Expanded Search Capability

b2the02 · March 2016

Presently, using the search function only works with Booking ID and Client Name (First, Last, Partial). We would be pleased to be able to search by email address and phone number.

I would also like our 2nd phone number (ID = manager_phone) on the booking page to display like the phone (customer_phone).
Also a consolidated address format for the delivery_address, delivery_city... that displays like customer_address, customer_city, customer_country...

[Deleted User] · March 2016

Hi b2the02,

Thanks for reaching out on the forums!

This expansion of the global search box is certainly a feature request that we've received before. I can understand how having additional booking form fields working in the search function would be helpful. I'll be happy to let our product team of your interest in seeing this feature integrated into Checkfront.

For more on how we handle the many feature requests our team receives, feel free to check out this blog post: https://www.checkfront.com/how-we-handle-feature-requests

As you may note in our support documentation with respect to system fields, prefixing the ID of a custom field with ‘customer_’ causes the field to be shown in the top section of invoices with the rest of the customer information.

Could you provide some more information on the consolidated delivery address format you would like to see?

Kind regards,

Aaron Brook
Checkfront Support Team

b2the02 · March 2016

I understand the customer_ fields and the way they are placed. I want a delivery_(address) that formats the same way.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/303162/AO2_Shared/Full_Invoice.png

[Deleted User] · March 2016

Hey there,

Thanks for following up with us! Looks as if a colleague of mine has already informed our product team of your interest in seeing this feature integrated into Checkfront.

Thanks again for your feedback.

Cheers,
Aaron

parawing742 · March 2018

We also need the ability to be able to search by company name. I added it as a custom field (since most of my customers are associated with a company) and there's absolutely no ability to include that field in a search.

parawing742 · March 2018

I'm sorry, but I just need the basic ability to look up a customer when they call in. The fact Checkfront can't handle this without stuffing Company data into fields where they don't belong is embarrassing.

Chase_Checkfront · March 2018

Hi parawing742,

Thank you for the reply.

The ability to add specific fields to a customer profile, such as your 'Company' field, is a relatively new addition to Checkfront that was part of our recent booking form updates. While the booking form and customer profiles have been updated, no changes have yet been made to the Customer Directory. I think it would definitely be great to be able to display and search by custom fields here, but I cannot say when (or if) this change will be made.

But I have passed along this feedback to our development team, and you can see any new features being released here:
https://www.checkfront.com/updates

All the best,
Chase - Checkfront Support Team

parawing742 · March 2018

How do you expect clients to look up customers by company name? I'm not the only person running into this problem. I do a lot of work with schools and the customer name is often different year to year with school admin turnover, but I still want all the records for that school associated with the same customer profile.

Chase_Checkfront · March 2018

Hello parawing742,

Thanks for the reply.

Unfortunately, this is not currently an option. The best I can do right now is pass along this feedback to our development team.

But please let me know if you have any more questions.

All the best,
Chase - Checkfront Support Team

parawing742 · March 2019

It's been three years and there still is no way to search customers in Checkfront except by first or last name.

Right now I use a complex workaround where I export and sync the customer details to a separate shared spreadsheet so I can lookup customers when they call. Considering that a lot of business have a need to lookup past customers, I'm curious as to the progress of this functionality?

Laura_Checkfront · March 2019

Hey @parawing742 - thanks for your feedback, and for letting us know that this is something that’s important to you. You are correct - we currently support searchability for system fields right now such as name, email, booking ID, etc, and not custom fields. As Chase noted in his earlier reply - we’ve passed over your feedback to our product and development teams for their review, but as this is not highly requested, there are no immediate plans for future development.

Best,
Laura - Director of Technical Support, Checkfront

parawing742 · March 2019

How would you suggest I look up previous customers? Right now I sync the customer list to a Google Doc spreadsheet and use the spreadsheet to cross-reference for customer look up. All I need to be able to do is lookup customers by company name or by phone number.

TurismoCaNica · March 2019

Any business that has repeat customers needs this capability. The only reason that people don't request this (or any other functionality) is that there is no central place where all requests are listed and we have an opportunity to upvote the requests.

I have no idea what the list of enhancement requests is and I do not have hours and hours to read every single item in the forums to figure out if something has been requested or not.

Dedric · April 2019

yep, same issue for me here.
The search field is very limited. TOO limited....
Like Parawing said above, it is quite embarrassing CheckFront can't handle this basic type of research.

