TroopTrack 4 Roll Back Announcement

Product Updates
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Hi Everyone,

Yesterday we introduced a new version of TroopTrack (TT4) that we have been working on for several months. Based on feedback we’ve received over the last day I’ve decided to roll back TT4 until December 27th. At that time, we will release TT4 again.

The feedback we received fell into three categories:

  1. Confusion about changes to the menu structure . Most notably, we replaced the tabs on the member profile page with a drop down menu. That was pretty universally hated. The tabs will come back.
  2. Broken & missing features. While we tested this release rigorously, obviously it wasn’t enough. We have compiled a list of all the reported problems and will be fixing those prior to releasing again. We will also be doing more testing in areas we now understand we missed. We will also be adding the links to community.trooptrack.com and to our other support features back. Removing them was NOT intentional.
  3. Emotional reactions to the new look and feel. Some people hated it. Some people loved it. The people who hated it complained that it was hard on the eyes. I’m going to think about this. I don’t know what we will do yet.

I’d like to take a few minutes to explain the goals and strategy behind TT4 - why we did it, what we’re trying to accomplish.

There are three main goals behind TT4:

  1. Address complaints about our user interface. Many people have told us that TroopTrack looks “old” and doesn’t work as well on mobile devices as our competitors. They also complain about the vertical space used for menus at the top of the page.
  2. Update the underlying technology used to build our user interface and back end systems so they don’t become antiquated or unsupported.
  3. Position TroopTrack so we can do more with it in the future. The internet is getting faster and more reliable. Small devices are getting better and better. We want to be positioned to take advantage of these advances so we can bring features to our users that no one else has.

The strategy behind TT4 is simple:

  1. Minimize the navigational changes as much as possible . We tried to keep the menus the same so that even though the look and feel changed, everything you are used to clicking will still be in roughly the same place.
  2. Test everything on mobile devices. TT4 works much better on smaller screens.
  3. Roll it out in a slow time of year. As far as site traffic and support requests go, December is traditionally our slowest time of year.

I appreciate everyone who has reported issues with TT4 over the weekend. We will try it again after Christmas and will do our best to make it a better experience for everyone.

Sincerely,

David Christiansen

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Random question b/c I’m not a programmer. (When I suggest things to my husband who is a programmer, things that I think would be simple, he looks at me as if I have 4 heads. :smirk:) But would it be possible to create the option of the old format or the new format look? So that we could go into settings and change the look. Kind of like we do with the one windows machine that is a Windows 10 and we all hate, so we make it look like XP to make us feel better. That way those of us who love the badges at the top can still have them and those of us who like the cleaner look can have it as well. The first thing my girls said when they logged on this weekend was that they missed the color. :laughing:

Minus the bugs that plague all updates, it looked really clean and nice. Can’t wait to see it when it rolls back out. Thanks guys!!

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Sometimes that’s possible, but in this particular case we can’t do that because we’ve upgraded so many things behind the scenes to make the new design possible.

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Hi @dave,

Thank you for the rollback!! When I first logged into TT4 on my PC after the update, I almost immediately got a headache, and felt disoriented by the new menus, even though now I realize they aren’t that different.

I think part of it was due to the fact that the content seemed like it was squeezed into a narrow column, and I had lots of white space on either side (because I am on a PC).

Also, were the fonts made to be larger? When I clicked on Quick Nav > Members, I found it difficult to read through the names because the font was larger, the window was narrower, and there was no white space between the names, so it was really hard to distinguish between names.

Thanks - I know you are trying to make huge strides in functionality with this upgrade. :slight_smile:

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We are so thankful for your patience and understanding. We are committed to stick to our strategy behind TT4 to ultimately make TroopTrack the best scouting software available! We are going to do feedback fixing between now and the re-release of TT4 by implementing a secure, private, and live-data test environment with real users and data. If you are interested in being a TT4 tester and are willing to test and give feedback, we would love to have you. Check out the TT4 tester thread here: You asked for a beta site, and we listened!

We appreciate every single TroopTrack user, scout, parent, leader, and accout owners! We are excited for the future and are grateful for all of you who are a part of the TroopTrack family. We are committed to providing the best scouting software in the world and to making TroopTrack a better experience to empower all TT troops across the country. Thank you for your patience.

Tyler
TroopTrack

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Improved mobile device support is greatly appreciated. It has been an uphill battle getting our pack to use TT because of its difficult usage. By simplifying and improving mobile support it could really help.

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We’ve decided to amend the schedule. We’re not going to impose a deadline on ourselves - it’s causing stress. We hope to release this by the end of January, but we’re going to keep working with our Beta testers until we get really comfortable with it.

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Good Morning,

I can certainly understand that there is a lot of work ahead of you for this big update. We are so on mobile in our pack that it’s a big boost to get it. Thank you for digging in on this.

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