Feature\Update Process

Question

This is in response to the updated "What We're Working On" update from 3 days ago.  Didn't want this to get lost at the bottom of 2 years worth of responses.

It would be nice to have a little more clarity on how SW decides which updates\features will be included in a new release.  It seems like it should be a combination of Feature Requests and competition offerings.  For example:

* The #1 Feature Request is having checklists in a ticket (235 votes).  Clearly the top vote getter is important to people yet we still don't have it even though it was created almost 4 years ago
* Field conditional formatting - Fields appear on a ticket based on a selection in a previous field.  Most other solutions out there are offering this now.  Also a Feature Request, 127 votes.  Submitted 4 years ago
* The ability to send a decent looking email via an Action Rule that doesn't look like it was cobbled together in the year 2000.  This is just a no brainer.  We use a lot of Custom Forms and when I want to include them in an Action Rule the email it goes out in plain text.  Not very professional looking.  Enter a Feature Request?  Please refer to examples 1 & 2.
* Lets not discuss surveys

These are just three examples and I'm sure others can offer many more.  Businesses are starting to ask for more from their Service Desk.  Its no longer just "keeping the lights on".  We are being called on to also provide value back to the organization and having good tools makes this much easier.

kjette · Answer

Its unfortunate but the lack of usable updates has forced me to at least look at other solutions (and there are many).  From what I can see, SW is behind others in some important areas.  It would be nice if someone from SW would at least comment on this.  A few weeks ago I was told through a support ticket that a very simple feature didn't exist.  I responded to that email with my disappointment in the glaring omissions.  Then, recently, I was brutally honest in a satisfaction survey on another support ticket and, if you include this post, that equals three times I've expressed my dissatisfaction lately without one word from SW.  I have solutions covering other areas and they're updated so often its hard to keep up.

Communication is key.  Talk to us, let us know whats going on.  We're really an understanding group.

typhoon87 · Answer

Based on what I have heard it *appears* that the assets module is next in line for a rewrite. It would be similar to the FAQ module where it will be migrated to Spring and get some UI and workflow changes. A good example is did a feedback session and the reservation system was brought up most of my feedback was areas where they reservation system has feature/function gaps. However at this point I still feel updates are still coming too slow even understanding the technical debt issue of moving the majority of the application to a new front end language is a big undertaking.

A good example is what about the reporting engine. In 12.2 they introduced Asset Reports which was a highly requested feature at the time which is good. They also introduced a newer reporting engine for said new category. In doing so they stated and I quote by way of copy/paste (https://thwack.solarwinds.com/community/solarwinds-community/product-blog/blog/2014/07/31/web-help-desk-looking-behind-t… )

"With the new engine we get a more feature rich, performance optimized reporting infrastructure which gives us the long term flexibility to create new reports quicker going forward."

That quote was made in July 2014 in a preview post for the 12.2 release which would later occur in Dec. 2014. Well its now March 2017 and we don't have user reports, the existing canned reports from the other report types are not migrated to the new engine, nor is there an option that I am aware of to use the new engine in a newly created reports, nor is there a migration assistant to move existing custom reports to the new engine for testing. Apparently my view of quicker does not match up with Solarwinds view of quicker.

I am trying to stay positive and have had some good conversations with Michel as recently as Dec 2016. They seem to understand users frustration but so far implementation has been less than stellar since the Solarwinds acquisition.