Realigning Priorities
I want to thank everyone who has been providing us with such valuable feedback in the past couple of days. We have received a lot of positive and constructive comments from those that are using Unfuddle Alchemy. From others, we have also heard a number of fears.
Perhaps our future plans need some further explanation...
The current Unfuddle app works very well for many teams. However, some teams have had trouble using Unfuddle within their existing workflows and methodologies. Over the years, the software development toolchain has changed a lot. Methodologies have come and gone. People's expectations have evolved. The current Unfuddle app approaches software project management in a very specific way, but there are some teams who just need something different.
The tools we are developing in Unfuddle Alchemy address some of the needs that our customers have expressed through the years. For some teams, the new tools in Unfuddle Alchemy may be just the thing they have been looking for. Other teams may be completely satisfied with the way that the existing Unfuddle app helps them with their work. This is perfectly fine.
I want to make it clear, we are not abandoning the current Unfuddle app in any way. We are absolutely committed to actively updating and supporting it.
That being said, we have not been great at balancing our time between new and existing products. Perhaps we spent too much time on new things to the detriment of the existing. We were simply excited about Unfuddle Alchemy and convinced that these new tools would be beneficial to so many teams. But we hear your fears and are committed to you, our customers. For example, we have heard loud and clear that site performance has been a problem. We are going to fix it. As of today, we are committing as a team to resolve these performance issues. Part of our team is shifting focus from Unfuddle Alchemy in order to get this done. Be watching for updates...
In the meantime, keep the feedback coming!
Happy to hear that you guys are listening and are refocusing to improve the existing offer. I have also been frustrated lately with the response times.
Also looking forward to testing Alchemy to see if we can use any of the new features.
Custom ticket states and transitions are big on my list. I hope you keep smart comment parsing so I can automate some transitions based on changeset comments.
I have been using milestones and tickets with severity "Feature" to organize my iterations and the backlog in my agile dev process. I have to calculate feature points and iteration velocity manually. I am wondering if Alchemy has any tools for helping the Agile process.
After reading some of angry comments on forums about lack of communication, I want make rather different comment.
We love Unfuddle as it is and we had not a single issue using it for a few years. Sure, it would be nice to have some improvements here and there but it's not critical - the service does what it was supposed to be doing and works as advertised. We don't expect new features added every month and we don't want complexity added by introducing new features. When management becomes more complicated than development, the management needs to be replaced or better even removed. One of the reasons I selected Unfuddle in the first place is it's simplicity and clarity unlike magnitude of bloated software packages around the web today.
Please keep Unfuddle going and thank you for the great value you created so far.
While Alchemy looks quite interesting, I have to say I am more anxious for the site improvements to be made to the current site. The speed and response time has become increasingly infuriating over the past few months. Really like what Unfuddle offers and don't want to abandon it, but certainly want and expect to see some improvements in the coming months.
I'm a customer for 3 or 4 years now, or 5 to 6 counting other accounts i was involved in the past, how could you think you know better than us what we want, when we are paying you for 3 to 5 years your service????
Did you think that if we are paying each month for years, is because we like the service?
we didn't see any Ideas or Suggestions panel as others do, you should, but 3 or 4 years ago, now you are late and others are running fast
hope you have luck with Alchemy but sounds like you are going to enter in big troubles in spite of saving users
good luck with that, we are working with Assembla right now that is not great, just because you don't hear users, you are good, you could be great, but you are becoming too normal
thank you, we are really with you, 4 years it's a lot of time, but your explanations are not enough
go working on fixing and making a better actual product, not recreating the wheel!!!
Oscar
It's nice to know you guys and gals are still alive! For me the biggest single problem with unfuddle is the (almost complete) lack of communication you have with your users.
Where was our chance to help shape these changes? Seems to me you just went away and did it without garnering the opinions of the most important people, your users!
I agree with some of the other comments, one of the main things I like about unfuddle is the fact it isn't over-complicated and doesn't drive you towards any given methodology. I hope those 2 things remain true of Alchemy.
I'm certainly glad to see that unfuddle is being developed and am tentatively looking forward to seeing the changes, but if you could grant me one wish it would be to engage more with your users and to give us a better method for reporting issues and bugs and for suggesting changes and new features. Of course if you do do that then it's equally important to actually spend some time addressing the issues/suggestions.
We have always welcomed feedback either through email or the feedback form within the app. We read and reply to all comments and requests for feature additions or improvements. As indicated above, it's exactly this feedback that has been key in informing our decisions throughout the evolution of Unfuddle.
Please feel free to email us at support@unfuddle.com or submit any comments you may have through the "Feedback" form found in the right-hand sidebar in various places throughout the Unfuddle interface. You can also find us on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/unfuddle">@unfuddle</a> or on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/unfuddle">Facebook</a>. We want to know what you think.