Tuesday, April 15, 2008

FamilyTreeMaker 2008 Survey

I recently received a survey invitation in email from TGN asking me to provide my opinion about current and future FamilyTreeMaker 2008 features. The meat of the survey was about 41 items - they wanted the importance of these items to me as a FTM user, on a scale of 1 (not important) to 10 (extremely important).

Here are the items and my own ratings:

* Fan charts (5)
* Bow-tie charts (6)
* All-in-One Tree (4)
* NGSQ Report (10)
* Data Errors report (6)

* Address report (3)
* Alternate Facts report (4)
* Medical Information report (3)
* Birthdays report (5)
* Maps Report (8)

* Calendar report (6)
* Tabular custom report (8)
* Printable timeline chart (9)
* Printable labels (4)
* Media slideshow (8)

* Scanner integration (9)
* Automatic reference numbers (6)
* Enhance existing outline descendants report (8)
* Enhance existing family group sheet (5)
* Enhance existing ahnentafel report (10)
* Enhance existing Register report (10)

* Different formats of relationship report (5)
* DNA Support (7)
* Better export to HTML capability (8)
* Automatic backup when closing (8)
* Internet backup (10)

* Data CD/Separate CD capability (8)
* Offline book building application (10)
* Import books created in FTM16 and previous (6)
* Better "find individual" capability (10)
* Improve customization of spell check (6)

* "Contact other researchers" capability (4)
* Stronger verification of name and person errors (8)
* Family Facts (9)
* More than "session-based" history (7)
* More "fast field" support (8)

* "Save settings" in reports (8)
* Add "Merge all duplicate individuals" functionality (2)
* Ability to copy individuals between files (5)
* Additional "help" features (4)
* Improved place name authority (7)

I currently use FTM 16, which has many of these features in one form or another. In responding, I am handicapped by not having FTM 2008 on board. However, they want my opinion about what features are important, so I provided it!

Surveys like this often indicate what a software developer is thinking.

I wonder why they didn't ask about incorporating online database information (Ancestry, FamilySearch, WVR, Footnote, etc) into an FTM database? I wonder why they didn't ask about automatic Source citation for facts?

No comments: