Anyone who runs a company knows that a typical day is made up of putting out fires, attending too many meetings, and finding time for mundane tasks that you still haven't figured out how to delegate. If you are lucky you can dedicate a tiny sliver of your day to work on “what's next”, i.e. those changes your team can make that will take the company to the next level and jump miles above customer expectations.
Luckily, we have a really great staff here at Method who can put out their own fires, a consistent team vision that stamps out unnecessary meetings, and mundane tasks are nearly none-existent due to our infatuation with internal systems. What does this mean? We have time to be very nimble - the kind of nimble that big software companies can only dream of. This gives us the opportunity to take user feedback and make huge improvements in a very short amount of time.
Today when you log into Method you're going to notice a massive update has been unleashed. It's so big that your head is going to spin. Yes, all your feedback really was being listened to! Here are the highlights:
- QuickBooks Reports. This is big. If you are an administrator or accountant and want to limit the number of staff who need to have access to QuickBooks......this is even bigger. If you are sick of staff constantly asking you to pull updated reports....this is massive. We have developed a super-slick reporting feature for Method that actually lets you schedule and display QuickBooks reports from within a Method app. For example, an administrator can say “I want to generate a daily ‘Sales By Rep’ report and deliver it to my sales team". When each sales staff signs into Method each morning they can see an HTML version of their personalized sales report. Throughout the day, they can even click a “regenerate” button, which sends a request back to the computer with QuickBooks on it and within 10 seconds have a refreshed report delivered back to them via the web.
- File Attachments. Method apps now have full-on document management capabilities. It handles the uploading, storing, sharing, and display-on-demand of PDFs, Html, images, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Zip files. To use this feature, simply: (1) create a new field in any table with the data type “File Attachment”, (2) drag this new field onto your customized screen; and (3) publish your screen.
- New Method Grids. All standard grids have been replaced with our own specialized "Method Grids" that take advantage of some hard-core web technology we developed last year. They are now blazingly quick compared to the old grids when it comes to filtering, paging, and initial load time. You no longer have to wait for the “Loading….” symbol to disappear before you can use the screen, the grids are available for use immediately.
- Multi-line edits on grids. A major change in the grid is the ability to update and insert multiple lines at once. Before you would have to click Edit, then Update, Edit then Update a number of times to enter a transaction like an invoice. Now it can all be done in one go. In fact, I personally now find it faster to enter an invoice in Method than I do in QuickBooks directly.
- New Method Dropdown Lists. All standard dropdown lists have been replaced with our own specialized “Method Dropdown Lists”. Like before, they grab the first 50 records from the server and display them, but what is remarkable is that as you start typing, the list is quickly filtered in real time by communicating back and forth between the web page and the server – making it lightening fast.
- Screen load time. The big benefit of using Method Grids and Method Dropdown Lists is that they have a dramatic impact on a screen’s load time. No more waiting for screens to open when you sign in each day. They now load in 1/3rd of the time.
- Buttons………well they do the same thing as before, but you have to admit just look way cooler now!
That's a lot of features for this month's update, isn't it? On top of all that we have several other big announcements coming in the next couple weeks about other projects we have been working on.
We appreciate all the feedback you, our Method die-hards, have given us. Keep your ideas coming, we are all ears.
Paul