Customizing Form Sequence

ERPNext User Forum
1
Dear all,

We plan to remove the feature that allows you to re-arrange fields in a form. Here is why:

We are planning to include a lot of "inline" and later "contextual" help in the form that will be totally messed up if you re-arrange the fields.

If you feel that you have a strong reason why a particular field should be up or down, please send it across to us and I am sure we will update it in the product if it will be helpful to other users too.

Note, your arrangement for "custom" fields will remain as it is. Custom fields are added "after" a particular field so you need not be worried about them.

Please let us know if you have any comments on this.

best regards,
Rushabh


-----------------------------------------------------
ERPNext - Business Operating System

W: https://erpnext.com
T: @rushabh_mehta

2

Hi,

I believe this goes in the wrong direction!
ERPNext is a very complex and complete system that can fulfill the
need of a wide range of users: small construction companies,
(web)shops, import/export, etc.

It will be, I believe, impossible to have uniform input docs appealing
to all users, there are just to many different
preferences,priorities,needs.

One of the nice thing was the (limited) capabilities of ERPNext to
customize docs and tables. I have used this a lot, and still have a
number of customisations i intend to do.

Design considerations should not govern user-friendliness.

I understand that complete interactive “help balloons” or similar are
difficult to programme with non uniform form definitions among users.

I believe there are plenty of alternative solutions, furthermore, a
good help is not necessary related to modern interactive help design,
but good content (covering all aspects of the software) is more
important.

I have pressed the issue of good documentation many times and this is
still very high on my priority list.

However, to sacrifice customization to get “interactive help pop-up”
is for me not a step aheas, but one back!!
There are plenty of alternatives: a good help system, with search and
index as common in many software programmes, a linked full page with
detailed descriprions of the meaning and functionality of fields and
other relevant things like what happens during an transaction
(submit).
Besides, improving the “descriptions” field in the form viewer (there
are still many fields not having a description at all) would already
tremendously improve the user experience, with they advantage that it
can easily be translated in another language (with some key fields i
gave made a dutch transaltion.

In summary, I believe that the advantage of “help pop-ups/balloons/or
similar” is not outweighing the disadvantage of having a static
screen, that should satisfy thus all users, and as a consequence leave
many of us frustrated. The time investment to have such a modern “pop-
up” design I would rather invest in writing good documentation, well
structured, index,searchable.

In contrary, i would improve the customization eg. allow a section to
be “folded in” by default.

regards Robert

On Mar 13, 8:51 am, Rushabh Mehta rm...@gmail.com wrote:

Dear all,

We plan to remove the feature that allows you to re-arrange fields in a form. Here is why:

We are planning to include a lot of “inline” and later “contextual” help in the form that will be totally messed up if you re-arrange the fields.

If you feel that you have a strong reason why a particular field should be up or down, please send it across to us and I am sure we will update it in the product if it will be helpful to other users too.

Note, your arrangement for “custom” fields will remain as it is. Custom fields are added “after” a particular field so you need not be worried about them.

Please let us know if you have any comments on this.

best regards,
Rushabh

ERPNext - Business Operating System

W:https://erpnext.com
T: @rushabh_mehta

3

Hi Robert,


We are planning to restring the movement of fields within a form and not the rest of the customization. You will still be able to hide fields in form, print and reports. You will be able to change the label, description, default etc. as you can still do in Customize Form.


We are planning to write help for each section of a form, explaining the purpose of that section. We are also in the process of hiding sections by default, if they do not have any mandatory fields. If a field is shifted from one section to another, it defeats the purpose of section specific help. However, you can move your custom fields, since they will not be featured in the help.

If a field is not desired to be used, you can simply hide it.

We are not going to implement pop-up helps as they are distracting and do not serve their purpose on touch interfaces. We will write appropriate descriptions for each field and section of a form. There will be a short help about the form on the right hand side bar of the form. We are also planning to auto generate help based on description of each field, section and form so that it can be searchable.

In conclusion, only standard field re-ordering is going to be restricted, and in exchange, the users will get shorter forms and context specific help.

I hope this allays your concerns.

Thanks,
Anand.



