Re: Various suggestions and issues
Thanks again for the excellent feedback Adrian, please find replies below.
If you would like to discuss a particular topic in more detail please can you start a new thread for it so it will be easier for us to re-cap what has been said about that issue?
You can continue to add more feedback items to this post if you like, but further discussion of an individual point would be easier in a new thread for each.
Adrian Bhagat said:
I've been using Easify for 6 months now and I've got various suggestions for minor improvements that would make it easier to use. Apologies for dumping them all here.
Server
1) It takes 3-5 minutes for the server to start up after my machine has booted up. It's a long delay if you have customers waiting.
2) Sometimes, the server doesn't start on its own and I have to use Server Manager
These sound like issues with the PC and/or Windows installation. On most machines Easify Server starts in about 20 seconds, so I would suggest looking at whether there is a problem with a local firewall or anti-virus software. Also check the Windows Event Viewer at startup to see what might cause a delay in the Easify Server Service starting.
Adrian Bhagat said:
Keyboard shortcuts
There are various places where you would expect keyboard shortcuts to work but they haven't been implemented. For example:
3) In the product list (and similar views), Ctrl-A should select all products; return (or space) should open the product for editing; Delete should delete the select products; in the category tree, F2 should rename the selected category and Delete should delete.
4) In the product editor, Return should OK the dialog (unless editing a multiline edit field)
Keyboard shortcuts for every control need to be manually coded in Easify and sometimes these get overlooked due to their sheer numbers, or occasionally can't be implemented for technical reasons. We can raise feature requests for any specific shortcuts that are required.
Adrian Bhagat said:
Categories:
5) It would be nice to be able to add products to a top level category and to have multi-level categories. Also, to be able to add products to multiple categories. This would work better with the WooCommerce integration.
6) You should be able to rearrange categories by dragging them in the Products view.
5) A good point though would require a major code re-write. This sort of functionality can be looked at in the future when we look at implementing Bill of Materials.
6) Currently they are listed alphabetically, this is unlikely to change in the foreseeable future.
Adrian Bhagat said:
POS
7) Some items don't have barcodes and so you need to add them using the search. This is slow just to add something like a 5p plastic bag. It would be better to have customisable buttons on the POS that let you add often-bought items with a single press.
8) The search box in the POS only does a text search. it would be much better if you could look through the categories, like you can in the Products view. Failing that, being able to drag products from the Products view to the POS would help.
9) I don't think there is a way to add a discount to the whole shopping cart in one go. I offer staff a 10% discount but currently I have to edit each item in turn. Being able to set a discount for each customer would be helpful here.
10) When using F6 to edit the price, it always rounds to the nearest penny for each item. So, you can't offer three items for £2 due to the rounding error.
11) There needs to be some more intrusive feedback on the POS screen when a stock code is not found. If you are scanning multiple barcodes and not looking at the screen, you wouldn’t know that anything was wrong and so you would give the customer a product without it being rung up on the POS. Perhaps show an error item that stays in the list in bright red, or a modal error dialog (that isn't closed with the return keypress generated by the barcode reader)
12) It would be helpful to have a way to complete checkout for no payment. For example, if I want to use an item from the shop for business purposes, I have to edit it in the product list, which is slowed. I would like to be able to add items through the POS, checkout and set the prices to 0, perhaps specifying a reason (stolen/missing/broken/used internally/given away as a sample etc). That way, the stock levels will be updated and I will have a record of where the stock has gone. This is also a way to stop staff pilfering: staff could be unable to edit the stock quantity of an item but given a way to add and remove items from stock using a method that leaves a record of the stock level adjustment.
13) I would like an option to always open the POS screen as non-maximised.
14) I'd like an option to skip the cashing up on the till.
7) Customisable buttons/button overlay panels is in our feature request list.
8) With the POS we purposefully keep it simplified compared to the back-end systems (Products main Window, Order Details Window). Mainly we try to keep the POS to keyboard and barcode scanner data entry.
9) We have this raised as a feature request and will be part of a forthcoming discounting system (BOGOF,Multibuy etc…).
10) Added to our bug list for future investigation
11) Added to our feature request list for future investigation
12) Added to our feature request list for future investigation
Adrian Bhagat said:
Orders & Quotes
15) When you open Orders & Quotes, it shows all the orders from the current year. For a busy shop in December this takes a long time. It would be good to be able to set a more specific date filter. Usually I just want to see orders from today/yesterday.
16) It would be helpful to be able to reprint a receipt from a previous order, not just the most recent one. This could be an option when you open an order.
15) We have this as a feature request on our system - we intend to add in the date range buttons as found in the product history and cashbook, and to have the default date range customisable.
16) Added to our feature request list for future investigation
Adrian Bhagat said:
Products View/Editor
17) The search box only does a direct text search rather than searching for each word (so searching for 'red shoe' wouldn't find a product called 'shoe - red').
18) Triple-clicking the search box should select all; this would help when you have entered several words and want to delete them to search for something else.
19) The search box should have a drop-down history or autocomplete for old searches.
20) It would be nice to set temporary sale prices for items, whilst keeping a record of the original price
21) It would be good to be able to disable the automatic calculation of prices from the margin - sometimes I want to be able to edit the purchase price without changing the sale price.
22) Editing large numbers of products in one go is very slow. Committing a change to 2000 products takes around 30 minutes. Deleting 25 products takes 12 seconds.
23) You can add a new manufacturer from the Product Editor, but not a new Supplier.
17) This is due to performance reasons, as we fine tune the performance of product searches we will be able to allow for a more fine grained search.
18) We will consider that for a future update.
19) A nice feature to have
20) This would potentially feature in the forthcoming discounting system.
21) We are currently working on changes to the financial core of Easify that would allow this.
22) Again, this is down to performance tuning due to the way that Easify V4 uses internet compatible communication protocols.
You can add a new supplier by clicking the Supplier button in the product editor.
Regards - Richard (Easify Developer)
