for everyone.
[MIA] Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. So much for your time. I so appreciate it.
[JEAN ROEBRT] Thank you for your time.
[MIA] Have a good weekend.
[JEAN ROBERT] See ya.
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[NIALL DEEHAN] It’s lovely to hear from Jean Robert and we’re very lucky to have him helping out other community members so, again, big thanks to him.
If you do have a question about Camunda, you can try and post it around daytime Brazil time to increase your chances of getting a great answer or solution from him. So, yeah, thanks again.
And, next up, we have a conversation with Thomas Heinrichs who took a very different path to becoming part of the community and forum contributor. Another wonderful person to chat to if you happen to be a Camunda event. I always enjoy seeing both of them there.
So let’s hand it over to Mia for a chat with Thomas Heinrichs.
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[MIA MOORE] Please introduce yourself. Tell us your name, your role and how you're using Camunda. And then also, what's your forum username?
[THOMAS HEINRICHS] My name is Thomas. I'm a consultant at Miragon, focusing on process automation, especially with Camunda. To also be very honest with you all, I do have a past with Camunda, let’s put it that way. So I've been previously employed there. So it's always nice for me to also stay in touch, right? Where I'm using Camunda, I do have various consulting projects. So I'm helping a lot of clients to get up to speed with the product, with BPMN, and also to interact with the community.
[MIA ] Yeah, you're very involved with the community, working on more stuff in GitHub and answering forum questions and becoming a more and more involved community member. And you're a champion now, right?
[THOMAS] Yes, I am indeed. And I actually have the feeling that now I'm not at Camunda anymore, I do have more meet-up talks than at Camunda, which is quite a fun coincidence. Don't know how this came.
[MIA] Yeah, that’s so fun.
[THOMAS] Yes, yes it is. Forum username is hafflgav. And please don't ask me where I get this name from, because I was young and dumb, more or less. I was looking for gamer tech in steam. And somehow it stuck with me because I don't want to think about usernames and take time to to create a better one. And it's unique.
[MIA] Yeah, that's very relatable. I don't want to come up with new usernames at any point, so I get that. Describe the Forum in one word.
[THOMAS] I would go with open, because it's, you have all the information there. The people are open and welcoming to, to new questions, to new community members, new people joining the Forum.
I'm not 100% sure whether this is true, uhm but also like Camunda engineers try to ask their question in the Forum to get some answers there. So the information was accessible also for other people.
And I think that's also a very basic, big aspect for this kind of one word: open. Because it's like you have all the information. It's open source. It's open information which gets distributed throughout the Forum.
[MIA] I love that. And you don't have to have an account to read anything which I think is really important, too. If you want the information, it’s there.
[THOMAS] I agree.
[MIA] How did you find the Forum? But I think I might know the answer to that one.
[THOMAS] I found the Forum mostly through work. But actually, even before I started at Camunda. I previously rolled out the community edition of Camunda, and. in order to do so, I needed a lot of help. And, therefore, I used the Forum. So, for instance, back in the days, I wanted to have a Prometheus exporter for Camunda 7 and I found all the answers in the Forum. So I always then went to the Forum because I knew that I could find all the information needed, which was great.
[MIA] Oh, wow, okay! I assumed it would, the answer would be, you know. “Oh, when I joined, I found out we had a Forum.” But yeah, no, you started as a community member, became a Camundi, and then went back to being a community member.
[THOMAS] Yes, exactly. That’s some transition, yes?
[MIA] Yeah, that's awesome.
[THOMAS] Yeah. I think, back in the days, I wasn't that active in the Forum. I mostly used it in order to find out about stuff and to find how to do certain things. Then, when I started at Camunda, I got more and more active, I would say, and also engaged more into the Forum.
[MIA] I think that's a pretty common path, I guess, to answering questions is, first, you find it as a resource. And I would say, like, just based on pageviews and other metrics that I see on the backend, like, “Oh, most people are getting their questions answered just by going to the Forum and finding a solution.” And they're not posting. They're not creating an account.
