More Navigation Problems

Our company continues to be plagued with problems related to navigating records.

Here are the primary areas where we have these issues:

1 - Potentials Module

When we open a record in a custom View and try to use the Arrow Navigation buttons in the upper right hand corner of the record to advance to the next or previous record in the sort order we often get an error message saying we are "Already in the First/last record" even when we are not. So far he only solution that Zoho has offered is to open the criteria for the view, change something, save the view, re-open the view criteria, change it back to the original criteria, re-save the view. After having up to 29 users do this about twice a week we are pretty fed up with having to waste time on this. We have reported this problem MANY times in phone calls with Zoho and we have done Zoho Meeting Sessions to demonstrate the problem.

2 - Potentials Module

Intermittently we have an issue when we open a record for editing and make a change. Once the change is saved and we try to advance to the next or previous record using the buttons in the upper right hand corner we do not advance to the next record. Instead we advance to some random record. I suspect that this may be related to the specific field that is edited. For example, if we change an order probability from 50% to 75% and try to advance to the next record in the original list I believe the records may be re-sorted. In other words, if the original view is sorted ascending or descending order by a field if you edit that field in a record it moves you to an new place in the list. this is VERY aggravating, because it forces you to go back to the original view and then navigate to the desired record manually.

3 - Accounts Module

When you refine the view in the accounts module either using a search parameter or by selecting a letter of the alphabet the navigation arrows in the upper right hand corner do not work when you open an individual record.

For example, I click on the Letter "F", then select the record "Fred". If I try to use the arrow keys to advance to the next record "Fritz" it takes me instead to the second record in the master list "Abigail" - regardless of which arrow button I click.

These problems are ongoing. They occur regardless of the browser platform. I have seen the problem using FireFox (multiple versions - including current), Google Chrome (Most current version) and IE Explorer.

HOW MUCH DOES THIS "ANNOYANCE" COST?

Using a rough estimate based on our number of users (29), the frequency of the problem (roughly 2 - 3 times per day) and the lost time it takes to undo the navigation errors (about 1/2 minute on average) the lost time is REALLY adding up.

Here is the simple math:

29 users * 2 problems per day = 58 Incidents per day

58 incidents * 0.5 min per incident = 29 minutes of lost time per day

29 minutes of lost time per day * 250 work days per year = 7,250 minutes per year

7,250 minutes per year / 60 minutes per hour = 120.833 HOURS per year (that's equivalent to three WEEKS of labor)

Now multiply that times the hourly wage. For simplicity, let's use $10/hour ( a fairly conservative burdened labor rate in the US - our company's rate is MUCH higher).

That means that the productivity cost to our company is at least $1,208 per year.

And due to the frustration factor it is also causing issues with people using Zoho CRM at all. They are losing confidence in the system, and as a result they put off working in that environment. I can't even put a number of THAT cost.

I am slowly but surely losing patience with the CRM development team.