🔮 Fibery roadmap for Feb-April 2023

[jondkinney]

Sounds good. I’ve been waiting for this entity-based permissions like feature in Notion for 2+ years, so I just really need it implemented by someone ASAP I fear my org will force me to select ClickUp versus Fibery with this not yet available . I know that doesn’t change your timeline or help you build it faster. Just wanted to convey its importance again.

[njyo]

Oh, oh, oh! Completely forgot!

1. Attaching files into documents!

Now as it’s block-based, it should be easy to be able to drag (or type /file) to be able to place an file as a block inside a document. Currently we have this cumbersome workaround with a File entity that we need to reference. It’s one of those things that makes things just feel unpolished compared to Notion and many otehr tools.

/cc @Chr1sG, @mdubakov

[X_Yuan]

Hope you can also improve the export function. One key missing piece for me is the lack of ability to export images in the pdf. Currently, there is no good way to export a document that contains images, and it’s a must for any knowledge management flow.

[Alon_Margolin]

Completely agree

[Chr1sG]

@X_Yuan

Currently, there is no good way to export a document that contains images, and it’s a must for any knowledge management flow.

Out of curiosity, what do you plan to do with the pdf once it has been created from a document?
Is it ingested into some other system? Do you need it for backup/archive purposes? Or…?

[njyo]

For me, I’ve needed in the past (not just Fibery):

1. Send to somebody external → PDF would be great there
2. Archive a version of a spec, etc. for client governance → PDF again
3. Migrate into mother system → Markdown is better

[Chr1sG]

Thanks for the examples.
Here are some possible thoughts:

@njyo

• Send to somebody external → PDF would be great there

If Fibery had fantastic sharing capabilities (send a URL rather than a PDF) when would a PDF be preferable?
For offline use? Mobile supported? Version sent does not change if source changes?

Perhaps related to this:

@njyo

• Archive a version of a spec, etc. for client governance → PDF again

Presumably useful because a PDF is immutable, independent of Fibery service, other reasons…?

@njyo

• Migrate into mother system → Markdown is better

Agreed. PDF is probably not the best choice for data migration.

Anyway, it’s good to understand which of these various use cases are important and why, since it might also help prioritise other functionality that could serve the same purpose(s).

[njyo]

PDF is great for immutability and especially traditional companies with stuck up procurement and governance teams need that. Giving PDF instead .DOC is already a stretch for them.
The rest I’ll happily invite to Fibery or share the URL.

[X_Yuan]

Mostly for sharing with external parties and images are essential to be part of the document.
Fibery’s current sharing capability exposes too much unnecessary information, especially when there are many other fields besides the document in the entity.
Like @njyo mentioned, pdf is just better for traditional companies who are reluctant to use weblink.

[Louis-FelixBorealys]

From my experience, I often need to send pdf to external partners because they still need to print them and they don’t want to get out of their usual printing pipelines.

Last example was SEGA Japan 1 month ago. The executive team needed a pdf by the end, not even a power point and it’s suppose to be a tech kind of company.

[Marloes]

Read your following comment.

@jondkinney

I fear my org will force me to select ClickUp versus Fibery with this not yet available . I know that doesn’t change your timeline or help you build it faster. Just wanted to convey its importance again.

@YvetteLans and I have been working with ClickUp for quite some time, but permissions is probably the only thing that is working well inside ClickUp. The system is very fragile and bugs happen all the time. Yes, the permissions in Fibery need improvement, but like they said, it’s not that easily done.

There is a big difference between Fibery and ClickUp and in the way challenges are handled. It looks like ClickUp is choosing to add as many new shiney objects as possible. Making the framework of the software unstable, slower and buggier. While Fibery focuses less on shiney objects and fast implementation. In my opinion, Fibery is choosing quality over quantity. Good solutions, without compromising the quality of the software.

Most of the times, you can create a workaround to get what you want for the time being. Up untill what you prefere is a native function in Fibery.

Just wanted to share our experience with you before you make a choice.

