Please advise users when new / revised features are introduced.

LegacyUser

Paul said: There are frequently queries from users - I believe three alone today - as to "What has happened to x?" or "How do we now find y?"

Surely it would not be too difficult to advise recent changes to users? It would stop much of the confusion caused, for example, by suddenly having a new feature introduced without any prior warning. Or even a page's appearance suddenly changing, if you happen to have a small monitor!

LegacyUser

Paul said: See Jeff Wiseman's comments (3rd post down at https://getsatisfaction.com/familysea...), which have prompted me to raise this as a separate topic.

LegacyUser

m said: Yes, exactly. Agree totally.

I just received a message through messaging system saying there is a computer bug on the App doing something wonky to sources.

Constant technical problems lately due to constant changes.

LegacyUser

Stacy5 said: That makes sense! Today it kept taking me to the same page!

LegacyUser

JT said: Paul - we have complained plenty about this the last few years.
Falls on deaf ears.
Then they put out blogs that sound like re-hashing old things, only to slip in something "new" that's been deployed for weeks if not months.

Cases in point:
"FamilySearch Newsroom" - https://media.familysearch.org/
"FamilySearch Blogs" - https://www.familysearch.org/blog/en/

LegacyUser

JT said: Except for yesterday's blog: "Genealogy Fan Chart: Display and Print Your Family Tree in 7 Ways" - https://www.familysearch.org/blog/en/... (at least for printing 7 ways)

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: FamilySearch is not known for their communication skills, except when it comes to the "campaigns."

If only they would dedicate some of that staff to releasing "what's new" at least once a week that would include not only new features, but modified features, as well as what new records have been indexed and/or added to an existing index.

LegacyUser

David Newton said: But you know Tom that the approval process for documents takes so long that by the time the what's new post was given the go-ahead it would be several months out of date!

LegacyUser

Glenn P said: Jon, thank you for pointing out the 'newsroom' and blogs. How about putting a link on the home page (as soon as you sign in), linking directly to the 'FamilySearch Newsroom', and include on the Newsroom page the new features and changes weekly. Put the link front and center on the home page, so all patrons can see it. There is a lot of information on the home page now. Reducing the number of family related 'memories' on the home page could make room for the home page link to the Newsroom page.

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: That applies to printed documents, such as instruction or participant manuals. It doesn't take long for an article to be published, although they need to be dated.

LegacyUser

Adrian Bruce said: A strictly personal view: Take the revised merge process that's just gone up. I believe there were a few issues (I'm steering well away until it's settled in!) but if you look at the posts in GetSat I would suggest that:

- the guys who I suspect that FS techies mutter about the most (probably includes me in there), the ones who hold FS's feet to the fire if they mess up, the consistent posters in GetSat, certainly highlighted a few oddities, but in general appear to have accepted the principles involved quite happily.

- those saying "This is a disaster...", "Why have you changed...", "It takes longer..." were generally people who (sorry!) I don't remember posting much before.

Further, many of the first group were actually trying to justify the changes to those in the second group. (Hmm - who should have been doing that?)

I would suggest that there is one good reason for that - group one got to play with the new merge process in Beta first and get our heads round it. We kicked a few ideas around about how best to label the two sides (whereas group 2 were clearly taken aback by the swapping of left for right). I for one had suggested that the previous merge process attempted to do too much in one go because it combined checking if they were the same, with setting up the merged data, so I liked the stepwise process in the new screens. (Though yes, I missed some bits, such as it being too easy to go onto the next screen without scrolling down to do those checks)

So, because the difficult to please guys got their heads around things first, any flak about the new process came from group 2 who simply weren't expecting these things to happen and weren't convinced.

I would suggest that the respective reactions of groups 1 & 2 show the merits of a little bit of advance notification. So wouldn't an early warning have helped group 2 as well?

PS - it does have to be pointed out that group 1 weren't actually told about the new merge process - no favouritism took place! If I recall correctly, Gordon C noticed the new process and alerted us, thank you.

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: I agree with your personal view.

I would like to add that some of the ideas that had previously been pushed, including warnings when dates (for instance) were not consistent, are now part of the system. I ran into the dates with a merge I did yesterday, but it was consistent with what I had (for that person) run into before.