Updated planner?

Carole McIntyre

The heading reads:

Welcome to the updated Research Planner. It has a new look and provides easier access to all the most important features.

Here are the current features from my perspective:

The focus person with ID has been removed from older plans, the research instructions I created remain, but not the name or ID to whom it pertains.

The field "Family being helped" has been removed. Do I put that under Research Goals now?

"Research Goals" has replaced "Individual or Family Area of Interest"

In newer plans, the focus person's name and ID has been retained, in the field " Add Key Ancestors", but the relationship connector now goes to FamilySearch as a link and can not be printed or emailed or shared in the planner.

You can now add several key ancestors, but they wil only be visible when online in that plan.

The print options have been moved, the email is gone. When printing, all reference to the focus person is removed. The key ancestor is gone. Only the date, goal and plan remain.

When handing out the plan, I will be sure to write on it, the name of the recipient and the name and ID number for the key ancestors. Unfortunately, my skill falls short of drawing the visual path that shows ancestor relationship.

Please, what are now the main features and why would I use this anymore?

N Tychonievich

@Carole McIntyre I don't have answers for all of your questions, but I do have a suggestion. Have you noticed a little pop-up message when you open a plan? (If you don't see it, you might want to enter an exception for FamilySearch in any pop-up blocker you have in your browser).

I see it on the right side of the screen. It says, "How satisfied are you with the current FamilySearch planner?" If you click one of the numbers, it opens up with questions where you can give your opinions and suggestions—including a question about being willing to participate in a follow-up interview to discuss the planner. I have done that in the past. It's a great opportunity to actually talk to a developer about the tool and ways it could be better.

Carole McIntyre

@N Tychonievich

Thank you for your suggestion. I have used the Feedback button and left my email on occasions. There is no such pop-up message anywhere I can see.

I checked my pop-ups just to make sure FamilySearch was allowed and not blocked.

Maybe, since I already responded to the Feedback button, once is sufficient?

N Tychonievich

@Carole McIntyre Once is probably enough. I don't see a Feedback button when in the planner, so I'm glad that I see the little box on the right side asking how satisfied I am with it.

Carole McIntyre

Another update: If the Key ancestor has been merged since the plan was made, when trying the relationship path in the planner, the relationship will not populate in the FamilySearch link. In other words, the surviving person will not show up instead. I had to find my way to the ancestor from the patron on back and see what he had become. It was worth while though, since the merge and relatives added were not correct and I was able to spend an evening finding the solutions. 😄