Get ready for a truly amazing 2015
Thank you for being a part of the InkSoft story. If you like what we’ve done in 2014, get ready for a truly amazing 2015.
I wanted to take a moment to give you a sneak peek into the massive features and enhancements coming to InkSoft in 2015:
- Virtualized Online Order Form
- Signage & Banner Module
- Embroidery Module
- New Design Templates, Clipart and Fonts
- New Design Studio Themes
- New website Theming Architecture
- Unified Shopping Cart
- Redesigned and Reengineered InkSoft Admin Portal
Why is 2015 so exciting? Our core vision for InkSoft will finally be realized with the addition of the above initiatives.
It’s been an exciting seven years since we launched InkSoft. I have heard from thousands of you about how InkSoft has positively impacted your business. Do you have a story to share? We would love to hear from you! Tell us your InkSoft story.
Stay tuned! I will be giving frequent updates on our progress towards our 2015 initiatives.
I wish you the best for 2015.
Sincerely,
Matthew Flansburg
Director of Product Development, InkSoft
Update 5th February 2015: Application Deadline met for the InkSoft Advisor’s Program. We have built a strong team of power-users to forge our developments ahead. There may be additional InkSoft Advisor positions in the future. If and when they are, we will make a formal announcement and invitation to submit applications.
I would be very interested in seeing the sign and banner module.
The prototype is looking good so far.
I love everything I’m hearing in your video, Matthew. I’m relieved that you have some manufacturing experience. Very happy so far but…i’ve had to develop many workarounds to make your system fit my needs.
optimistically yours,
Cheryl Termo
I am not a fan of workarounds personally. I do understand that sometimes they are necessary. When they become a norm there is a deeper problem that needs to be addressed.
Summertime a safe bet for the embroidery module?
I currently have our Roadmap for embroidery coming out at that time, but Roadmaps can change. The biggest initiatives we have before that are Bug Fixes/Enhancements, Pricing Updates, Back End Quoting, Our new front end build processes, creating the new responsive platform with Signs and Banners. I typically am very good at organizing projects, but no project is the same.
I would be very interested in having a pricing software built in or to purchase. I would also be interested in having someone directly handle any issues and do updates to my web page. Sounds like it’s going to be a good year for you and I hope that it does get easier to use the system.
Linda, the way we present and handle pricing on the back end is not very usable in my opinion. It is very powerful, but also confusing. I am in the process of prototyping the Product pricing section in the current back end.
As for directly handling your individual web design needs. Because we have an API that needs to be considered, we are currently looking at contractors that would work with our API and Customers on a customer by customer basis. This would be some kind of “White Glove” Service. Please bring this issue up with me directly in one or two weeks, we may have a solution for you by then.
looking forward to the changes especially the sign and banner integration
We are as well. But keep in mind, we are focusing first on fixing some known issues.
Matthew,
Good update. Appreciate it. One thing I was hoping to hear about that I did not is the robust fundraising module. We signed up late December after being told this would be a Q1 release. Is that still the case?
Thank you,
Mike
I have a list of requirements, please email me a description of exact functionality that you want to see so that I can compare it to the list. My email is flansburg@inksoft.com
Matthew,
Having been a customer for almost 1.5 years I am encouraged to hear what you have to say. I also have been waiting for the embroidery module. I assume that many of the Inksoft customers are all trying to find their own niche and “look” for their websites to differentiate themselves from other sites. For the most part Inksoft has a decent product but we need better help and quicker responses to our issues so we can keep our business making money, which in-turn keeps Insoft profitable.
Looking forward to greatness…
Bob
Bob, I will go into some amount of detail so that you understand how we are tackling your needs for differentiation. The way InkSoft themes have been handled in the past was a bit old-school from a development perspective. Each theme was a massive undertaking which required a bunch of styling code embedded within the core of the product. Without going into too much technical detail, we are changing the fundamental build process when creating customer facing UI code. The ideal way to handle “themes” is to separate the backbone HTML structure from the styling. Themes on our side will be easier to produce because they won’t be entangled in the structure of the page.
Moving forward, we are creating controls in the back end that will provide differentiating UI attributes for each of your stores. In the beginning these controls will be limited to a few styling elements, currently: primary button color, secondary button color & font used on store. Our current requirements for the future will allow you to choose from a variety of landing pages, a variety of headers and a variety of footers. In essence, you will be able to theme your theme. Imagine choosing a landing page, header and footer. Then choosing the the primary and secondary button colors for your site. In addition, you will be able to choose from hundreds of Google fonts to further customize your shop. So, for instance, if I were to hypothetically create an ASU store, I would be able to play with a variety of landing pages, headers and footers. Then I would choose my primary button color to be gold with maroon as the secondary. Therefore with each theme there will be millions of permutations. Of course, with this type of styling structure, creating new themes (landing pages, headers and footers) will be much easier and quicker to deploy in the future.
As for the response time on issues, we are actively putting in place new processes to connect customer support with development. This is an area of concern of mine and its importance has not been lost on me.
Please keep in touch.
Great update. Very new here myself. also October 2014. Thrilled to hear about embroidery being added this year. That is what 90% of our business is. Awesome..
I’m hoping to see the ability to go direct from designs I’ve created in inksoft to Brothers printer and the location being correct as well as the size. not happening now.
Also making the front end a little easier to use for someone not so computer smart.
Looking so forward to all the new improvement.
Thanks
Denise, I am interesting in understanding the details of your needs for the Brother printer. Please email me: flansburg@inksoft.com
I’ve been using Inksoft for about 3 years (?). I’ve seen great improvements since the first version. Would like to put something on the wish list – a crop tool in the design studio.
