Thank You Dgrin Community!

mbonocore

Hi All,

Well, I must be honest, today was insane. I did not expect the amount of customers, both long time and new, who wrote us, telling us how much they loved the new SmugMug, as well as some explaining their biggest pain points. Bottom line, we are listening to ALL of your feedback, good and bad. I was not able to be on dgrin much today, but boy, was it alive! It did excite me to see the amount of new threads, asking questions and telling us their feelings on the new site. I will be working full bore tomorrow to respond to as many questions and feedback as possible. My apologies for not getting to all of it today. Please feel free to post your thoughts and questions in this post if you want me to see them quickly, but otherwise I will be going through everything front and back tomorrow.

Thank you again for displaying the passion that makes this community so great. We don't need to always agree on everything, but intelligent, thoughtful conversation and problem solving will be key to getting all of you to use the new SmugMug in the way that best suits your needs.

Talk tomorrow!

Michael

Allen

What the community needs is a list of all things brought up so they can check what's in the works.
It would negate multiple posting on the same thing.
Perhaps something like this.

1. problem status Dgrin link

JBHotShots

I'm sure that would be a heck of an undertaking but well worth it in the end.

rovhazman

Another vote for such list. It will be very useful and will make it easier to find the problem (instead of starting a new thread about it).

BTW, Thanks for your great work! I am still not sure about the new interface, but I am sure you put a lot of effort to make it better and you will address the problems.

mbonocore

Hi Allen,

Great, I will see what I can come up with. As Jaime said, it would be alot of work, and might interfere with tackling tickets, so I will start it on the side and see how it works into my workflow. The other problem is, alot of questions simply aren't just simple one line problems. The are complex use case scenarios that would not be easy to describe in a line. I will definitely start this though, but I also want to make sure it doesn't interfere with my prompt responses on dgrin.

Thanks Rovhazman!!! This is fresh to the world, so yes, we understand there will be problems, but the beauty of the new SM is it is MUCH easier for engineers to work on in the backend then Old SmugMug, so we can tackle these issues quicker and more efficiently.

JL Photo

HTML CSS Library
I think that creating a HTML CSS Library with bits of code that have been tested along with some instructions would go a long way towards easing some of the frustrations people are having with their current customizations.

After reading trough most of the postings I see some common concerns.

Menu customizations, especially drop downs.

Slide shows in Galleries and full screen slide shows. more functions, image size, control

Buttons, custom size, shape, function, and placement

More flexibility when placing blocks.

General customization instructions. Everyone is experimenting blindly. It would be nice to have more info

paulbrock

Biggest issue for me is the removal of our ability to use custom contact forms. The default one is yuck, and offers no customisation. That's fine if its once every couple of months "hey can I buy this photo in this size?", but for those of us that get most of our bookings/ livelihood from following up contacts from a smugmug site, its not acceptable.

We need our Wufoo forms back!

JL Photo

New Smugmug Suport Forum
I think It may bet time to start a new forum dealing specifically with the New Smugmug, You could create stickies for the 5 or 6 most common topics and assign heroes with experience in that area to manage each one. This would reduce e-mails and repeat questions.

Slide show
Navigation
Buttons
linking to external sites
Lost data, images, statistics

WinsomeWorks

JL Photo wrote: »

I think It may bet time to start a new forum dealing specifically with the New Smugmug, You could create stickies for the 5 or 6 most common topics and assign heroes with experience in that area to manage each one. This would reduce e-mails and repeat questions.

Slide show
Navigation
Buttons
linking to external sites
Lost data, images, statistics

Now what an incredibly smart idea!! Alan's thoughts about organizing these New Smug problems could possibly even work well in concert with your idea, depending on how the links were used.

JamesGPhoto

mbonocore wrote: »

Hi All,

Well, I must be honest, today was insane. I did not expect the amount of customers, both long time and new, who wrote us, telling us how much they loved the new SmugMug, as well as some explaining their biggest pain points. Bottom line, we are listening to ALL of your feedback, good and bad. I was not able to be on dgrin much today, but boy, was it alive! It did excite me to see the amount of new threads, asking questions and telling us their feelings on the new site. I will be working full bore tomorrow to respond to as many questions and feedback as possible. My apologies for not getting to all of it today. Please feel free to post your thoughts and questions in this post if you want me to see them quickly, but otherwise I will be going through everything front and back tomorrow.

Thank you again for displaying the passion that makes this community so great. We don't need to always agree on everything, but intelligent, thoughtful conversation and problem solving will be key to getting all of you to use the new SmugMug in the way that best suits your needs.

Talk tomorrow!

Michael

A few Cons and a huge THANK YOU!!!!!

CONS

I saw your Google Hangout, and I am so not pleased with the blogging solutions you talked about, I really hope that this is an area you guys will focus on next.

Forms - I'd like to be able to add forms to my site

Possible calendar feature

______________________________

I want to publicly thank Mr. Bonocore. I've been very loud here on dgrin, and he's dealt with alot from me alone. haha I am overall very pleased with the new design, and am now PROUD to call Smugmug my home!!! Outstanding job, Mr. Bonocore and team, I saulute you!

BigRed

Documentation, documentation, documentation! Tutorials and complete Help pages are sorely needed. Then you can just direct most of the questions there = Huge time and frustration savings for everyone.

Andy

BigRed wrote: »

Documentation, documentation, documentation! Tutorials and complete Help pages are sorely needed. Then you can just direct most of the questions there = Huge time and frustration savings for everyone.

Have you looked here?

http://help.smugmug.com/customer/portal/topics/538899-new-smugmug-transition/articles

BigRed

Andy wrote: »

Have you looked here?

http://help.smugmug.com/customer/portal/topics/538899-new-smugmug-transition/articles

Yes, of course, I read every word yesterday. And I found so many gaps that need filling.

WinsomeWorks

Andy wrote: »

Have you looked here?

http://help.smugmug.com/customer/portal/topics/538899-new-smugmug-transition/articles

It would certainly be helpful it this (and any help like it) could be posted in a Sticky at the top of several forums for now. Sheesh, you'd think that would be about Step 3 after launch. It's clear a lot of people don't even have a clue where to look for this info, as I see a lot of questions about these very things.

mbonocore

All great feedback! I will look into creating more dgrin forums to try to make it a little cleaner.

While very happy about how yesterday went, we received ALOT of attention. New customers, loads of migrating customers, tons of notes of well wishes, and tons of emails to the Heroes for help in setting up their new SmugMug sites. Do we need more help pages and documentation? You betcha. We are working on them as fast as we can, but it is a big task, and we are all helping out on the Support Desk as well.

This is a BRAND new SmugMug. Everything has been redesigned and rebuilt from the ground up, as I am sure you can tell when you play around. Will there be issues? Yes, of course. Will we bust our tails to get every issue fixed? Oh yes. Will we take in EVERY piece of feedback from our loyal, and very opinionated customers? YES! That is how SmugMug was built, and this is how the future SmugMug will continue to evolve.

Please remember, this is a brand new product. We built the New SmugMug with the technology and the base that we can more easily and efficiently fix bugs and develop new features. I can't count how many times I went in the "pit" to talk to one of the engineers about an issue, and they literally fix it right there on the spot. This is a new era. We are fired up, and your passion is feeding our excitement even more. Please understand it may take time to develop into the exact product that fits your needs, but we think we gave you a pretty good starting base. This is only the beginning.

James, no worries buddy. You always give me a good smack when I need it