[gok]

Just felt like sharing after reading your comment, Marloes.
We have very similar experience with ClickUp as you describe. It has a lot of features and is very flexible, but far too brittle and slow, and not reliable enough for us to trust for documenting anything important. We have been using ClickUp for a couple of years, but have now started a move to Fibery, which so far exceeds my expectations.

G-O

[ESGdataBoi]

Same here kinda. My company is currently segmented between some of Business Line A using Monday m, some of Business Line B using Zoho Projects, and everyone else kinda just doing random spreadsheets, emails, and notes. I’ve used or tried all the big names, and Fibery is the best balance of current amazing usability with methodical quality improvements overtime. Workarounds are possible for most things, and it can be annoying sometimes, but then I know if they just pulled a ClickUp and started adding it all in all Willy nilly, it just wouldn’t have that Fibery magic, so I super appreciate that.

The lack of streamlined native notifications with easy external reach is a bit of a bear, but I’m reworking my project/task management system to utilize Trello for most of that stuff and just pull in to Fibery via the native 1-way integration for relations to all my other entity types until Fibery nails the notification piece…perhaps 2-way integration with Trello could bridge the gap since it is an atlassian product and they already have Jira’s 2-way sync pretty much figured out?

[cover]

As for the chat I would vote for integrations with Slack and we are ready to share what we already developed:

• send Entity to Slack and then all comments to Entity and thread messages are 2-way synced
• convert message to Entity with filling related fields and have same 2-way sync of comments/thread messages
• compose message in Slack and have bulleted list inside it, mark it with :fibery: emoji and Task and Sub-Tasks will be created in Fibery, with estimates and assignees

Our view points: Slack is “short memory” and Fibery is “long memory”. So it’s better for Fibery to focus on the Core eXperience and chat doesn’t fall into this category.

[Pawel_Badenski]

Great to see you’re putting focus on knowledge management. Not sure if this is covered by knowledge management, so a few comments based on our paint points:

• it’s very frustrating to search for where a document sits in a tree when you open it via link. Breadcrumbs would be very helpful.
• following from above - tree hierarchy is currently not used for search - which means we often need to duplicate information in document/view name. For deeper hierarchies you end up with patterns like “Rainbow Corp → Rainbow Corp Meeting Notes → Rainbow Corp Meeting Notes 2023 Feb 05”
• when query gives a lot of results you will often find yourself wanting to sort results in recency order or filter results using another criteria. I could imagine this solved by either allowing filtering on rich text in the view filters or extending global search feature (eg “query sort:[Date] name:EndsWith(‘right’)”.

[Matt_Blais]

Related:

• Breadcrumbs line in Views to show hierarchy path
• Allow Name Formulas for Views - #3 by Matt_Blais
• How to get your Text fields etc. INDEXED for SEARCH (you can use this method to add any other info to indexing, such as DB Name, folder name, etc)

[mdubakov]

@Pawel_Badenski

• it’s very frustrating to search for where a document sits in a tree when you open it via link. Breadcrumbs would be very helpful.
• following from above - tree hierarchy is currently not used for search - which means we often need to duplicate information in document/view name. For deeper hierarchies you end up with patterns like “Rainbow Corp → Rainbow Corp Meeting Notes → Rainbow Corp Meeting Notes 2023 Feb 05”

We are going to improve search and add breadcrumbs in the next few weeks. Some other minor search improvements we will add next weeks are:

• Exclude a Database from search results
• Filter by View kind in DB selector in search
• Filter by Space for all Views (including Docs)
• Mark Done entities grey in search result (or some quick filter?)

[B_Sp]

Amen to this! Counting on Fibery communication to get to the point where we can lose Slack…we almost have already with comments in Fibery, as simplistic as they still are right now…

[B_Sp]

@mdubakov

Mark Done entities grey in search result (or some quick filter?)

This is desperately needed! Any way to show closed entities in Search would be a big bonus right now, thanks!

I guess index comments in search still on on the radar? Would really love to have this since we have probably most of our valuable content in comments right now…and when you come up with the new communication system, I feel like at that time indexing comments will be requisite…

Thanks!

[Tomas_Vemola]

Do you expect to implement [APPROVED] Wrap Cells & expand Column option in Table View as part of improving the tables?