Slow rate of improvement....
Answered
There really isn't a forum for this sort of input so I'll post it here.
It seems like the rate of important feature improvement on workflowy has stalled. Blog entries are months aparts, new features are still not sent out in a method that is easy to follow without being hammered by daily emails, etc.
Reminders has been on the "wish list" by people for over 6 years. 6 Years ago, it was posted as being worked on and planned for 'soon'. Voice/SIRI integration has been mentions for over 2 years. It is almost ubiquitous to have voice integration in an application these days.
Workflowy's efficiency is important as is keeping it straightfoward to use. Adding things like wfx and scripts and html integration are nice for people who wish to play with developing and code. But people who just want to USE workflowy need mainstream features or they will look elsewhere.
Can we start to see some active development such as a roadmap for features such as SIRI integration and Reminders, and of course, and active "history" file somewhere on the web site showing what features were added in each update?
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Hi Saverio,
We've had weekly release notes posted regularly since September of last year, but those haven't been updated since July, which only seems to underscore your point. On the other side, you know how hard it is to do software: people can loose their motivation, conflicts can erupt, sometimes even involving lawyers and consuming time and money, and developing production software used at scale is just plain hard.
I'm hopeful that the WorkFlawy team will be able to plough through whatever difficulties they had, and that we'll see some deliverables very soon. (And did you mention reminders?!)
‑Alex
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Hello Alessandro,
You are correct, I am very aware how hard it is to do software.
I am not saying this to be cruel, but knowing how difficult it is is irrelevent when you are paying for a product. We are customers, and we enter into a contract, in which we pay/expect bugs to be fixed, services to be rendered, and improvements to be made. All of which software companies do (the Workflowy team included).
The problem is that if you imply "weeks" or "soon" to a feature, you either need to deliver on that promise, or your reputation suffers. In thish case, there is nothing wrong with stating "we will not be supporting that feature anytime in the near future". Nor is there anything wrong with realistic projections.
I mean this is the best way--I would rather the Workflowy team (and other software teams) were realistic in it's goals/promises/etc. Be honest about issues, problems (instead of letting marketing rule) and your customers will never be able to say you let them down.
This is different from a "hobby" product, say shareware or freeware or the like, where you pay a one time fee for something and don't expect it to change or improve.
And yes, I certainly did mention Reminders ;) Gosh, how I would like to drop that IOS Reminders program and speak my reminders directly into Workflowy and see it on all my devices.
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Hi Alessandro and Saverio,
We will have more/ new hands on deck in about a week, after having gone through very thorough interview processes far and wide.
Bug fixes have been on the top of our list and we've been working on the most urgent.
There are a couple of experimental features in the pipeline. A new left sidebar is now available on Android, Desktop apps and desktop browser...
Dates and reminders (though not of the iOS/ Siri variety) are being worked on as we speak.
We are in fact ramping up for some significant new features to be rolled out and polished up before year end.
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I’d have to agree that the pace of improvement has slowed. There have indeed been very few new features. I assume that a lot of WF resources are taken up sorting out bugs, and I fully accept that software is difficult, especially across 3 - platforms. Put please, please, please, could we see just one little glimmer? Just one? How about the ability to sort items, for instance. Many other users have suggested good and seemingly small changes too. We’re loyal, and easy to impress. Try us...
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Hi George,
did you see this post?:
https://workflowy.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/360053671512/comments/360007987471
We're gearing up... it's a matter of days :-)
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Oh yeah, don't take my post to mean I don't agree. :) I'd definitely like to see a more transparent improvement process. I'm ok with WorkFlowy taking whatever approach it wants to in the end. However, if that approach is "we're basically done improving" then I'd like to take my money elsewhere, honestly.
The most frustrating part isn't actually the pace to me. It's the fact that we keep getting unfulfilled promises. "improvements in a matter of days" has turned into "improvements before years end"... Like come on... It leads me to wonder at the communication within their team that the estimate could be so inaccurate. Why should I wait around when they don't even know what's going on? I'd be a lot more patient if communication was in any way accurate... -
Cost does matter. Sure $4.95 and $7.95 doesn't seem like that much, but for me I pay annually for two accounts (my own and my wife's). Another app subscription that eats my bank balance isn't something I'm looking around for.
I agree that if the devs were done improving then I'd take my money somewhere else, but all indications are that they are still developing features. I understand the complaint of having bad estimations and I wish businesses would be better at this. We can't lay it at the feet of Workflowy devs alone, though. I've yet to see a company that is "good" at keeping their promises by date.
In my opinion, devs don't do consistent updates because it's a lot of work. It's a lot of work for them because they overdo it. A simple monthly update with a bullet list of "Features being worked on", "Features researching", and "Features we're thinking about" could alleviate the concern. That's essentially DL's roadmap anyway...
I think what the devs don't understand is that silence to feature requests or request for any communication creates negative emotions. It makes customers feel ignored, undervalued, and taken-for-granted, even though that's certainly not the intention.
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Reminders would be nice, but it's not high priority for me.
You should join the Slack group.
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Hi folks,
We will come out with reminders. It's a super common request... but not as popular as backlinks and images and a few other items which we've been working on. It is rather a challenge to know what to prioritize. We will get there.
It can't be denied that WorkFlowy has been crushing it with the "rate of improvement" (This thread's title). This comes with a growing team.
~Frank
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Good to see you around, Frank! Certainly, getting anything done is hard. And doing things in the right order is maybe even harder.
As rule of thumb, I would have prioritized features that already in Evernote: images (yes!), file attachments (yes!), but also basic reminders. And I would have left the trendy, cool-to-implement mirrors and backlinks for later.
But I'm glad, as I'm sure everyone here is as well, to see new features making their way into WorkFlowy, while keeping the product simple and polished. So keep up the great work!
-Alex
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