On Tue, Mar 13, 2012 at 4:29 PM, robert <be...@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi,

I believe this goes in the wrong direction!
ERPNext is a very complex and complete system that can fulfill the
need of a wide range of users: small construction companies,
(web)shops, import/export, etc.

It will be, I believe, impossible to have uniform input docs appealing
to all users, there are just to many different
preferences,priorities,needs.

One of the nice thing was the (limited) capabilities of ERPNext to
customize docs and tables. I have used this a lot, and still have a
number of customisations i intend to do.

Design considerations should not govern user-friendliness.

I understand that complete interactive "help balloons" or similar are
difficult to programme with non uniform form definitions among users.

I believe there are plenty of alternative solutions, furthermore, a
good help is not necessary related to modern interactive help design,
but good content (covering all aspects of the software) is more
important.

I have pressed the issue of good documentation many times and this is
still very high on my priority list.

However, to sacrifice customization to get "interactive help pop-up"
is for me not a step aheas, but one back!!
There are plenty of alternatives: a good help system, with search and
index as common in many software programmes, a linked full page with
detailed descriprions of the meaning and functionality of fields and
other relevant things like what happens during an transaction
(submit).
Besides, improving the "descriptions" field in the form viewer (there
are still many fields not having a description at all) would already
tremendously improve the user experience, with they advantage that it
can easily be translated in another language (with some key fields i
gave made a dutch transaltion.

In summary, I believe that the advantage of "help pop-ups/balloons/or
similar" is not outweighing the disadvantage of having a static
screen, that should satisfy thus all users, and as a consequence leave
many of us frustrated. The time investment to have such a modern "pop-
up" design I would rather invest in writing good documentation, well
structured, index,searchable.

In contrary, i would improve the customization eg. allow a section to
be "folded in" by default.

regards Robert











On Mar 13, 8:51 am, Rushabh Mehta <rm...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> We plan to remove the feature that allows you to re-arrange fields in a form. Here is why:
>
> We are planning to include a lot of "inline" and later "contextual" help in the form that will be totally messed up if you re-arrange the fields.
>
> If you feel that you have a strong reason why a particular field should be up or down, please send it across to us and I am sure we will update it in the product if it will be helpful to other users too.
>
> Note, your arrangement for "custom" fields will remain as it is. Custom fields are added "after" a particular field so you need not be worried about them.
>
> Please let us know if you have any comments on this.
>
> best regards,
> Rushabh
>
> -----------------------------------------------------
> ERPNext - Business Operating System
>
> W:https://erpnext.com
> T: @rushabh_mehta

4

Ok, perfect, it does take away my concerns.
All the best, Robert

On Mar 13, 12:51 pm, Anand Doshi an...@iwebnotes.com wrote:

Hi Robert,

We are planning to restring the movement of fields within a form and not
the rest of the customization. You will still be able to hide fields in
form, print and reports. You will be able to change the label, description,
default etc. as you can still do in Customize Form.

We are planning to write help for each section of a form, explaining the
purpose of that section. We are also in the process of hiding sections by
default, if they do not have any mandatory fields. If a field is shifted
from one section to another, it defeats the purpose of section specific
help. However, you can move your custom fields, since they will not be
featured in the help.

If a field is not desired to be used, you can simply hide it.

We are not going to implement pop-up helps as they are distracting and do
not serve their purpose on touch interfaces. We will write appropriate
descriptions for each field and section of a form. There will be a short
help about the form on the right hand side bar of the form. We are also
planning to auto generate help based on description of each field, section
and form so that it can be searchable.

In conclusion, only standard field re-ordering is going to be restricted,
and in exchange, the users will get shorter forms and context specific help.

I hope this allays your concerns.

Thanks,
Anand.

On Tue, Mar 13, 2012 at 4:29 PM, robert be...@gmail.com wrote:

Hi,

I believe this goes in the wrong direction!
ERPNext is a very complex and complete system that can fulfill the
need of a wide range of users: small construction companies,
(web)shops, import/export, etc.

It will be, I believe, impossible to have uniform input docs appealing
to all users, there are just to many different
preferences,priorities,needs.

