Since I've had quite a bit of free time the past few days, I've been working on the Report enhancements. I'm at the point where this is turning out to be not only a major task for me, but also I see it as being a huge confusion for the end user.
For example:
Everything is driven by the Status of the orders. As you change the status, certain fields that you can group or sort by are disabled/enabled, since not all fields are on the report. And then, even the Start Date & End Date/Request Month fields are disabled in certain situations (why would you want to see Unordered items for a certain date range??).
To me, this is going to turn out to be a mess. Not only programmatically, but also from the perspective of understanding how it works by the end user. And based on the comment of a couple of users, I think the current design is plenty enough (where the Tabs are understood to be what you want the focus of your report to be based on).
If desired, I can add the ability to change the sort order to the existing design much more easily. Though I question if this is necessary. Is there anyone who would currently benefit from changing the sort order at this time? Because if the only reason for the feature is to keep up with the Society's changes, I can do that pretty quickly. ;-)
Please...use the comments section on this blog post to discuss this. I think this needs to be more than just a simple poll. Remember, you can submit comments annonymously...
Thanks!
I think what you have is very good. It works for me. My only problem is when annual items are "pending" and remain pending for several shipments, I have to print out many pages. The only tweak I would like is ability to exclude annual items from the report.
ReplyDeleteAs for sorting, I leave that up to you.
Hi Jeremy,
ReplyDeleteIn spite of what I said when I first came upon LRO, having got to know it - along with enhancements you have made to date - I really think it's just fine the way it is. I have been using it for a few months now and I can't think of anything else it needs to do. The more experienced I become with it, the more I find I can do with it. The great deal of thought and planning you have put into LRO, along with any suggestions you have implemented have made this a really useful tool that does everything I need - or want - it to do. The reports and forms are very well thought out and everything that is required regarding sort order is actually possible. I hope it wasn't just me who set you off on this road! If so, I apologise. Excellent work Jeremy!
@Anonymous
ReplyDeleteI assume you are talking about the DETAILED Pending report, where it shows each individual order.
Good point! Right now, the report is sorted by Item Number. I can think of no logical reason for that particular report to be that way. If it were sorted by Type of Item first, then all of the Annuals would be together, and you could choose not to print those particular pages.
I will start a poll regarding this before the next release.
Thanks!