So what I find really fascinating is, you know what drives you to start answering questions and trying to help people on the Forum rather than just, you know, getting your answers, or maybe asking your question.
[THOMAS] I think I never ask a question there because I usually find it right away.
[MIA] Oh, that's great to hear though!
[THOMAS] I really like to to help those people out and also welcoming new members to the Camunda Community is always quite fun.
And most fun, though, is answering questions about BPMN diagrams. I love BPMN so I tend to to answer them. They're aren't showing up that often anymore. But when I find new ones, I'm always eager to to chime in and usually actually also try to to have like an hour time-boxed a week, or every second week, depending on the project load to to go into the Forum and answer questions.
[MIA] Oh wow, that’s awesome.
[THOMAS] Yeah, because I think that's that can actually help people and also helps me to stay on top of the things which are being added to Camunda just going through the latest, yeah, topics which arise is is always kind of good to see what people are thinking about and what current challenges might be.
[MIA] That's so true. I'm always surprised when I see feedback on a release that just came out that day like a few hours prior. And they're like, “Hey, I noticed this in the release notes. But it's not working the way I expected.” Or you know, whatever problem they're encountering, I'm like, “Okay, so not only are you on top of the release. But you're, you're in the weeds.” So it's it's a great way to get in touch with what the community is thinking and what the pulse is, for sure.
So it's it's a great way to get in touch with what the community is thinking and what the pulse is, for sure.
[THOMAS] That’s true, that’s true. And also when I miss the release [laughter], I always know there was one when I look into the Forum.
[MIA] What is the best part about being active on the Forum?
[THOMAS] I would say, welcoming new members to the community and to to try to keep them motivated to ask questions and to not feel left alone. It's always nice to to actually figure out a solution and point people into the right direction. Make sure that best practices are in the place for them to follow.
[MIA] That's such a good point. We have been really lucky. I feel, in Camunda, that our community is just naturally pretty welcoming and kind. That's not always true in all places in tech.
[THOMAS] I think that's what Camunda really does great in the Forum, to to help all of the people, not only the ones who are already a bit trained in the solution.
[MIA] Yeah, it's not only the people that work for Camunda, but also the entire community. I just feel very lucky that people are so excited about it, that they don't come across as, you know, mean or condescending, or anything like that.
[THOMAS] Yes, I agree.
[MIA] Do you have any interesting questions or topics that you've seen on the Forum?
[THOMAS] What I really noticed is that there was a change from C7 to C8 where things got a bit more technical. Like previously, it's always been a bit around BPMN, around DMN and stuff like that. The transactions in processes, some engine internals. But now it's also a lot about the the hosting, the self-managed part, Connectors.
But the most interesting questions, as already said are just about BPMN and DMN– I really love them.
[MIA] I love that for you. Because I’m still new to BPMN. Don't look at how long I've been here, okay. But I'm finally doing like BPMN courses on Camunda Academy. And I'm like, “Oh, okay, like, I feel like it's clicking.” And I can understand why someone would be so passionate about it. I haven't gotten that deep into it yet.
[THOMAS] You can do so much with it. Like there are always different paths who lead to similar solutions and, depending on what you want to do, you just have, like other best practices. You can use boundary events. You can use event-based subprocesses. There are so many possibilities, usually, which is pretty cool.
[MIA] Yeah. And I like it as a tool for communication. I feel like it, is easily understandable by non-technical people, but also allows technical people to think about their processes in a completely different way that makes more sense to people on like, maybe the business side of an organization. So that's been really fun for me, is like getting my mind around it and like trying to understand it from all those different user perspectives has been really fun.
[MIA] Do you have any tips for people who are new to the Forum, or might be hesitant to get more involved?
[THOMAS] It's always good to to take a look on questions which have been posted to the Forum, to see through the answers. And, the more you get in contact with the product itself, the more self-confident you get in order to really answer people's problems.
And, in terms of asking questions, because that's also something to to point out, try to provide as much context as possible, because usually, or sometimes, there are questions coming up where you have more questions in your head than the person who asked the question so–
[MIA] Yeah, that’s totally true.