One of the nice thing was the (limited) capabilities of ERPNext to
customize docs and tables. I have used this a lot, and still have a
number of customisations i intend to do.

Design considerations should not govern user-friendliness.

I understand that complete interactive “help balloons” or similar are
difficult to programme with non uniform form definitions among users.

I believe there are plenty of alternative solutions, furthermore, a
good help is not necessary related to modern interactive help design,
but good content (covering all aspects of the software) is more
important.

I have pressed the issue of good documentation many times and this is
still very high on my priority list.

However, to sacrifice customization to get “interactive help pop-up”
is for me not a step aheas, but one back!!
There are plenty of alternatives: a good help system, with search and
index as common in many software programmes, a linked full page with
detailed descriprions of the meaning and functionality of fields and
other relevant things like what happens during an transaction
(submit).
Besides, improving the “descriptions” field in the form viewer (there
are still many fields not having a description at all) would already
tremendously improve the user experience, with they advantage that it
can easily be translated in another language (with some key fields i
gave made a dutch transaltion.

In summary, I believe that the advantage of “help pop-ups/balloons/or
similar” is not outweighing the disadvantage of having a static
screen, that should satisfy thus all users, and as a consequence leave
many of us frustrated. The time investment to have such a modern “pop-
up” design I would rather invest in writing good documentation, well
structured, index,searchable.

In contrary, i would improve the customization eg. allow a section to
be “folded in” by default.

regards Robert

On Mar 13, 8:51 am, Rushabh Mehta rm...@gmail.com wrote:

Dear all,

We plan to remove the feature that allows you to re-arrange fields in a
form. Here is why:

We are planning to include a lot of “inline” and later “contextual” help
in the form that will be totally messed up if you re-arrange the fields.

If you feel that you have a strong reason why a particular field should
be up or down, please send it across to us and I am sure we will update it
in the product if it will be helpful to other users too.

Note, your arrangement for “custom” fields will remain as it is. Custom
fields are added “after” a particular field so you need not be worried
about them.

Please let us know if you have any comments on this.

best regards,
Rushabh

ERPNext - Business Operating System

W:https://erpnext.com
T: @rushabh_mehta

5

If its only documentation and section help that defeats the purpose of offering flexibility on re-positioning the fields / field sequence, I think that would be a move in view of new users and the benefit that will be arrived at for them to understand different sections, fields, etc.


But for those who have been doing a little bit of fine tuning on their own system, this move would come to them quit rigidly, disallowing them to further fine tune. But Over and above, there might be a unanimous decision making protocol and we as users believe that it is in the benefit of further stabilizing and improving quality of the system, and on the basis of this, it will be the user community's endeavour to support.


Regards,
Mahesh



On Tue, Mar 13, 2012 at 7:11 PM, robert <be…@gmail.com> wrote:

Ok, perfect, it does take away my concerns.
All the best, Robert

On Mar 13, 12:51 pm, Anand Doshi <an...@iwebnotes.com> wrote:
> Hi Robert,
>
> We are planning to restring the movement of fields within a form and not
> the rest of the customization. You will still be able to hide fields in
> form, print and reports. You will be able to change the label, description,
> default etc. as you can still do in Customize Form.
>
> We are planning to write help for each section of a form, explaining the
> purpose of that section. We are also in the process of hiding sections by
> default, if they do not have any mandatory fields. If a field is shifted
> from one section to another, it defeats the purpose of section specific
> help. However, you can move your custom fields, since they will not be
> featured in the help.
>
> If a field is not desired to be used, you can simply hide it.
>
> We are not going to implement pop-up helps as they are distracting and do
> not serve their purpose on touch interfaces. We will write appropriate
> descriptions for each field and section of a form. There will be a short
> help about the form on the right hand side bar of the form. We are also
> planning to auto generate help based on description of each field, section
> and form so that it can be searchable.
>
> In conclusion, only standard field re-ordering is going to be restricted,
> and in exchange, the users will get shorter forms and context specific help.
>
> I hope this allays your concerns.
>
> Thanks,
> Anand.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, Mar 13, 2012 at 4:29 PM, robert <be...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hi,
>
> > I believe this goes in the wrong direction!
> > ERPNext is a very complex and complete system that can fulfill the
> > need of a wide range of users: small construction companies,
> > (web)shops, import/export, etc.
>
> > It will be, I believe, impossible to have uniform input docs appealing
> > to all users, there are just to many different
> > preferences,priorities,needs.
>
> > One of the nice thing was the (limited) capabilities of ERPNext to
> > customize docs and tables. I have used this a lot, and still have a
> > number of customisations i intend to do.
>
> > Design considerations should not govern user-friendliness.
>
> > I understand that complete interactive "help balloons" or similar are
> > difficult to programme with non uniform form definitions among users.
>
> > I believe there are plenty of alternative solutions, furthermore, a
> > good help is not necessary related to modern interactive help design,
> > but good content (covering all aspects of the software) is more
> > important.
>
> > I have pressed the issue of good documentation many times and this is
> > still very high on my priority list.
>
> > However, to sacrifice customization to get "interactive help pop-up"
> > is for me not a step aheas, but one back!!
> > There are plenty of alternatives: a good help system, with search and
> > index as common in many software programmes, a linked full page with
> > detailed descriprions of the meaning and functionality of fields and
> > other relevant things like what happens during an transaction
> > (submit).
> > Besides, improving the "descriptions" field in the form viewer (there
> > are still many fields not having a description at all) would already
> > tremendously improve the user experience, with they advantage that it
> > can easily be translated in another language (with some key fields i
> > gave made a dutch transaltion.
>
> > In summary, I believe that the advantage of "help pop-ups/balloons/or
> > similar" is not outweighing the disadvantage of having a static
> > screen, that should satisfy thus all users, and as a consequence leave
> > many of us frustrated. The time investment to have such a modern "pop-
> > up" design I would rather invest in writing good documentation, well
> > structured, index,searchable.
>
> > In contrary, i would improve the customization eg. allow a section to
> > be "folded in" by default.
>
> > regards Robert
>
> > On Mar 13, 8:51 am, Rushabh Mehta <rm...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Dear all,
>
> > > We plan to remove the feature that allows you to re-arrange fields in a
> > form. Here is why:
>
> > > We are planning to include a lot of "inline" and later "contextual" help
> > in the form that will be totally messed up if you re-arrange the fields.
>
> > > If you feel that you have a strong reason why a particular field should
> > be up or down, please send it across to us and I am sure we will update it
> > in the product if it will be helpful to other users too.
>
> > > Note, your arrangement for "custom" fields will remain as it is. Custom
> > fields are added "after" a particular field so you need not be worried
> > about them.
>
> > > Please let us know if you have any comments on this.
>
> > > best regards,
> > > Rushabh
>
> > > -----------------------------------------------------
> > > ERPNext - Business Operating System
>
> > > W:https://erpnext.com
> > > T: @rushabh_mehta

6

Hi,


I believe fine tuning was required at that time in order to make the form entry more efficient. However, in the next release, we are providing the ability to collapse sections by default which do not have any mandatory fields. This further requires that the fields be present in the appropriate sections. Any field positioning which will help majority of the users will be appreciated. We realize that the forms are long and hence we are working on improving the user experience of it.


Please send in the field placements which you think should be otherwise and a reason accompanying the same.

We will take them into account if its feasible to do so.

Thanks,
Anand Doshi.
Developer, ERPNext.



On Wed, Mar 14, 2012 at 10:44 AM, Mahesh <ma...@maheshengg.com> wrote:
If its only documentation and section help that defeats the purpose of offering flexibility on re-positioning the fields / field sequence, I think that would be a move in view of new users and the benefit that will be arrived at for them to understand different sections, fields, etc.


But for those who have been doing a little bit of fine tuning on their own system, this move would come to them quit rigidly, disallowing them to further fine tune. But Over and above, there might be a unanimous decision making protocol and we as users believe that it is in the benefit of further stabilizing and improving quality of the system, and on the basis of this, it will be the user community's endeavour to support.


Regards,
Mahesh





On Tue, Mar 13, 2012 at 7:11 PM, robert <be…@gmail.com> wrote:

Ok, perfect, it does take away my concerns.
All the best, Robert

On Mar 13, 12:51 pm, Anand Doshi <an...@iwebnotes.com> wrote:
> Hi Robert,
>
> We are planning to restring the movement of fields within a form and not
> the rest of the customization. You will still be able to hide fields in
> form, print and reports. You will be able to change the label, description,
> default etc. as you can still do in Customize Form.
>
> We are planning to write help for each section of a form, explaining the
> purpose of that section. We are also in the process of hiding sections by
> default, if they do not have any mandatory fields. If a field is shifted
> from one section to another, it defeats the purpose of section specific
> help. However, you can move your custom fields, since they will not be
> featured in the help.
>
> If a field is not desired to be used, you can simply hide it.
>
> We are not going to implement pop-up helps as they are distracting and do
> not serve their purpose on touch interfaces. We will write appropriate
> descriptions for each field and section of a form. There will be a short
> help about the form on the right hand side bar of the form. We are also
> planning to auto generate help based on description of each field, section
> and form so that it can be searchable.
>
> In conclusion, only standard field re-ordering is going to be restricted,
> and in exchange, the users will get shorter forms and context specific help.
>
> I hope this allays your concerns.
>
> Thanks,
> Anand.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, Mar 13, 2012 at 4:29 PM, robert <be...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hi,
>
> > I believe this goes in the wrong direction!
> > ERPNext is a very complex and complete system that can fulfill the
> > need of a wide range of users: small construction companies,
> > (web)shops, import/export, etc.
>
> > It will be, I believe, impossible to have uniform input docs appealing
> > to all users, there are just to many different
> > preferences,priorities,needs.
>
> > One of the nice thing was the (limited) capabilities of ERPNext to
> > customize docs and tables. I have used this a lot, and still have a
> > number of customisations i intend to do.
>
> > Design considerations should not govern user-friendliness.
>
> > I understand that complete interactive "help balloons" or similar are
> > difficult to programme with non uniform form definitions among users.
>
> > I believe there are plenty of alternative solutions, furthermore, a
> > good help is not necessary related to modern interactive help design,
> > but good content (covering all aspects of the software) is more
> > important.
>
> > I have pressed the issue of good documentation many times and this is
> > still very high on my priority list.
>
> > However, to sacrifice customization to get "interactive help pop-up"
> > is for me not a step aheas, but one back!!
> > There are plenty of alternatives: a good help system, with search and
> > index as common in many software programmes, a linked full page with
> > detailed descriprions of the meaning and functionality of fields and
> > other relevant things like what happens during an transaction
> > (submit).
> > Besides, improving the "descriptions" field in the form viewer (there
> > are still many fields not having a description at all) would already
> > tremendously improve the user experience, with they advantage that it
> > can easily be translated in another language (with some key fields i
> > gave made a dutch transaltion.
>
> > In summary, I believe that the advantage of "help pop-ups/balloons/or
> > similar" is not outweighing the disadvantage of having a static
> > screen, that should satisfy thus all users, and as a consequence leave
> > many of us frustrated. The time investment to have such a modern "pop-
> > up" design I would rather invest in writing good documentation, well
> > structured, index,searchable.
>
> > In contrary, i would improve the customization eg. allow a section to
> > be "folded in" by default.
>
> > regards Robert
>
> > On Mar 13, 8:51 am, Rushabh Mehta <rm...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Dear all,
>
> > > We plan to remove the feature that allows you to re-arrange fields in a
> > form. Here is why:
>
> > > We are planning to include a lot of "inline" and later "contextual" help
> > in the form that will be totally messed up if you re-arrange the fields.
>
> > > If you feel that you have a strong reason why a particular field should
> > be up or down, please send it across to us and I am sure we will update it
> > in the product if it will be helpful to other users too.
>
> > > Note, your arrangement for "custom" fields will remain as it is. Custom
> > fields are added "after" a particular field so you need not be worried
> > about them.
>
> > > Please let us know if you have any comments on this.
>
> > > best regards,
> > > Rushabh
>
> > > -----------------------------------------------------
> > > ERPNext - Business Operating System
>
> > > W:https://erpnext.com
> > > T: @rushabh_mehta