I've been reading a few threads on the forum today, and I'm getting tired of the usual "Unfortunately, this is not currently an option. The best I can do right now is pass along this feedback to our development team. [...] but I cannot say when (or if) this change will be made." answers...

especially when there isn't no public view on the roadmap...

just saying....

parawing742 · May 2020

What's the status of being able to look up customer records by company/organization name? I'm still waiting on being able to search and look up customers without resorting to multiple spreadsheets. It's been many years and appears nothing has been done yet.

Kendra_Checkfront · May 2020

Hey there - Kendra here from Checkfront's product team. We're early designs of an improved search that will provide improved flexibility to easily find information across the app.

Based on feedback from customers we're looking at improving the search to capture booking, guest, and navigational elements to make it easier to not just find booking-related information, but navigate the app as well.

Once we have our designs and scope polished, we'll provide more updates!

-Kendra

TurismoCaNica · May 2020

@Kendra_Checkfront...It is great that maybe there will finally be some movement on this. PLEASE make sure you develop the Use Cases all the way thru. You added the ability for us to track/keep more customer data a couple years ago but gave us NO way to use the data. So you spend time creating a new capability but we were unable to use it...not much value to anyone. This is unfortunately the case with many of the things you have added (Discount Codes and Events are 2 more that come to mind). You have a lot of clients to reach out to to help you come up with the use cases BEFORE you start writing more code.

Thanks.

parawing742 · May 2020

@Kendra_Checkfront I don't need to be able to navigate the app better. I just need to be able to search previous customers. I cannot understand why this takes years and years of development to be able to lookup previous bookings without incredibly complicated workarounds. I use several different SaaS providers for my business, but Checkfront is the only one that (from my perspective) completely ignores their customer needs year after year.

Instead we get weird improvements such as the booking volume widget now looks better, but still shows useless data. My bug fix list has not changed. I complain about the exact same issues every spring when I start up the business season again.

keithrumph · May 2020

How do you expect clients to look up customers by company name? I'm not the only person running into this problem. I do a lot of work with schools and the customer name is often different year to year with school admin turnover, but I still want all the records for that school associated with the same customer profile.

I have similar problem: we work with multiple schools too as an education center that's offering school tours and excursions and we have to track everything with different customer names.

https://customwritingz.net

Dedric · May 2020

I'm so astonished, I wasn't even going to comment. But I think it is important that the voice of your Customers is heard.

I will not ask you (CheckFront) when this basic feature will finally be in place, as I already know the answer you are gonna give.

My question is simple: how do you explain that such an elemental feature is not ALREADY available ?
Why, 3 years, yes, THREE YEARS (!), after the beginning of this thread, there is still no progress? Not even a CLEAR position on how seriously this request is taken, and what degree of priority you are giving to it…

Please, no "politically correct" answers that don't mean anything, and where you are not committing to anything else than "adding the request to the list of requests".
Have some balls to commit to something, what ever it is, and show us the direction you are taking with the evolution of the software WE, your Customers, are using (and paying for).

And just to be clear, I really like CheckFront in many aspects. It has a lot to offer.
Unfortunately, there is an obvious lack of "communication" regarding request features, including some very basic features.

Luckily, CheckFront is not a fundamental tool for my business, more like a "nice little helper", and my volume are low enough that I can (and I have to!) do manual input.
But I can see how any descent business that relies on its booking system would be struggling.
If I was in this situation, I would probably move away from it…

Overall, this is very frustrating.

Rant over...

parawing742 · May 2020

We were told there would be better communication back in March 2018: https://www.checkfront.com/forum/discussion/comment/4762/#Comment_4123

Nothing ever came of that either. It's very frustrating.

Kalem_Checkfront · June 2020

Hi everyone,

Kalem here from the Checkfront Support team.

I have some good news, that we here at Checkfront would like to share with you

Our Product team has heard your requests for improved search functionality, and has delivered (not yet, officially).

We'd love to invite anyone interested in early access to get in touch so we can log your feedback prior to releasing for all customers.

This way we can look into and review any feedback that you might have and start working on what we find would be a great addition, right away.

If you are interested in joining this 'Improved Account Search beta'. Then please email us at support@checkfront.com, with "Improved Account Search Beta" as the subject line.

You can address them to me, Kalem. Please list your account URL (looks something like business.checkfront.com) in the email to me so that I can easily compile these to have our team activate this on your accounts.

I look forward to hearing from you!

Expanded Search Capability

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