Does it Feel Like Podio Progress Is Stalled To You?
Have Podio improvements stalled OR if it’s just that bigger, better changes are coming?
Summary
- Concerns that Progress is Stalled
- Worried that the improvements and features many users want are not feasible in the Podio platform and a rewrite is needed or will just not happen.
- Are questioning whether improving Podio using the current user feedback isn’t supported by Podio/Citrix
- PODIO can help us, and we can help PODIO, but we need assurance and clarity.
What’s Going On?
Many of us in these support forums love Podio, and some of us love what it could become with some basic improvements. However, I think many folks are finding that as we dig into some of the details and actually use the applications to help our organizations, we find that we are stopped short and have to backtrack on implementation. Many of us are concerned and even frustrated by the seemingly slow response to user feedback and requests –some of which are basic business requirements - as well as little or no communication about its roadmap.
Many of us absolutely love what Podio could become, but some of us are looking at alternatives...compelling ones-and we really don’t want to! Many of them, even the big ones like Yammer and Social cast, don’t do what Podio is trying to accomplish.
Is the platform really capable of core changes?
I worry that many of the changes the user base collectively wants are too difficult to implement based on the way Podio was originally created and a different version-even a rewrite--of Podio is necessary. Many of us are willing to pay for these improvements, but a lack of a roadmap and commitments to improvements is causing us doubts about getting our organizations to adopt Podio. Podio feels stalled and the user feedback mechanism is painful and feels disorganized.
I'm not talking just about the feature requests like chat or mobile app development enhancements, I'm talking about basic things like backups, Field ID’s, sorting, copying field sets, and even working more like an internal, enterprise grade CMS/Intranet (to use outdated but familiar terms) that can be manipulated without having to code or rely on an API for the basics. For example, people want a mini-wiki with levels, nesting, not just a bucket of text blurbs that can be sorted into badge and card views with no functionality. Many of us have evaluated the other products and conclude that they are just glorified social platforms or bloated To-Do lists. etc., not even close to what PODIO is trying to do. Therefore we remain hopeful that the Podio team is going to respond.
Strengths:
Huge potential to become THE platform of choice, multi-purpose, collect, and collaborate, speed, UI, flexibility (some freedom within limits), calendar, integrations, Swiss army knife - can do many things well enough. However, sometimes the Swiss Army knife falls short, and paths to systems that can do this become manual or awkward sometimes. The many “apps” of Podio are a good example of this. Sometimes they are just simple containers for things and the data can’t adequately be sorted or reported or even hacked into being more functional.
** Limits**:
a) Apps – a weakness and a strength. Sometimes Podio feels like a pretty containers and it most certainly feels like there is no plan to get beyond the current limitations of these containers and give us the tools to treat them like data. They are quick and pretty, and they have descriptive flexibility – but they generally not really apps, but forms that serve to store things in very simple containers and no workflows seem to be forthcoming for most of these buckets of data. Often, it feels like the data is disposable or even in a temporary location.
b) reporting, field manipulation (ordering, hiding, calculations)
c) archiving, basic backups
d) filtering, permissions,
e) wiki - very limited,
f) tracking, workflow, dependencies/triggers,
g) mass deletion/creation,
h) task viewing across the orgs, workspaces,
i) keeping up on what's assigned and it feels like there is more time and effort spent searching for things and keeping track of them than there really should be.
Is what people asking for here even a direction Citrix even wants PODIO to go?
Not addressing these basic business needs/issues almost suggests that the team is committed to another path. Some of us wonder whether Citrix has a different set of plans for Podio. Citrix has always been a leader and innovator, but I think it's fair to say that many of us are weary about Podio's future today and would like assurance sooner than later that these things are getting support and that the Podio team has the support it needs.
Those of us that are still hanging in there are taking the time to be vocal and give feedback do so because we believe the team at Podio set out early on to do something very different – and they did – but we are asking for more because we want it to be THE platform for our organizational knowledge and workflows. We want PODIO to help us manage the ever-increasing complexity and demands that face all of us, since our brains and organizations are struggling to do this with the current tools we have today.
PODIO can help us, and we can help PODIO, but we need to hear from you!
With all due respect and appreciation,
-Doug
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Hey Lindsay
The tab feature will soon also work in the new item :) We'll polish and fix these small issues the coming weeks.
I hope you have all seen that the new update support more advanced calculations?
https://help.podio.com/hc/en-us/articles/201019358-Calculations//Sara - Podio :)
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We moved on to Sharepoint / Office 365 8 months ago and it is $20/user instead of Podio's $10, with all sorts of powerful goodies including the office suite, Lync, Yammer, etc.... We are totally happy paying the extra $10/mo/user
Now, we opened a Google apps account, which is only $5/user/mo. and it looks like GA is catching up to both Sharepoint (Podio for adults) and Podio (like jumping into a bucket, or being a rat in a maze...take your pick: either way you can't see $#!+)
Folks, it is time to move on from Podio. It's over. My 2 cents.
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And I might add I am only back here posting because Podio sent me a message that somebody had replied to this thread. I haven't been on Podio in 8 months and my organization has never looked back. Podio was a rung on a ladder to real collaborative platform: Sharepoint or Google Apps. I am here to let all of you know that there are two excellent alternatives (SP and GA) just sitting, waiting for you to make the switch. Don't be scared! once you leave Podio you will wonder why you stayed so long. Oh and by the way, my company uses Zendesk for support (just like Podio), but somehow tickets don't disappear in our Zendesk account, which was one of my major problems with Podio, other than the whole "blind bucket" problem.
