Publish a "New Feature Rollout Timeline"

[Neely]

I'd like to suggest that Click and Pledge publish a "New Feature Rollout Timeline". This way we'll know what is coming up and won't look elsewhere if there is a particular feature we want that isn't currently available in Click and Pledge, but may be down the pipeline.

A few features my organization would really like to see are:

-An "Organization" field on payment pages that will populate the "Organization" field in Salesforce.
-PDF tickets and badges, with bar codes that can be scanned to track attendance for the Salesforce Event Management App
-A widget for donations and ticket sales on facebook

Then there are other things such as forms for Wordpress and Drupal that I've heard are in the works, but am not sure when to expect a release date.

Thanks. We love Click and Pledge!
Neely

[CnP.Support]

Neely,

Thank your for your suggestion & note.

It is not quite practical for companies to publish such information for more than one or two reasons. Here are a few:

• Public Relations: Releases are quite complex and delays are always expected. Once we create expectations then customers start demanding the releases and with today's social environment where the minority has the loudest voice it becomes a bit of PR issue. We have over 250 partners that use our products for all their clients - for these partners we have monthly meetings where we discuss upcoming features and demo the releases in alpha stage. These webinars are for partners only and are not to be discussed outside our partner circle.
• Issues outside of our control: To give you an example, we started integrating with a third party product for a feature to be included in release 8.0 - after spending 2 months in development we were told by Salesforce that we cannot provide integration with this product due to issues that I can't discuss in this forum. Considering the feature is an essential part of release 8.0 we had to change course and integrate with a competing product, which means starting all over. This delayed the launch by over one month. Had we discussed these features in the open we would have created expectations that could not be met.
• Testing: Currently Click & Pledge is integrated with a large number of applications and in Salesforce this is a bit challenging with NPSP and our integration partners. Every release has to be tested with NPSP and those partners that have integrated our API Class Library and products inside their products. Ensuring that all work together prior to release results in delay of a ready-to-be-released app.
• Competition: While we truly believe we don't have competition in the space we specialize in, our features and offerings may be copied in bits prior to our release. It is important for competitive reasons to keep these releases private until close to the release date.

We are working hard to release our products in a timely manner and keep our clients informed of the upcoming releases. While the above list is just a few of the obvious reasons I am sure you can think of others where being a little fast in making announcements can create problems.

Both of the features you indicated in your email are being worked on. The Organization mapping feature is a bit complex and one that we have spent a lot of time with. It is currently added to our core API and FaaS fields but not yet published, in other words it is live and working but not announced. Integration of these feature in Salesforce in a "real-time" environment is a bit complex. Here is a bit of issues that we have to think about:

IBM = International Business Machine (nobody uses the full name anymore but just so you see the point)
Microsoft = Microsoft, Inc.
etc.

Companies don't have a unique name and just like people's names companies with the same name may be totally different companies. How many Smith & Sons (see example) may one find in the country? So names cannot be used as unique identifies.

One may use the Employer ID as a unique ID but asking a donor to recall or use another variable will only delay the donation process and may cause abandoning the payment. The less we ask the faster the form works and the more chance of completion of a form by the donor.

So the idea that is currently being worked on will add more interaction by you, the Salesforce admin. Going through the Temporary Account one has to identify which account should the transaction go to. Then the question is:

• Should all donations go through the account check? what if the account is blank?
• What happens when 2 companies have the same name?
• What if a donor uses a company name that is already in the system but is not the same company?
• What about companies that have multiple locations or are multi-nationals? IBM-Germany (http://www.ibm.com/de/de/) , IBM-US (IBM.com)

As you see this is not an easy task and not as trivial as one may think. While you may have a specific use and always operate a certain way other clients do things differently. In my life I have seen many companies operating the same way but have not seen two non-profits operate the same way.

Sorry for the long email but I wanted to address your questions and suggestions.

[Neely]

Dear Click & Pledge Support,

Thank you for your email and its length. You've helped me see why what I thought was a simple request, isn't really simple and I appreciate the time you took to provide a thorough explanation.

I'm glad to know that some of the features we're looking for are being worked on. In the meantime we'll continue to use checkout pages for events so we can have the tickets and the badges. Doing so certainly isn't a bad compromise as we can still get all the information we need into Salesforce.

Thank you again!
Neely