Rigamoral is right

[rottnwilder]

I am trying to get a demo version of the Time Reporter to work. I agree with the other poster that your site makes it very aggravating to make contact. Even the registration process is bad.

I liked the time reporter v. 1x when I had it on my old pilot, cost about $30.

I will probably buy the new version for $150 even though all I need is the mileage log.

But first I need to get it to work!

At this point, if I could find a decent alternative, I would buy it instead based on the lousy contact process here.

[adriano]

Hello rottnwilder,

Even the registration process is bad.

. could you better specify what registration process you are referring to?
. what are your suggestions to improve it?

But first I need to get it to work!

I brought this post to the attention of our support department, which will contact you to solve the problem.

- Adriano

[rottnwilder]

For example, under "Send A Question To Support", a login is required. In order to get a login, the user goes to MyIambic.com and there is a button. It says "New Customers" "Click Here To Register". The button is a red question mark. When the red question mark is clicked, it goes to a page titled "HOW TO SIGN UP AND REGISTER A NEW PRODUCT". This is not really the registration page, it is a help page describing the registration process. But wait, I just clicked the button that said "Click Here To Register". I can't register here, it is just a help screen. It shows what the registration page would look like if I could get to it, but so far I can't find it! Here is the exact wording:

"If this is your first visit to IAMBIC customer service site and you have purchased an iambic product in a store different from iambicstore, Palmgear, Handango, Vis-a-Vis * please register by entering your contact information. "

ENTER MY CONTACT INFORMATION WHERE?????

Reading farther, it looks like maybe I can get to the registration page by accessing "Menu/options/about" in the product I purchased.
Here is the quote:
"open your application and go under "menu/options/about" "

But wait! I had pre-sales questions, so I don't own the product yet!

Well since I DO have the demo installed, I'll try it. OOPS, there is no menu/options/about in my application (Time Reporter). There is a Tools/Options but no /about. Under Help/about, nothing about registration.

Gee, by now I'm slightly confused.

BTW, the application has been modified in such a way that it does not perform the basic mileage tracking function as well as it did in version 1.0, which I used to use. I did hear from tech support on this, and they advised that I DO NOT PURCHASE THIS VERSION, WAIT FOR NEW VERSION 4.0 WHICH HAS MANY BUGS FIXED. Great sales technique there!

[vidal]

Hi rottnwilder,

Thanks for posting and making me aware of your situation. Sorry about the problems you encountered.

You can ask any pre-sales or technical support question about TimeReporter here in the forums. There is a forum for TimeReporter. This is a good way that doesnt require you to register the product on myiambic, download the demo, etc.

Product manuals are also available for download here: http://www.iambic.com/manuals/

Finally, you can send an email to sales@iambic.com.

Vidal.

[rottnwilder]

Judging from your response, you either a.) did not read my post very carefully, b.)are not very familiar with the product, or c.)just don't want to be bothered.

On your advice, I surfed through some of the other threads. Have you noticed how many people have complained about accessibility and lack of any direct method for communication?

This "forum" is just dandy, but who has time to post back and forth - few, I would guess. That is why they want the software, to save time.

I suggest that if you are the President of the company, you take a very close look at what is being said about YOUR company, and get YOUR people to do something about it.

I also suggest that you split off the Automobile Log and offer it as a standalone application for a reasonable price, like $30. Minus the bugs, and plus the features that were available in the 1.x version!

[adriano]

Hi rottnwilder,

sorry for the confusion. We'll work on making the registration path more clear and visible.

In the picture below the red squared area is where to click to register as customer, the blue squared area is where to click to get the registration help.

- Adriano

[rottnwilder]

Oh, now there is a novel idea. I never thought to click on the text, instead of the button. I guess my 14 years in field work has blinded me to the obvious.

Feeling like an idiot, I went ahead and filled in the registration page. By the way, the button at the bottom says "Proceed to product registration" not "Next" as shown in the help text. Trivial, I know.

But when I had so proceeded, I was again reminded that this is a registration page for purchasers. So it is still of no use to me.

Where is the link to My-Iambic on the Iambic website? Wouldn't that be convenient? Took me a while just to find the registration page so I could be excluded by it.

None of this is of course related to my criticism of the program, or my primary objective. I really just want a program to run on my palm which does a decent job of recording mileage and spitting out a simple summary report. Like Time Reporter 2.4 did.

[vidal]

Hi rottnwilder,

Unfortunately, there are no plans right now to split out the autolog into a separate application for $30. There are several mileage log specific programs for Palm that you might consider if this is your only need, and I think some of them are probably in this range.

If there are specific mileage tracking features you need in TimeReporter that you think were better in 1.x than 4.x, please post as feedback to the TimeReporter forum, or send me a private message, so we can discuss. I would be interested to know what these are. From this thread alone, I am not clear what features are missing in 4.0 that you needed from 1.x.

We are always working on making the website easier to navigate and to improve our communications. There is a lot more to do on this. Thanks for your feedback.

Best regards,

Vidal.