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we are an Apple company and have no particular love for Microsoft. But facts are facts. SP/365 is not bloated, it's powerful. Yes, you need somebody who can code it to get the most from it, but even we, with no SP expert coder in house, do so much more with SP than we could ever do with Podio. Just from a company visibility standpoint, it's superior. GA is on the rise and getting close to toppling SP/365 as well as all others. If you hate MS that's fine with me. I know bias when I see it because I too, used to blindly brush off anything from MSDos. Anyway, Carry on, Podions!! And I leave you all with that, never to return. PEACE!
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We are a microsoft company and we employ multiple SP expert coders, yet we don't use it ourselves nor do we advice it to our customers. If we are biased (which we try not to) we would be biased towards Microsoft technologies.
But too each his taste, I just thought it was important to balance the pros and cons in this thread. And because we are a MS partner, it wasn't suspicious comming from me.
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Well then Gijs I owe you an apology. I could not depart the Podio thread forever without apologizing for my hasty assumptions! So, you use SP but recommend Podio to clients? Maybe things have changed in the last 8 months.
and NOW I make my retreat back into the land of the non-frustrated. But before I do, I will ask this question and take my answer off the air: Does Podio tech support still like to mark support tickets as "resolved" after delivering a copy/pasted, irrelevant answer, or are they now responding to tickets with real people, and leaving them as "pending" until the user replies with the OK to close the ticket?
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"We're preparing a pretty big update with some exciting changes for Podio." I was so excited when I first saw this message on top of my home page but then I got so disappointed to see those pretty BIG update was just new logo and new design of app interface and some calculations... where is respond to all requests we, podio users, made since last year???
I was hoping to see :
- more advance user permissions
- Better calendar which everybody was demanding
- some "if / then" functions
- dashboard view of tasks for all organization
- more flexibility on making reports
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I have to agree with @reza on this one. Although I can see that the new interface is an improvement for novice users, because they get to learn how to build apps just by adding items. But for the power users who are active on these forums the interface for building apps wasn't the part of Podio that needed much improvement.
I'm glad with the advanced calculations, but we're still in need of some features and improvements that were requested ages ago. And a roadmap would certainly help! Why not give insights in your planned releases/sprints? -
I don't know if you guys noticed, but I saw this update fulfilling quite a few requests. Here are some things I noticed:
- Show empty fields.
- Direct creation of referenced app items.
- Improved calculations
- Categories in drop-down menu
- 5-star voting that worksNone of these are huge improvements at themselves, but this update does seem a step forward.
I also like the fact that they concentrated on improving the core of Podio, rather than add new features that are not essential to the Podio concept (video calls, ...).
But yes, a roadmap would be nice.
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Hey @Alexander Colson
Thanks for noticing the changes - you rock! We certainly do our best to listen and learn. The improved calculations was the top requested feature in the Community.
Here's a bit on how we work with user inputs and feedback:
http://blog.podio.com/2014/04/15/listening-learning/Cheers,
//Sara - Podio -
Hi all,
Just posting to make sure you have all seen the recent update to the calculation field - this will hopefully help you manage more advanced workflows: http://blog.podio.com/2014/05/02/calculation-beyond/
@Lindsay, yes - we're definitely working to bring "tabbing back". Sorry for the trouble!
//Sara - Podio
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Regarding your: "I) keeping up on what's assigned and it feels like there is more time and effort spent searching for things and keeping track of them than there really should be." TOTALLY AGREE. It is way way too complicated. If email was one big stack of paper on your desk, then Podio is like standing in a room full of filing cabinets with all the drawers closed and you have open all the drawers to find things. I don't understand the love for Podio. It is time consuming, not time saving.
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Hey Petra, please let me know if you like our assistance improving your workflow in Podio. We will hopefully be able to improve the apps and workspaces to give you a faster and better overview. Let me know via sara@podio.com! :)
Appreciate your feedback.
//Sara - Podio
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In fact, Podio has been great to document and process basic documents and small amout of data. When things are getting bigger, for sure it gets messy.
Normally we use podio for internal communication with simple apps. We are always migrating things that we thougt that Podio was good for, but now they are all in a mess, to other applications with more specific capabilities.
Think that some great things would be great to a lot of uses, like field properties (size, mask), get string texts from other referenced fields (reference is a great thing on Podio, but very simple for what it could be) and the reporting.
Printing things on Podio is not confortable, exporting to excel, etc. The actual reports do work, but again, only for basic.
We are using Podio maybe for two years, but recently we really think that good stuff are stopping. The recently news are not about the Podio, but about the team, the office, the city. It is good to hear that. But we also need some good stuff inside.
Miss the small and agile team of Podio doing great work. Think Podio is getting big in the wrong way.
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Guys, we just need inline images in text fields, we are waiting for them for YEARS!
https://help.podio.com/hc/communities/public/questions/200511098-Rich-text-editing-in-podio
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Since I've read this post, I've noticed that we are having very few improvements on Podio use. As a SAS, being online and social media, velocity on things are kind expected. Since Podio became Citrix, I've seen the biggest improvements more on trying to put Citrix's products inside then growing the main core of Podio.
I was going to write this, and then I saw one new post on the Podio Blog.
http://blog.podio.com/2015/11/19/clarifying-the-future-of-podio/This just shows that we don't have a clear RoadMap and Podio can not be shut down, but is not being pulled up.
Please help us grow Podio again. Lot of companies do rely on this tool and would be very sad to have them all outside of it.
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