I am really interested in the program , but will it be available in a cd format?
Jose:
By ‘cd’ format are you referring to CorelDRAW / .CDR format?
Hello Matthew
what InkSoft is doing sounds wonderful. I have had a rough start as I purchased a AnaJet M5 & have really struggled with that to not use more ink doing head cleans than I do printing shirts. I also initially went with Action Illustrated vs InkSoft to save a few dollars & about 15 months ago I believe I switched. I have also struggled getting InkSoft up & usable but have tried hard to get things more usable these past 2 months.
With all this said I have hung on because I know it is where I want to go & I believe in everything you are doing.
I am happy to hear about your screen print back ground & also on the large format as that is pretty much my world now days.
I opened a Promo business in 1995 as a add on to a UPS type store I had had since 1988. in 2000 I purchased a 6 color 6 station manual press & a 4 head Brother embroidery machine.
in 2013 (end of) I purchased the AnaJet & also a 64″ Roland printer which I love.
I do believe soon Inksoft will be the backbone of my company
I do want to mention that in the promo business I am affiliate with a company called iPROMOTEu with 800+ locations. In the beginning I was working with someone at InkSoft to work with a deal to offer InkSoft to all the affiliates but to be honest somewhere that went off the tracks.
I know I am rambling a bit but trying to fill you in on my history & hope for future business plan.
Last but not least I just wanted to give you some input on what I struggle with most daily regarding the ways we print t-shirts & all the different type quotes I am currently pretty much doing by hand.
I would be glad to email you my attachments I currently send to customers depending on the best print option I decide fits there design & job size.
1st I offer traditional screen printing & small jobs typically 1 color I print in house, others I contract out.
2nd I offer DTG which when I have ink & can run on AnaJet I do but often contract out as well.
3rd I contract out sublimation jobs to typically 1 of 2 companies & usually uniform jobs.
4th I do lots of transfers both 1 2 3 or 4 spot color or one supplier we do lots of full color transfers
5th I do some printed Film transfers on my Roland.
Note with the transfers those are most always ganged with multipal designs so not sure there is anyway to figure out how that could be quoted other than by hand so to speak like I am doing & also the sheets come in 4 sizes with of course 4 prices based on quantity & then we add a application fee (heat press work)
maybe impossible for a customer to know with the art they have what is the best option for them but man would it be cool if Inksoft could maybe just price out each one & then let me or them decide which fits best.
Of course the sign business we do the typical car window decals, banners, yard signs, magnets etc & in my case pretty much don’t do anything larger then 4’x8′
thanks for viewing all this info but wanted to share & provide some input
Duane
I would hope that we could do more with the front end of the site. I do a lot of custom uniforms and would like to add more options to show my work. The way uniforms are shown on my site, the pictures are very small and do not show the uniforms the way I would like it to.
Also the adding custom pages (like a link from another site to show albums) does not show properly on the front end when I try it.
Looking forward to what InkSoft has to offer in 2015!!
Gabe, I am with you. Your name has come up a few times in the office and I will be sending you a personal email soon.
Answering your statement, we are improving workflow to include a more fluid and intuitive inclusion of Names and Numbers. As for the size of the images, this is 2015. We need bigger images. The technical challenges of this are that our legacy stores (everything in the past) must be able to handle any changes to images that we make for the future. Is this a problem? No, it is a challenge. When you look at the large corporate competition, they aren’t limited to small image sizes. They are going bigger and offering a larger design canvas for their customers, we have to figure out how to make this work moving forward.
Please call Customer Support in regards to the custom page issue you are having. We are setting up new processes to document, organize and funnel our Customer’s concerns starting with your interaction with Customer Support.
Thanks for taking the time to write!
We’re looking forward to using your product more. We’re intrigued by the “unified shopping cart”. We have a retail store that also produces custom decorated apparel for college greek students as well as the athletic department of a large university. We provide all these services directly with the aide of cad cut/heat press as well as 4 embroidery machines and an automatic press.
We’re currently struggling to decide on how to setup the pricing system. Some of our services are retail based while others are wholesale based. We really don’t want to sacrifice our scalability by using multiple web stores to act as each pricing model.
Mr. Fassett, the “unified shopping cart” is a concept long overdue. In the past InkSoft has created many different shopping cart workflows. In fact, each store type has a different shopping cart/checkout process. There were some legitimate reasons for this as different functionalities were built within each shopping cart to cater to the different store types. After auditing the experience and analyzing the costs/benefits we have decided to create a single shopping cart/checkout workflow moving forward. I believe there were to many functionalities within some of the workflows and others not enough. But the biggest factor in my mind is the maintenance of many different shopping cart/checkout code bases. So, moving forward all of our products will use one shopping cart/checkout workflow. Not only will this be easier to maintain (one instead of six), any issues or bugs can be dealt with more efficiently and faster. So, moving forward all of our software offerings will be using the same “unified shopping cart/checkout” code base.
We are in the process of tackling pricing set-up as we speak. This is an early delivery this year.
Wanted to say thank you guys for the incredible service you provide. I’m excited to hear that you are now going to include and online order form, and are updating the admin panel. I hope the order from will have an embed option like the design studio. An embed-able quote form will make this software a polished gem. I’m excited to hear about the updated admin panel because I like many others use this software to manage every part of my shop. Once that is sorted out InkSoft is going to rule the game. InkSoft is one of the best investments I have made in my shop.
Awesome Cameron, more information will be coming soon.