Refreshing the Entry Manager

In addition to the [new payment features](/2007/10/01/hello-google-checkout-and-authorizenet/), we are very excited to release a new version of Wufoo’s Entry Manager. It’s a complete rewrite from the ground up and we think it’s a winner. We always felt the old interface was more of a rough draft of how we wanted to have Wufoo help users explore and browse their collected data. We’ve been working on it for weeks bringing it in line programatically with our [revised form builder](/2007/07/26/form-building/). It’s brand new and with a lot of nice goodies, so please give it a run through and let us know if anything seems off. A complete list of upgrades and features can be found after the pic.

entry-manager

– **Read Only View** – While forms are great for entering data, they’re hardly the best for viewing it. The new entry manager now allows you to toggle between the old school editing mode and a new easier-on-the-eyes read only mode. All smart fields are displayed in a more convenient format and the underlying structures even use [Microformats](http://microformats.org/) where appropriate (like names, addresses, links and files).

– **Bulk Actions** – In the Entry Manager you can now delete or export all entries in your form with a single click. Thanks to Bulk Actions in our new datagrid, you no longer need to create a separate report every time you need a custom set of data for Excel. Since it’s integrated into the revised datagrid, bulk actions can even be applied to just the filtered search results.

– **Email and Print Entries** – Thanks to the new Email and Print actions, you can now resend an entry to yourself (or anyone else) via email. This data comes in a new, styled email format that takes it’s cue from the new read-only view to help make things easier to process. Tested in all your favorite email programs (Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Apple Mail, Outlook), we think they look great. We’ve also adapted these styles for print, so you can now get your data out and styled in a similar, but printer-friendly analog format.

– **Quicker Navigation** – While you can still page through the grid and click on an entry to select it, we’ve also added a previous and next arrow for individual entries which will allow you to keep the mouse in one spot and just click to incrementally scan through your entries.

– **Quick Search and Better Advanced Search** – While the filter method was nice in the old Entry Manager, sometimes you just wanted to search things quickly and so we’ve added an easy no brainer search bar at the top of the grid that will search all fields for a matching term. If you click on the magnifier / up arrow, you’ll pull up an improved advanced search bar that will help you narrow search conditions at a more granular level. Filtering works the same as before, except now smart filters are applied based on the field type. For example, if you filter a number field, you can now select “Greater than,” “Less than,” or “Equals” as your conditions.

– **Unique URL per Entry** – Each entry now has a bookmarkable URL associated with it. This will allow you to save entries for later and jump straight to them without having to hunt for them in the grid.

– **Improved File Handling** – In the old Entry Manager, the file upload interface stored all attached entries in a module in the sidebar. It was sort of terrible and not intuitive. Thankfully, we’ve put the files where you’d probably expect them right there with the rest of the data, so you can properly associate which field the file belongs to. We’ve also added some nice new icons and additional data about each file when you view them.

– **A More Intuitive Interface** – For the most part, our primary goal for the Entry Manager redesign was to organize tasks and information into appropriate and relevant groups in the UI. The most common actions that you can perform when editing an entry are presented right there at the top. When you’re creating a new entry, everything is cleared out except for the task at hand and comments now have a more prominent role and position in the interface so discussions aren’t hidden from view. A lot of little touches went into this page and we hope you’ll have as much fun using it as we had building it.

Comments

  • Wow….soo soo much better. I love the new entry manager and especially the new emails, they look great! Do the automatic notifications use the new email format as well or only when you manual send from the entry manager?

    My one complaint is that I wish there was a way to specify if you wanted file fields to be password protected. In other words the way it works now when someone gets a wufoo notification, they click on the link to the file, which takes them to wufoo to download it but unless they know the account password they cant get it. We forward along alot of these notification emails around our company and the way we have to do it now is one person has to login, download the attachment, attach it to the email and then forward it along. Would love to be able to set options on form fields in the form edit like “Password protect uploaded files? ” check or no check..

    just a thought, amazing job guys

    Posted October 1st, 2007 by Keith Mancuso.
  • Glad to hear that you like it! We’re happy with the way the new emails turned out also. The reason they haven’t been applied to the notification emails yet is because we want to get some feedback and testing in. Last time we tried to change notification emails, some people were upset over the format, so we’ll make sure this new format has no major downsides before converting over.

    As for files, we do recognize this as a limitation with wufoo and fully intend to improve on it. The hold up is that we can’t implement this feature until our reporting engine gets its next revision.

    Posted October 1st, 2007 by Ryan Campbell.
  • Holy cow this is nice. Great work. wufoo has got to be the most mature web application I’ve ever used. You guys have an amazing rate of development.

    The only suggestion I’d throw in is to have a nice little button on the email popup that allows the account owner to quickly send the email to him or herself. Other than that it’s wicked hot.

    Posted October 1st, 2007 by Vernal.
  • Looks great guys. It’s a unique and refreshing interface, congrats.

    Posted October 1st, 2007 by Marc.
  • Congratulations for your excellent site. I used a lot similar ones but this is the best because of its simplicity and usability.
    I am interested to set up a similra site in Hungary, in Hungarian. Please write back to me if you are willing to help me in this project that is to make your site available for Hungarians in Hungarian. (90% of the Hungarians does not sepak English.)
    Again, congratulations and thank you!
    I wish you the best from Budapest, Hungary!
    🙂

    Posted October 1st, 2007 by Dr Jozsef Telkes.
  • I go to Ukraine. When I get there I go to the British Embassy and I may have to stay in longer and will want money. Could you please advise on best thing to do, I would personally think a credit card. They say.

    where do i find info to build credit for self employed

    mc216d

    Posted October 1st, 2007 by PisiulikoCredt.
  • I just had to say that wufoo is AMAZING. I love you.

    And you did it all so well too. I never would have signed up if not for the free account, but now that I see the usefulness I see myself upgrading eventually. Excellent work here gents!

    Posted October 1st, 2007 by Josh.
  • Two things (great app btw)

    1. How do I zero out the entries? I did a few test entries, but now when it’s time to actually publish the form, entries are starting at #7 – is there a way to reset it to #1?

    2. My entry manager shows at the very bottom of my screen, and only 5 at a time. How do I get the entry screen to “maximize” and also show more than 5 at a time?

    Posted October 1st, 2007 by Jill.

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