The other thing to consider is what are the must haves and what are the nice to haves, because we are also working on things like adding features back to product details, speeding up the website, so we need to prioritize and hit on the must have items. Thus far I have:
- model title: must have
- material: must have
- base price (old): must have
- base price (new): must have
- alternative: volume (so you can calculate the new base price)
- markup: must have AND editable
- public vs. private (but on sale)
The other things I am putting in the nice to have bucket
- categories
- tags
- shop sections (though I feel like we should have either categories, tags, or shop sections--I'm leaning towards shop sections now)
- views
- favorites
- volume
- surface area
For my shops, I don't actually use categories/tags/shop sections so much since I try to keep my shops (not the ones on this account) minimal.
Things that seem simple, ie adding number of page views to the CSV, can actually take a while to spec out and implement. What are views, should we count distinct or repeating... Google Analytics counts views differently than our internal systems, and so on. My goal is to get this out by next Wednesday, so you guys have at least Thursday and Friday to play around with the tool. That's why I want to make sure we only focus on the must haves.
The empty row columns thing.. what you are basically asking for is that we think out once and for all what is needed so you don't have to update your formulas. I can appreciate that. However, this puts me in a difficult spot because there will be changes in the future anyway (say we add a wall thickness detector or something like that), and present a fully thought out sheet makes it (1) less flexible to add new features in the future (2) less flexible to change the spreadsheet to tweak usability (3) on the whole a more complex experience (I can deal with spreadsheets and code too, but there are more smart and creative people out there who prefer simplicity) and (4) potentially delay in the roll out because there are a lot more things to plan for and think through (each data type also has distinct error cases to work through so we get good data validation).
Anyway, long post, but I want to make sure you guys know that we are having these discussions and really thinking through our decisions in depth, and also provide some transparency into our thinking along the product dev process.
Let me know if you have any more questions!
Thanks,
Nancy