Re: Client Returning to 1.2.21

On Tue, Feb 11, 2014 at 1:07 PM, Erik Huelsmann <..hidden..> wrote:

Hi Dave,

Thanks for the feedback!

I install 1.3.36 just over a week ago and the client tested for 3 days. I then installed
1.3.37 on Monday. After testing last week the client has decided not to upgrade at this time.

That's unfortunate because we think 1.3.36 and .37 are far more stable than 1.2 ever was, from a technical (accounting) perspective - I mean, 1.3 needs a lot less hand-holding than 1.2 ever needed. On the other hand, it opens the opportunity for the client to upgrade from 1.2 directly to 1.4, later this year or at the beginning of next year.

The major problem is when reviewing and updating transactions from the trial balance. The return
behaviour is inconsistent.

One of the workflows is:
- Trial Balance
- Asset Account
- Do work
- Not returned to the specific Asset Account but a generic "All Asset Account"

I don't understand what you mean. What work are you doing? In most cases, when you enter a transaction or invoice, you are going to be returned to that screen in 1.3. This does break some 1.2 workflows but the problem is that what would happen in 1.2 is that you'd print and forget to post. In 1.3, you have to post before you can print, so we have to drop back at the same screen.

Another
- Trial Balance
- Expense Account
- Do work
- Not returned to the Expense Account but left at the form leading to confusion whether
the work was posted or not.

If you see a print button, it has posted. If you see a "Post as Saved" button it has been saved but not posted yet.

While acknowledging that this can be worked around they are not willing to deal with the confusion
and loss of productivity associated with this behaviour.

Ok. Thanks for that. Could you file bug reports for these with a short list of steps to reproduce the behaviour? The bugs can be filed at https://sourceforge.net/p/ledger-smb/bugs/ ; as you'll understand, filing bugs helps to get your (client's) issues resolved in a (the) next release.

Other complaints:
- Inactive clients and vendors appear in pick lists
Ok. A few questions: did these inactive customers/vendors appear in the pick lists on 1.2 as well ? If not, have you checked that the customer accounts have end-dates filled in in the "Account" screen that are before the posting date of the transaction being posted?

Ok, I assume you mean the list is not filtering by start/end date of the entity credit account? This should be looked into. Let's file a bug report on it.

- pick lists missing from many report submission forms where they were before (AR/AP etc)
Actually, it's too bad that you're telling us this now that the client already decided not to make the move: the dropdown are actually there. You just don't see them, because they need to be explicitly enabled.If you go to the screen System -> Defaults and set the value "Max per dropdown" from <empty> to a numeric value, say 500, then you will see a dropdown appear in the AR/AP screens.

Additionally this is a search field. The default has changed as to whether to show a search field or a dropdown list. Long-run we want to replace this with some sort of a filtering select _javascript_ widget.

Now if this is showing unexpected results, please file a bug report.

- Cash Receipt page is extremely confusing
Ok. I'm not familiar with the 1.2 screen, but it's been my understanding that the current screen has been inherited from 1.2? Could you provide me with a screenshot of the 1.2 screen, just for my reference?

Nope. The 1.2 screen was totally different. The 1.3 screen was designed by a contributor to overcome many limitations of the 1.2 screen. For example, it handles overpayments, early payment discounts, and more that the old workflow was less prepared to deal with. The interface could probably be made a little more self-documenting, but having worked with both, I think the 1.3 workflow is easier and more productive once you get used to it. There is probably room for improvement here though.

This being said, if you want something closer to the 1.2 workflow, use Cash/Vouchers/Payments (or Receipts). This has the added benefit of being subject to separation of duties as well.

- what purpose do the fields at the top right fulfil?
Is this question - which I'm about to answer now - really a reason not to migrate? or did they simply not feel comfortable for other reasons (maybe your 1.3.36 install experience and reporting issues?) and decided to name this one as well?

They are willing to deal with these issues
Ah. Ok. So, I'm interpreting the last issue incorrectly as a reason not to migrate? ok.

A very minor issue that the users see as huge
- link to return to the trial balance at top of the accounts pages is missing
As I don't have 1.2 experience, could you explain on which screen this link would be and what it would take one to?

As long as you don't disable the back button that's a workaround. To be honest, if this is a big deal, my recommendation actually would be to wait for 1.4 and see 1.3 as a way of looking at workflow issues they have. Here's why:

In 1.3 and earlier, the reporting code is somewhat brittle. I doubt we ever intended to remove that link but it's hard to make changes anywhere there without breaking something. The reporting code in 1.4 was fully redesigned and it provides a canonical method for managing frequently used reports. In essence, a report is given a URL and a permalink (with a specified format, even, so you can specify that you want html, pdf, csv, or ods). This can be opened in a new tab or window and refreshed, copied and emailed out to others in the organization (who will be prompted to log in if they haven't already, when accessing it), placed on a web page as a link, etc. This gives you a lot of freedom in managing these sorts of issues.

It is also much easier to write reports for 1.4.

So, summarizing: if the two workflows you mention are fixed soon, then they see no problem in migrating? Or are there other issues to be addressed? If so, I think it's practical we know about them, because we could possibly address them in one release - hopefully resolving all blocking issues at once, preventing this from becoming a dragging process.

Thanks again for sharing your experience!

Agreed.

Best Wishes,

Chris Travers

--
Bye,

Erik.

http://efficito.com -- Hosted accounting and ERP.

Robust and Flexible. No vendor lock-in.

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Best Wishes,

Chris Travers

Efficito: Hosted Accounting and ERP. Robust and Flexible. No vendor lock-in.

http://www.efficito.com/learn_more.shtml