IRIS's own Customer Forum

Posted by Euan MacLennan PM | on Tue, 02/08/2011 - 14:09 1220 5 comments | report

I would guess that many members of this discussion group would also belong to the IRIS Accountancy Practice Discussion Forum and might expect it to be a quicker route to getting IRIS to change things, rather than discussing the problems on AWeb. However, the IRIS Forum seems to be a particularly somnolent place. IRIS staff leave it for days, if not weeks, if ever, to respond to points raised, so they do not seem to pay much attention to it, and users seem to have lost the will to make any posts. For example, the last response from a user was a week ago on 26th July and the latest new topic was raised nearly two weeks ago on 20th July.

Anyone have any views? Anyone else prepared to try to revitalise the IRIS forum by making posts? I have tried, but don't seem to have got very far.

Comments

Why bother?

colinhigginson | Tue, 02/08/2011 - 14:50 | Permalink

It was set up as a route to open dialogue with IRIS so that they can make improvements. However, as they don't feedback it just makes posting on it pointless.

It is about the same as their support line lately. Their customer support has become shocking. I deal with some of the IT here, and the number of times I get a member of our team saying "IRIS have said I need to do this, can you help?" They tell you to do something and say call back if you have a problem, where as 2 or 3 years ago they used to talk you through solving the issue.

Trouble is, the software is still so damned good!

I tend to agree

Paul Scholes | Tue, 02/08/2011 - 15:24 | Permalink

I have had a similar experience. Both Iris & users made an effort at the start and I still believe it can and should be a good way of interaction but my own view is that the structure lets it down. I login and sometimes am unsure where I should put my question or comment, in other words it's not as slick & UF as other sites I've used.

The best forum I've used is FreeAgent's Community support (hosted I think by Get Satisfaction) http://community.freeagentcentral.com/freeagentcentral you do feel you are part of it all and get extremely rapid responses & comments by their team & other users.

Update

Euan MacLennan | Mon, 08/08/2011 - 11:16 | Permalink

Kip Wright, IRIS Customer Services Director, sent me a PM almost by return on the same day that I posted this topic. It seems that he keeps a closer eye on the AWeb IRIS group than he does on his own IRIS Customer Forum! He said that he would look into putting up a webpage to disclose what would/might be in the next release, but said nothing about my main hobby horse of a structured data screen to eliminate most of the manual iXBRL tagging in related party notes for loans from and dividends paid to directors or about introducing a specialised chart and report for residents' management companies and service charges.

However, there has been a small burst of activity on the IRIS Customer Forum or at least, on the topics that I have raised.

I haven't ever been on the

clegganator | Wed, 10/08/2011 - 10:45 | Permalink

I haven't ever been on the customer forum. Is there a place to suggest things for the next release? I've noticed a few inconsistencies that I'd like to see changed just to make it easier to use. May as well mention them here anyway as I'll get heard!

AP gives a file name relating to the PDF you are generating, whereas BT and PT sometimes don't and instead use the filename you used last.

AP's posting screen is not attached to the main window whereas BT & PT bits are. A silly little thing but I use software called WinSplit which lets me move windows side by side (my screen is big enough to almost have two normal full screen windows) and having the posting window seperate messes this up.

The forum link ...

Old Greying Acc... | Wed, 10/08/2011 - 11:21 | Permalink

... is in the customer support tab, not the most accessible place, it should have a link on all pages IMHO.