[THOMAS] It can be hard to figure out what really was meant.
[MIA] Yeah, that's such a good point, because I feel like a lot of the first replies I see are, “Can you explain a little bit more about your problem, your context? And what version are you using?” and and things like that, that you know, if you just remember to include in the first post, then we can bypass all of that.
[THOMAS] And there also those great topics you can select. So when you are talking about C7, you can set the C7 tag. If you're talking about C8, you can set the C8 tag but when nothing is given I don't know what you are using, like, I need to get this information because things differ between those engines quite a lot.
[MIA] Yeah, totally. I think when you're asking a question, you forget that you have all this context that the person reading it doesn't have. So that's a good tip for asking as well.
[THOMAS] If you want to start helping. And you don't know, for instance, what the solution is, but you might be aware who can possibly know the solution you can always tag people, and then they are keen to chime in. For instance, you can always tag Niall or Nathan from the DevRel team. Right?
[MIA] Yup! Yeah, I think people are a little shy about tagging. But I wouldn't be. If someone's talking about an extension that they found on the Community Hub, I'll tag in the maintainer or something like that. So I wouldn't feel too shy about doing that. It's, it's very different to me than like DMing somebody on the Forum which I think is a no-no.
But if you tag someone, again, it's just about leaving the discussion open so everyone can see it, and all the parts of it are transparent so you can understand where the solution came from. I think that's a great tip is tag someone. Tag Thomas.
[THOMAS] Yes, tag me. You’ve now got my tag, right?
If you get tagged, there's also not a direct need for answering. It's not like getting a direct message on Slack or in Teams asking you, “Hey, can you tell me XYZ?” It's rather, “Okay, someone needs my help. Maybe I can contribute. Maybe not.” And, if you don't have time, you don't have time right now, and I don't feel like bashed up by it.
[MIA] Yeah. Don't see it as more pressure than it is, for sure. And if you see it, and you don't know the answer, you can say that, too. I think tagging people that you think would be helpful in a particular context–not a bad idea.
[THOMAS] And also, what helps is if you stroll around the Community Hub on Github. So there are a lot of example projects, and if people ask deeper questions, you do not necessarily need to know the answer right on top of your head. But you know where to to find the answer, where you can find an example which actually solved it, and then you can point them into the right direction.
And usually, when trying to find what solution in the Community Hub end scrolling through the solution, you will also learn something yourself. So I think finding the information is more important than knowing everything right away.
[MIA] Yeah, absolutely. That's true with so many things. But absolutely with this. And I love the Community Hub shout out. You know, that's my project. So I love it when you shout that out.
[THOMAS] It's really helpful also what consulting does. And all the public repository and examples–they are part of the Camunda Community more or less. And it's, it's a big asset for Camunda, in my opinion, because that helps a lot.
[MIA] Well, thank you so much. It was such a delight to talk to you, always. Have a good rest of your week.
[THOMAS] Of course. You, too. Cheerio.
[MIA] Bye.
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[NIALL] What’s really nice about listening to the two different perspectives there is how the forum is quite different depending on the kind of interests you have. For instance, Jean Robert talks about how he really enjoys answering the technical engine-orientated questions around Camunda while Thoams really enjoys answering questions around the BPMN standard.
I, of course, couldn’t really pick between them–they’re both really really good. Even after 9 years of answering forum questions at this point for Camunda, I’m always surprised at I think every week, it must be every week, that something is asked on the Forum that makes me want to go and build a solution or create an example or try something out that’s new that I haven’t really thought about. It really does happen a lot, especially now with Camunda 8 – there’s all sorts of new things to try.
So, of course, a really big thanks to Mia and Thomas and Jean Robert for some the great conversations. And, of course, to Dorothy and Krystle for some great organization and editing.
Hope to see you all on the forum where you’ll find me and you’ll probably notice that my handle is Niall as I have been Niall the whole time. Bye-bye!
