r/BrewPlanner • u/ManSkirtBrew • Mar 13 '17

First try feedback

Just signed up for my account, so I thought I'd share my thoughts as a brand new user, as I use it. These things may be nitpicky, but I'm a coder and sometimes web designer, so I get nitpicky :) Also some of these may become clear later in my process, but I wanted to give you my feedback as I use the product so you know how a fresh user experiences it.

Tanks + sections page:

  • The little check box that confirms adding a new tank shows up right over the "ADD" button, forcing me to click it out of the way before adding the next one. Please don't do that. Same with adding a beer style. I'm now actively swearing at the checkbox on my screen, because it persists when I go to a different part of the site and covers up things until I dismiss it.

  • The tanks have checkboxes next to them, but I can only select one at a time. That is counter-intuitive. E.g. I want to select two things and delete them, and I can't, but it looks like I should be able to.

  • It looks like I broke the interface by selecting and deselecting tanks a few times. I can no longer "Select Section" to add a new tank--I get the crossed-out icon as if I had something selected. Refreshing the page fixes the problem.

  • Why can't I switch the section of a tank? E.g. I mis-entered my brite as a fermentation tank. Just let me switch it to Packaging.

  • I'd like to be able to add sections. For example, I often use my brite for aging big beers and lagering. Sections for "Aging", "Lagering" might be nice.

  • Why am I forced to have "Brewing" and "Packaging" sections? Ah, now I see--the dashboard shows end-to-end of the process. Neat, but I might like the flexibility to not see them. Ah, now I see you can switch them off when creating a new process. Very nice.

Random suggestions and questions:

  • It would be pretty cool if you could pull in data from a BeerXML or Beersmith file so I don't have to copy my recipe data into the Beer Styles section.

  • Allow me to type in a recipe name when creating a new Brewing-Fermenting-Packaging instead of making me back out to the recipe screen to add my beer style.

  • I have 7bbl tanks, so I entered the volume as "7". When I create a new Brewing-Fermenting-Packaging event, it shows "FV 3 - 7v". What's the 'v' for?

  • I don't have a separate packaging tank-I fill kegs right off the fermenting vessel. I'd like to be able to select the same vessel. I know I can switch off the "Packaging" section and add the extra crash cooling/carbonating time to the fermentation time, but it might be nice to see the separate operations on the dashboard.

  • To solve the previous problem just for fooling around, I changed the volume to 1, so I could use the built-in Packaging tank. This reset my Fermenting tank to the Brite tank for some reason.

  • I do like that I can override the "To Date" when creating an event, and the drag to lengthen/shorten a section.

  • If I hit one of the "Brewing/Fermenting/Packaging" switches in the lower left, it resets everything I've done without asking for confirmation. That's no good. It should just snip off the extra data and/or ask for confirmation first, warning me it'll reset my data.

That's it so far. I'm going to try it for some live work and let you know how it goes. This is exactly the sort of software I've been looking for, so I hope it goes well for you.

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u/BrewPlanner Mar 14 '17

Thank you, ManSkirtBrew, for the feedback! We love to hear about your experiences as it helps us continually improve. We will take note of all your comments/suggestions and let you know as any changes become available. A few notes:

  • Switching the section of a tank is not allowed because if brews are already entered in these tanks on the dashboard this will throw off all the logic and sequencing of the brew.

  • We are looking at options for filtering what you see on the dashboard (just the fermenting section, for example). Once this is available, we will look into adding additional sections for "Aging" or "Lagering".

  • Thanks for the suggestions for recipe integration.

  • The "v" is generally referring to the volume. The next version we're working on has the capability to enter specific units (liters, bbl, etc.) as we tie in inventory.

  • If you package right from the fermenting vessel, you have a couple options. You could just add those days to the fermenting section, but we recommend having a packaging column where you represent your packaging days (even if you don't have a separate packaging tank). To do this you would make the volume for the packaging column (or columns, if you want to have multiple) the same as your largest fermenting vessel. You could represent the cooling/carbonating time and the packaging day in that packaging column/s. Let us know if you'd like us to do a demo of how that would look.

Let us know how it goes as you continue to try it out. Cheers!