IGG Developers’ Blog

I am back once again to talk about the new reporting engine in iBank. But before I do that I want to recap where we have been, and to give you a preview of were we are going. In “Too Many Secrets,” I started to describe why we wanted better reporting within iBank and what our overall goals for reporting were. I outlined four things that we wanted to achieve:

In my last post, “Image Is Everything,” I talked about how the new reporting engine lays out graphs, pie charts, text and tables to make beautiful, readable reports. Some of the feedback from those blog posts made me realize that I had neglected to mention two overarching design goals: simplicity and speed.

At IGG, we are not focusing on simplicity and speed solely for reports; we have made those goals a part of everything we’ve been doing, starting with the development and launch of iBank Mobile, and in iBiz 4 as well. We are constantly looking at how new features, or changes to existing features, affect the simplicity and speed of the product. iBank for the Mac has not seen as much of this yet, but that is changing. As I am talking about reports and the changes that are coming, please be assured that they will be simpler and faster.

So on to today’s topic: how to set up reports. Reports are all about answering people’s questions about their finances. We’re doing this in a way that offers more options to specify what accounts, categories and dates to include in a given report.

Let’s take a typical question that my wife asks: “What did we spend our money on last month?” (By this my wife is making the point that I spend too much on coffee.)

In the current version of iBank (3.5.5), I would create a new “Quick Summary Chart” and then select “Last Month” from the date pop-up, iBank would then fill in the dates 2-1-2010 to 2-28-2010 (PS3 thinks this is a leap year, but I digress). I would then name my chart and press “OK.” Now I have a new chart with the data I wanted — not too bad. But there are some problems. First, what happens when time passes? Next month when I want to know where we spent our money, I will look at this report and it will still have the date range for February… not what I want. So now I have to delete the report and create a new one so that iBank can apply the new date range for March… not practical.

But now with the new reporting engine we have smart dates. If you choose “Last Month” then the report will always be the past month relative to today. We have also added a new set of smart dates so that you really can have the data you want at your fingertips (you can also select “Custom Dates” if you want to have dates that are fixed and not relative to today). Here is the current working set of smart dates:

As I look at this report for last month’s expenses, it shows me taxes deducted from my paycheck, my mortgage payments and other expense that are fixed month over month. In fact, these expenses dominate the pie chart in iBank since they are by far my biggest expenses. But these are not really expenses I am interested in. For the most part, I can’t change these month to month, and from my wife’s point of view they make the coffee look insignificant. So I want to remove these expenses and just track my discretionary spending (and coffee, which some view as non-discretionary).

In iBank 3 this is fairly easy: I just delete them. The issue arises when I add a new category to my data file. For example, my son just started T-ball. If I add a category for T-ball expenses, any existing report would not have this new category in it. This is because iBank 3.5 uses a model where you have to specify all of the categories and accounts that you want to include in each report. It is like having a guest list for your categories — if a category is not on the list, it can’t come in.

With this new reporting engine we offer three ways to include categories and accounts. The first way is the one iBank 3.5 uses. The second way is an open door policy with an exclusion list: with this approach we include all the categories and/or accounts by default, and you can specify which ones to exclude. This would be like a bouncer at a bar were you let everyone in except for the people who are on the “do not serve” list. This is the method that I use most often.

The final method is for more advanced users: the rules method. This lets you specify which categories and/or accounts to use based on rules; for example “only taxable accounts” or “only expense categories”.  This is like telling the bouncer at the bar to only let in nice looking, rich people. All of this sounds complex, but I assure you that it is a very simple interface. First, we have pulled all of these options out of the main reporting view and put them in a pop-up window. You access this window by double-clicking on the report. This is the report settings, and from it you can change the date range, currency, name, and accounts and categories to include. Here is an example for the spending report.

I hope you can see that we have added a ton of options on how you can configure your reports and at the same time, simplified the UI for doing so. Next time I will be taking about another consistently requested feature: the ability to drill down into the data, get more detail, and even edit it. In the meantime, we hope to hear more of your feedback.

In my last post I talked about the four major things we set out to accomplish with the new reports. This time I want to focus on the first goal, “Combine charts and reports so that you do not have to create a chart to get a report.” On the surface this sounds trivial but there are a bunch of goals behind this one. We want reports and the charts they contain to be readable both on screen and on paper. We want to convey the information that people are looking for without being overwhelming. We want to provide explanations where necessary. We want to be able to group related concepts.

So with this in mind we looked at various examples. We looked at the Standard & Poor’s reports. We looked at Microsoft Excel. We looked at competitors’ reports. All of these had elements of what we wanted. Standard & Poor’s looked nice but had too much information density. Microsoft Excel had great charts but gave poor context to the information. Some of competitors had decent on screen layout but poor printing, or the reverse. We kept coming back to Apple’s Numbers and the beautiful templates that they provide. The problem is that Numbers’ templates show relatively static data. So our challenge was to create a report layout system that would look as good as Numbers, but would handle variable-sized data sets.

We decided on having four building blocks for the reports: bar graphs, pie charts, text and tables. We designed the system so that we could “plug in” other items when we need them. Let me show you some:

Report Pie Chart

Report Bar Chart

Text you can imagine, and since this blog is full of it (“it” being text…), I’ll omit an example for now.

So we have some nice looking pieces, but it really shines when we add the page layout. With our page layout engine you get the same reports on screen and in print. Our challenge for doing page layout was getting the data to flow to multiple pages without leaving some of the data hanging. For example you don’t want to have a table flow across two pages if the only thing on the second page is the totals. So far I think we have done a good job but we are still doing some polishing. Want to see it?

