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Why Remove 'IMPORT ITEMS' ?

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Felicia Montoya

19 Aug, 2013 10:47 PM

Hi!
One of the the new summer updates that was implemented was removing 'IMPORT ITEMS'. The 'DUPLICATE' feature is nice, but I think you still need the 'IMPORT ITEMS' feature.

I used the 'IMPORT ITEMS' feature almost every time I created a new estimate. I was able to pull items from many different estimates into my new estimate. For example, I may pull website development items from one estimate, graphic design elements from a second estimate, and social media elements from a third estimate. This is no longer possible... I am now spending double the time to create an estimate that used to be VERY easy to create.

Is it possible to offer both 'IMPORT ITEMS' and 'DUPLICATE'? This would make my life so much easier. This update was definitely a step backwards for me.

Thank you!

~Felicia

1. Support Staff 1 Posted by Seth B on 20 Aug, 2013 12:57 AM

   

   Hi Felicia, I apologize this is causing you undue work. This has been live for almost a month now, and you are only the second person to bring it up as an issue.

   Why the feature was removed

   I made a decision to remove "import items" because the differences between the two features were so small that most of our customers would not miss it.

   It's a personal design goal of mine to keep Cashboard as lean and usable as possible for the majority of our customer base. Every decision to add, remove, or abstain from adding a feature comes from this mindset.

   Keeping the design pure, and attempting to reduce the number of options inside the program is not always an enviable task, but someone has to police things from becoming bloated.

   I outlined this change on our blog when it happened, but perhaps you missed it.

   Workarounds

   Instead of importing multiple items from other invoices, what you can do is make use of our "auto-complete" feature. Simply start typing in the title of an item, and Cashboard will present you with a list of previously created items across all estimates in the system with similar titles. You can select one, and it'll fill out the details for you, using the last one created.

   This should speed up your workflow tremendously.

   Thanks for understanding,

   • Seth

   PS: Do you mind if I make this discussion public so other's with similar viewpoints can read and chime in?

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2. 2 Posted by Felicia Montoya on 20 Aug, 2013 03:46 AM

   

   Hi Seth,
   Yes, I already use the Auto-complete feature. It is very handy. The reason
   I liked the import items feature is because I could add estimates with
   multiple task items all in one step. I understand and appreciate you trying
   to make Cashboard more efficient. If I am really the minority on this, then
   I understand your decision.

   I don't mind if you make this discussion public, especially if other people
   can chime in. I'm curious if any others care for this feature.

   Thanks for the fast response.

   Felicia

   On Monday, August 19, 2013, Seth Banks wrote:

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3. Support Staff 3 Posted by Seth B on 20 Aug, 2013 03:48 AM

   

   Cool, thanks for understanding.

   Just made it public so hopefully some other people will lend their opinions to the matter over time.

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4. 4 Posted by Andy Giesler on 28 Aug, 2013 04:39 PM

   

   Any chance this will come back in the future? I'm in the same boat as Felicia and was very disappointed to see that this feature's been pruned.

   For simple projects it's easy enough to enter the tasks by hand with help from auto-complete. But for more substantial development I import tasks from one or more of these predefined projects depending on the client's needs:

   TEMPLATE - [1] CONFIGURE WEB HOST
   TEMPLATE - [2] WEBSITE REMEDIATION
   TEMPLATE - [3] INSTALL & CONFIGURE WORDPRESS
   TEMPLATE - [4] INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
   TEMPLATE - [5] VISUAL DESIGN
   TEMPLATE - [6] CREATE CUSTOM WORDPRESS THEME
   TEMPLATE - [7] WORDPRESS THEME OPTIONAL COMPONENTS
   TEMPLATE - [8] LAUNCH SITE
   TEMPLATE - [9] ONGOING SUPPORT

   Unfortunately, losing this ability adds drudgery into what had been a beautiful workflow.

   After developing and managing lots of commercial software projects in the past, I definitely appreciate the need to streamline features, and "good of the many vs. good of the few". But for me at least... ouch.

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5. Support Staff 5 Posted by Seth B on 08 Sep, 2013 02:00 AM

   

   I've reversed course on this, as I've had too much feedback saying it negatively affects your workflow.

   Sorry for the disruption, and hopefully you appreciate that we actually listen to, and value your feedback.

   Thanks again for your business everyone.

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6. 6 Posted by Andy Giesler on 08 Sep, 2013 09:09 PM

   

   Excellent! Thank you.

   It's very deeply appreciated, especially since I know it means more work for you over the long haul to maintain it.

   I'm so glad to see this feature back again. Importing from previous projects was actually one of the things that sold me on CashBoard originally.

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7. 7 Posted by Felicia Montoya on 09 Sep, 2013 02:33 AM

   

   Yay! Thank you!

   This will make my life a lot easier.

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