Feature Requests and the Seller Community

[Tom]

Here in the Community, we get a lot of feedback about what’s working well—in addition to things we could improve. It is incredibly insightful for us to hear firsthand what’s not working for you and how we can fix it.

When we receive feature requests in the Seller Community, a few different things happen behind the scenes. We thought we’d pull back the curtain and share some of our processes with you. That brings us to…

The Life of a Feature Request

1. Customer Advocacy — The first thing we do internally is share your request with the people building our products. From data-centric approaches like tracking the request in our internal databases, to more qualitative methods like the community moderators talking directly with the appropriate product team, we make sure your feedback and ideas get to the right person.
   
   
2. Look for an Alternative — We always try to provide a workaround when it makes sense. Even if our products don’t do exactly what you need them to, we want to help you get closer to your goal (see an example of a work-around in this thread). Many times, we’ve heard the request before and have an alternative solution in mind. When we don’t know of a great workaround, we turn to the community to get advice from other sellers.
   
   
3. Share a Resolution — The best days for us (and we hope for you, too!) are when we get to share with the community that a feature request has been built into the product. We’ve been able to do that several times, including this thread about incremental improvements we're continuing to make for Square Online deliveries. If you’re interested in seeing a resolution, make sure to follow the thread so you’re notified if we update it.
   
   

But what if there isn’t a resolution?

Even the best feature requests take time for our team to build. Our Product Managers take a lot of things into consideration when developing new features and addressing limitations of current features. Customer feedback is one huge piece of the puzzle that impacts prioritization, but it’s not the only piece.

In cases where a resolution is not yet available, we continue to take our jobs as customer advocates seriously. We’ll keep sharing your stories internally and funneling your feedback to our developers. If we can’t prioritize a feature, we also give feedback to our Partnerships team so they can look for great opportunities to partner with other companies who specialize in the features you need.

If you would like to get involved in a deeper level with the feedback process, be sure to join our Beta Community — a space where you get access to newly designed features before everyone else!

Sometimes we don’t have an update for weeks or months. In those cases, thank you for bearing with us. We know it can be frustrating, but we are continuing to work on your behalf. As soon as we have an update, we’ll post to let everyone know.

Thanks again for sharing your feedback with us!

P.S. If you'd like to share a new feature request, please start a new thread!

[kellyj]

Thanks for the plug for Beta! I'd love to talk a little bit about what we do in the Beta Community, and why we have a separate place for you to join. When you're interested in joining our pool of testers, we ask you to join the Beta Community. This is a private community which we gather your feedback/bugs pre-release. This also gives us the ability to talk about features that we may not be able to talk about in the broad community, yet!

So let's talk a little bit about what we do in Beta and what we're looking for as far as feedback and feature requests. Beta takes your feedback provided in the Seller and Beta Communities about our newest features and provides this information to our product teams!

So what do our teams need for Feature Requests and feedback?

Here are some best practices for posting a clear & easy-to-follow feature request:

1. Title your request in a short, succinct manner, something like: [Insert Product] [Insert Feature]
2. Clearly share how you envision this feature would work - Rule of thumb get detailed. How would you use it, what do you want it to do.
3. Articulate why this is needed for your business/use case: This is the BEST info we can give to our product teams. We can guess how you'll use a product, but knowing is everything.
4. Share any pain points this new feature would alleviate: how would this change things for you or your industry? Overshare!

Often when we're recruiting for Beta Testers we check the Seller Community Feature Requests and look for sellers who may want to participate. If you've voiced a Feature Request we may reach out to you for testing. You can also find out what we're actively betaing by joining the Beta Community and watching subscribing to our recruiting thread.

See you in Beta!

[TCSlaguna]

@Tom  @kellyj  Thank you for pulling back the curtain. 

I would love the following to be a Beta feature: 

https://www.sellercommunity.com/t5/Questions-How-To/Square-Retail-Can-I-search-for-run-a-report-for-...

Specifically, under Vendors -> Item Library: 

[add column] Current Q

[add column] Unit Price

[add] Actions -> Expand All Items

[add] Export to Excel

@kellyj , to answer your questions: 

1. View Current Quantity from Vendors -> Item Library

2.As a retailer, we order products from different vendors. Many times, we order the same product (i.e. incense) from different vendors. Who I order from this month can depend on a multitude of reasons. 

a) Having to run a report, export to Excel and filter, to order from a vendor should not be necessary

b) Default Vendor means the other three vendors I order incense from will not show in the report

3. As a retailer that needs to reorder products from a vendor, seeing the Quantity In Stock on the Vendor's Item Library page allows me to reorder the amount I need quickly. 

4. Having this feature would reduce the time it takes reordering products. Currently, I have to go to Vendor -> Item Library, write down the list of products (because I cannot export the list from this page). Then I have to search each item individually, find the current quantity in stock, and write it down. Then I can start to reorder. As mentioned in the thread, the current Items -> Item Library -> Default Vendor does not resolve this issue (I order the same incense from multiple vendors). 

