A handfull of enhancements to the product

[EndreLunde]

I made a post about this in the product forum, but was lead here. To simplify, I'll paste the text below:

I've used Blue Prism for nearly two years, and there are some features of the product that acts as a daily annoyance. Here's a list:

- Moving several objects at the same time: 

When selecting and dragging several object on a page, you'll have to be extremely careful not to end up dragging everything far out to the edges of the page. This makes it really difficult to design the entire page at once, and really should be fixed. I don't think there's ever a time you'll need to move everything at such a speed which it makes us do right now.

- Editing Choice-stages:

When editing choice stages, even if only opening the editor and pressing OK, it will allways mess up the gaps between the choices. Again, not a function I've ever found useful, so I don't think this is made purposely. Also, the choices are placed at random places which can't be accessed if we're moving the choices manually, so again, it's not useful. 

- Sizing and resizing the different windows:

If I open any window, like the "View Log", Application Modeller, Calculation editor, or similar, I never get all the details visible, and therefore have to resize it every time. This could be all the columns in the Logs window, or enough details in the calculation stage editor.

Also, if the program would have some form of logical resizing of e.g. Columns, so that when you increase the width of e.g. Application Modeller window, you don't just increase the width of the Values column under Attributes (which is already more than wide enough), but you get a wider colum for the Applications tree on the left side. 

The attributes described over are of course nitpicky, but the sum of such illogical and un-userfriendly funcitons really add up to a less enjoyable experience for us developers that use Blue Prism every day. For all I know there are fixes for these, so any tips would be greatly appreciated, but if my assuption is correct. these are just the small things that no one talks about and gets used to. If there aren't fixes I really hope you can fix this asap. 

(My version is 6.8.1 at the moment.)

[_Amlansahoo]

Hi @MelanieGiulian1 Please have look into this idea though it does not have more votes it's very need requirement for Blue prism developers.​​

[EndreLunde]

@MelanieGiulian1 / @Melanie Giuliani
Has anything happened here? Never heard back. ​​

[MelanieGiuliani]

Hi @EndreLunde,

Thank you for your idea! We haven't taken a look at this idea internally yet, as it doesn't meet the threshold for idea review (20+ points).

However, I have taken a quick look and can let you know that this idea would not advance in it's current state, as it has several enhancement requests in one idea, and would be impossible to update/review accordingly. Would it be possible for you to create separate ideas around each of the enhancements you'd like to see added to the product? This would allow us to review and respond to each separately and determine feasibility much quicker and more efficiently.

Thank you,
Melanie ​

[EndreLunde]

Hi @Melanie Giuliani / @Melanie Giuliani

Thanks for your answer. I understand that you have a ratings system to pick up the most important improvement ideas, but to think that I need to gather 'likes' to have you fix something that doesn't work/make sense in your program is rather bizarre. You have people around the world working full time with your software, that will be annoyed/affected every time they use any of the functions I mentioned in this post. ​​Blue Prism not fixing these kind of issues over a number of years is not a good way of supporting its users. 

I will not be making a new post about these basic faults again and hope for enough likes for you to care to consider fixing them. You should see the value of helping your users. 

Side-note; as I'm writing this I'm sitting with a newly recruited developer who is trying to move large chunks of a page at the same time. Even in 50% zoom it's a struggle and we're having to spend several minutes extra trying to make it work. This shouldn't have been more than a bug that was fixed within a few days - not an issues that has stayed since the start of BP. 

[_Amlansahoo]

Hi @MelanieGiulian1 this is not expected now if he will create different idea again you people wait for 20 votes. Please proceed with this. This is very clear and much needed features. Please try to understand the perspective of users. Otherwise things will never change here. We are writing giving idea but it is taking 2 years for you to consider. A lay man can understand this idea who has very little idea about blue prism.​

[MelanieGiuliani]

Hi @EndreLunde & @_Amlansahoo,

Thanks for your feedback! I'd like to shed some light on why the points threshold exists, and will do so below, but first, I'd like to clarify that the reason this idea will not be able to advance is because it requests multiple enhancements in one idea. Because of the way we review ideas internally (we triage them, score them with a RICE score, and then advance them to a roadmap council to consider inclusion in the roadmap), we need to have each feature request in its own idea so we can track and advance them separately. An idea like this, with several enhancement requests in one, won't be able to advance because if the team decides that some requests are viable for inclusion in the roadmap and others aren't, that will stall the entire idea from moving forward. Hope that makes more sense! Happy to have a further discussion about this if you'd like as well!

For the points threshold - this is done for 2 reasons: 
1) the idea behind community ideation is that it's a purely democratic process that circumvents the old process of developing features requested only by a company's largest/most influential customers want. Instead, the ideation process aims to build a product roadmap based on what would benefit the most users rather than 1 or 2 key customers. Votes are an important factor for ideation because they show us whether each idea proposes a feature that the average user would want/benefit from, and how many users agree that they would be positively impacted by this update. This helps us to prioritize which ideas are most desired by the Community by tracking the number of people who agree this enhancement should be made. 

2) The reason we've gone with 20 points as a threshold is simply to provide the team with a cut off for how many ideas we review in our recurring calls. If we have time, we do dip below the 20 points threshold and review ideas with lower point counts, and we often do! You’ll see many ideas with less than 20 votes being advanced, if filter the ideas list by Under Review, Planned, or Delivered. The 20 pts threshold is just our guarantee that ALL ideas with 20+ points will be reviewed.

Thank you,

Melanie

​​

[EndreLunde]

@Melanie Giuliani / @MelanieGiulian1

I get your point in general, but ​​only if you treat my observations of general issues with your software as "innovative, new ideas". I was guided to this page as this is where you guys took advice from your users. I didn't intend for you to rate your own issues through this post.

When something doesn't work, I normally expect the company behind to fix it within a short period of time - worst case within the release of the next version. You guys keep giving me the impression that the developers don't actually test the product themselves, as these things (the ones I mentioned in the original post) are able to exist over so many years without anyone addressing them. 

I don't think we expect too much - and this post shouldn't have been necessary to highlight the issues. Do what you please, but know that these kind of bugs are a constant annoyance to your users. We'll just have to teach the new hires that "this is how it is - get used to it, 'cause Blue Prism won't fix it". 

[MelanieGiuliani]

Hi @EndreLunde,

Ok, I think that may explain the disconnect. Are the changes you're requesting in the idea above bugs? If so, there's a different process for us addressing them. This ideation portal is intended to be used for new ideas for feature/enhancement requests to the product.

Let me get with the internal team and figure out ​the best way to route these requests above as bugs, rather than ideas.

Thank you,
Melanie ​