Sunday, July 15, 2012

Mint QuickView Questions and Answers 2

We're avidly and some could argue psychotically monitoring the comments in the Mac App Store and the feedback emails people have been posting regarding Mint QuickView.  I'm posting a bunch of stuff to this site.  Other than this post, I also have the following other posts:


Here are more answers to your questions.  

Q: What is the point of Mint QuickView when I can just go to mint.com?
A: We love that you like mint.com.  There is absolutely no reason to use Mint QuickView if you don't see a need.  Personally, there are a few reasons we built it and use it daily that you might want to consider.

  1. Mint QuickView updates throughout the day and will notify me when a new transaction has arrived in my account without me having to lift a finger or click on a browser tab.
  2. Auto-login.  I hate typing in a user name and password every time I go to the site and I even use 1Password so it really isn't that painful.  I find myself going to QuickView just to launch mint.com.
  3. Mint QuickView has less stuff.  Most of the time I just want to do a quick look to see what's new in my account, check that a check has been posted, or see if I should be laying off the credit cards a bit.  I typically don't need the full power of the Mint.com site.  Sometimes less is more.
Q: What does the number in the menu bar badge refer to?
A: The number displays the count of anything new in your account.  Specifically it tracks updated transactions, new alerts or advice.  We identify the new items in 2 different ways.  For transactions there is a blue dot next to the each transaction item.  For alerts and advice there is a blue ellipse with the words NEW in the title to let you know which of those are new.  

Q: When does the number in the menu bar badge get cleared?
A: This is a little tricky because it's different for different things.  Transactions get cleared once you open QuickView and dismiss it. When you open QuickView again, the blue dots go away.  Alerts and Advice are different and this is where the number in the menu bar may not match what you think it  should be.  Alerts and Advice don't clear until you actually see the alert and advice.  So to clear these you have to go through the alerts and advice to clear them.  These clear as you view them and the number in the menu bar will decrement at this time.

Q: Why is it that sometimes the same transaction will appear new twice?
A: We are basically tracking when transactions have been updated so sometimes you'll see a transaction when it's pending and we'll identify it as being new.  Then your bank will clear the transaction and it moves from being pending to being real and so we'll flag it as being new again.

Q: Can you add a feature so the icon only appears in the menu bar and not the dock?
A: We already have it.  Go to the Gear icon and launch preferences.  Under the General tab you'll see a checkbox for Show in Dock.  Uncheck this and it won't Show in the Dock anymore.  But you do lose some capabilities like you won't be able to CMD+TAB to it and there won't be any menus.

Q: When will you make it possible to edit a transaction in QuickView? 
A: We hear you loud and clear.  This is the number one feature request from everyone including the Vice President of our division, my manager and lots and lots of you.  We'll see.  We wanted to release a really solid read only app to get feedback, to understand any issues people are finding, and to learn about how people are using it.  There are lots of things to consider when allowing people to edit heir account in QuickView so we'll continue to look at it but I just wanted to let everyone know that we've heard you and are thinking about it.

Q: Can you add Net Worth?
A: We already show you your current Net Worth when you look at the Accounts view.  That big number or possibly small number in my case is your Net Worth.  It's the summation of all your checking, savings, investments, property minus all of your loans and credit card.  If you're asking about a Net Worth chart, we probably won't be doing that for awhile.  It's technically possible but there are technical reasons we'd rather not tackle this any time soon so don't hold your breath on this one.  

That's if for now.  Again I send out tips and tricks and Q&A stuff via twitter so follow me if you're interested.



1 comment:

  1. Thanks for breaking it down. I'm in that camp of it doesn't seem like much that I need. But now I know! Appreciated.

    ReplyDelete