This has been a highly requested for 2.5 years. @kellyj I would love to discuss this further with someone from the Square Team. 

[spnick]

I appreciate that Tom. As a one time user, I have had multiple poor experiences where my issues are never resolved! Currently never heard back on fb and weekly integrations issues

[DRowner]

We really need the ability to customize or select the notification for “out of stock” or “sold out” based on category.  For example it makes no sense for Event items to say “out of stock”. When events tickets are all sold they should show “Sold out”.  Please enable the ability to customize this notification. 

[kellyj]

@DRowner We're actively testing "Sold Out" in Beta right now with plans to launch soon. 

[DRowner]

@kellyj  Excellent!  How can we join the beta testing?

[villagebeer]

We'd love to Beta this feature as well!

[kellyj]

@DRowner @villagebeer 

Please make sure you have joined our Beta Community and most importantly our Square Online Beta testing group. To enroll in Sold Out, you'll just want to tag the thread and we'll get you added to the test.

[AngelinaArt]

@kellyj I'd love to Beta this feature please!

[AngelinaArt]

@kellyj can you add me to the test please?

[aigulya]

What we need desparately is the ability to further customize the message. "Out of Stock" and "Sold Out" are both inappropriate for one-of-a-kind items such as artwork. In that case it should simply be "Sold".  Thank you.

[kellyj]

@DRowner We'll get you added. Also please make sure you are part of the Square Online Beta Group as well. This one runs in tandem with Square Online.

Square Online Beta 

[Ony]

It would  be nice if square could get in the debt collection business helping us business owner with unpaid debt. For builders and landscapers, or any trade man who does not get paid for their work, we could file a lien to get paid. It require a letter to warn the customer then go file the lien with the city. Google search Levelset - this company helps file liens and collect debt. That would be a good combination of everything square does

[Ony]

Each state is different on how they go about filing liens so a customized template to send out(just like an invoice) except to warn of a lien on their property for unpaid debt

[_thesouq]

Thanks for this Tom!

Suggestion for a new feature: a 'back-to-top' scroll button that can be added to each page/section without having to add a third-party integration would be great!

[britt1990]

We have used several different website builders.  We were currently looking to switch over from our current builder to Square Online so that we can sync our in-store and online inventory since we currently have a Square register. 

However, there are two main lacking features that are preventing us from doing so.  The designing on the Square online itself is fabulous.  I love the ease and the professional look.  The biggest issue I have is the inability to make more than one shopping page.  We offer so many different categories that it would not be ideal for us to put all of our products on one shopping page since they are all not the same "type" of product.  Our customers would have to click through so many different tabs to get where they want to be. 

Also, there is no option to add a customer account/log-in section.  This feature is very important to our customers so they can easily access their orders from our website for their own records.  

I just spoke with a chat representative, and she advised that these things aren't really what Square online is created for.  So perhaps it's more designated to salons, restaurants, etc.  It's definitely lacking on the backend for e-commerce business owners.  I really hope to see just these two options added in the future.  It is the only thing holding us back from switching.

[user12039123]

When will Square make the feature available to switch the employee that receives commission on a sale? For example, I manage a full volume salon. Many days, several stylists are completing one client's hair. However, during checkout it all goes under one employee. I can't change who gets credit for the service. This is completely throwing the books off and takes hours of additional work to reconcile bi-weekly reporting. The answer, "just ring the transactions up separately" does not work. This is a huge inconvenience to the salon, but also to the customer. When will this feature be available? 

[sayra]

Hey, @user12039123- At this time, we don't have an update to provide. I can see how this feature is helpful for businesses like hair salons. For more visibility, I moved your post here, to our feature request board where our product team has more visibility to our Seller feature request's. 

[HDD]

I run an automotive detailing business. We could really use a feature in appointments that would allow us to schedule appointments that span multiple days. Right now we are creating separate drop off and pick up appointments and using personal events to block off the days but this is highly confusing for the front desk staff.

We've found other software that will accommodate this feature, however, we're not wanting to switch if we don't have to. We have found multiple issues with the square workflow as it relates to how automotive shops handle business but this seems to be the largest one at the moment. Also, being able to easily invoice from an appointment and then have the square terminal be able to take card payments for invoices is a must for our flow but none of this seems to be possible either.

[HeadHog]

I am not sure where to write this information.  I recently & finally ditched using my cellphone as a POS and purchased the Square Terminal.  With disappointment, I found the "favorites" was not a part of the terminal as for the cellphone.  The "favorites" definitely assists with the line and makes movement a lil' faster than searching through the items list.  That's my 2-cents.  I hope an upgrade for that is coming down the pipeline.  I really wanted to stop everyone from touching my cellphone and just use the terminal.  The "Favorites" is a GREAT addition that should be moved over to the terminal.  Thank you!