Report Example.pdf

This PDF is generated from our new reporting engine running in iBank using “real” testing data. The layout and all of the calculations, charts and tables are real. This is what you see on screen and on paper.

Once again I have to emphasize: we present this info is so that our development process is somewhat transparent. I can’t make any promises as to how soon these elements will be incorporated into a release, and we’re still a long way from setting a release date. So please try not to ask — we really can’t answer that yet — but do let us know what you think.

Finally, let me give a “hats off” to Brad and Brian for answering last post’s trivia question. The movie quote was from “Sneakers.”  Extra credit to CT Barbarian for pointing out that the line is also in “The Manhattan Project.”  And since I had forgotten that one, I need to rent it and watch it again.

If we’ve been a little quieter than usual here, it’s probably because that past few months have been more about polish than big announcements. Once iBank Mobile hit the streets and we made it through the release of Snow Leopard, we spent the fall making minor improvements to the iPhone app (the next update will include French localization) and some updates to iBank and iBiz largely centered around bug fixes.

One of the areas where we’ve made great headway is in resolving issues in iBank data import. Most users have been successful in transferring their Quicken data since the early days of iBank 3. Occasionally someone with really complex accounts, or many, many accounts, or decades of transactions presents us with a serious challenge. But every time we untangle one of those knots, it makes the process even smoother for everyday users. This became even more critical early in the year when Microsoft announced it was throwing in the towel on MS Money. Many more Money users than ever came looking a new finance solution in iBank, and we’re happy with the way their data is porting as well.

All in all we’ve had a great year at IGG. Even with many new voices in the mix, we still welcome your comments. iBank is your software as much as it is ours, so let us hear where you want it to go next.

Thanks,
James

Did I fall a sleep? No, but it has been a while since I’ve posted an update. We have been really busy since the launch of iBank Mobile, with two small releases since then — mostly bug fixes. As of Friday, we submitted iBank Mobile 1.1 to the App Store. This release has a number of requested features, including running balances for each account, and color coding for transactions that are set to occur in the future. Look for it as a free update soon.

Besides our ongoing development, there have been a lot of other things astir here. We switched web hosting companies because our traffic outgrew our old one; we’ve also been hiring several new people. All in all, these are good problems to have at a small company. On a personal note, I have also been busy with my son starting kindergarten. That too was more work than I would have imagined, but again a good problem to have.

We are continuing work on adding features to iBank Mobile, so if your request is not in this release, don’t worry — we are not done. We said early on that we wanted to get something simple out and get feedback so that we can make it better. One thing not in the first release was budgets. We’ve been hearing that people want to be able to track budgets on the go, but we’re not overly happy about how the budgets in iBank would work on the iPhone. So I would like to ask for your help: What would you like to see in budgets, both for iBank and iBank Mobile? Let us know so that we can build a great budgeting tool.

Thanks,
James

We’ve been getting lots of inquiries about whether our products will work with Snow Leopard, and the short answer is: yes.  iBank and iBiz run on Snow Leopard (at least on the latest build that Apple has made available to us) without any major issues. However, we have found a few cosmetic glitches with iBank that we plan to address in v3.5.2, which we will release on Friday.

I just want to keep everyone in the loop and let you know: Don’t worry, Apple’s new kitty won’t destroy our apps.

-Ian

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=318802616&mt=8

Thanks to everyone for all of your support and encouragement during these last few weeks. I am going to bed…

Thanks,
James

Apple has contacted us about the volume of emails inquiring about iBank Mobile. They have requested that we ask all of you to not send any more emails. Apparently your voices have been heard, but Apple is saying at this point it is doing more harm than good. I do want to thank all of you for taking time out of your day to write emails about expediting the approval of our app – it’s nice to know we have people as eager and excited as we are about iBank Mobile. However, at this point it is best to not email Apple directly. We will post here and via twitter the moment we hear that our iPhone app has been approved.

Thanks,
James

As you can probably tell from our lack of celebration, iBank Mobile is still in review by Apple. Last Wednesday, July 1, we finally got some indication that it was being looked at. Apple asked us some questions about how we used MobileMe within the product. We responded very quickly (in less than an hour), thinking that it would be released soon…

But Wednesday passed into Thursday (the one-month anniversary of our submission) and no word. Then Friday was a holiday for Apple, which brings us to today. I am not hopeful that it will get approved too soon; apparently a lot of folks at Apple are on vacation this week, including our direct contact.

I will keep you updated via the blog if we hear anything new. For instant notification on this (or any urgent news from IGG), note that we can now be followed via Twitter: www.twitter.com/iggsoftware

Thanks,
James

Here’s a quick update: iBank Mobile is still “in review” at the App Store.

iBank Mobile Status

In preparation for the iPhone OS 3.0 launch, we have had to update some things outside of the mobile app: iBank needed an age rating, we needed to accept a new App Store Licensing Agreement, etc. So far, we have had no requests to change the application itself.

When we submitted the application, Apple warned us that it might take longer than usual for approval. They didn’t say it was because of the iPhone OS 3.0 launch, but that’s what we guessed. Meanwhile, we are working with people inside Apple to help us better understand the application status. Please do not send hate mail to Apple. Please don’t hate on us either, even though our timing could have been better.

One final note: we have had people asking if iBank Mobile is U.S. only. We worked hard to make sure that iBank Mobile would be available internationally. This required us to be very careful about how and where we use encryption. So yes, it will be available worldwide at launch, although the only localization is English. We do have plans to add other localizations in the future, but the priority was to make it work, get it out, and get your feedback.

Hang in there – it’s coming.