Tune-up to My Portfolio>Transactions

[Guest]

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[Ali]

Hi everyone,

We wanted to let you all know that we're working on making a few improvements to the Transactions page in your portfolios. Below is a mock-up of what this will look like, and when this goes live, you'll have the ability to:

- Search your transaction history by Loan ID or PayPal Transaction ID
- Filter your transactions by transaction type
- Set a particular date range to filter your transactions

The current sort options in your transaction history will be removed when these improvements are made. If you have any questions or feedback about this, please share it!

(I'm actually heading out on vacation tomorrow , but there will be others who will be checking in for your feedback.)

Thanks!
Ali

[iampaul]

We wanted to let you all know that we're working on making a few improvements to the Transactions page in your portfolios. Below is a mock-up of what this will look like, and when this goes live, you'll have the ability to:

- Search your transaction history by Loan ID or PayPal Transaction ID
- Filter your transactions by transaction type
- Set a particular date range to filter your transactions

The current sort options in your transaction history will be removed when these improvements are made. If you have any questions or feedback about this, please share it!

I'm confused. What I am reading is that SORT options are being removed and SEARCH options are being put in place instead. I see very little benefit - maybe even none - in this trade-off and would not see it as an improvement. On the other hand, being able to SORT by Loan ID would be a welcome addition.

Edit: How would we know what Loan ID to search for? I guess we would have to bounce back and forth between our loans pages in our portfolios and our transaction pages? And what advantage does Kiva see in searching by a PayPal transaction ID?

Paul

[David2051]

 

Hi Ali.  Thanks for the heads up!  Are you still looking for suggestions, or is this almost ready to roll out?

I notice a couple things looking at this. 

1) It seems like it would make more sense to place the Amount column next to the Credit Balance column so the math would be more obvious.   Will it still be possible to sort from oldest to newest so the math works like it would in a check register?  The note indicates the sort will be newest on top, and your note indicates the current sort options will be removed, but any bank or other financial statement always shows the newest transactions at the bottom just like we would do math by hand.  (I'm always afraid someone will miss functionality that is removed, like sort options.)

2) It seems to me that the Description column is rather redundant.   Looking at the second row, Gregorio, the Type or Transaction Type column shows "Loan Repayment" and the Amount column shows "$1.00".  Then the Description column says "Redeemed Loan Repayment - $1.00".  It doesn't really add any information, but does take up room which the other columns might better utilize. 

3) It also seems like the PayPal Transaction ID might not be a very good use of the available space.  Looking at my own transactions, that column is entirely blank for the first page and probably many other pages as well.  Would it make more sense to tuck the PayPal Tran ID under "Deposit" in the Type column for those transactions where it applies?  Personally I don't have any use for the PayPal ID but maybe others do?

In the list of Transaction Types, does "Gift" indicate a redemption, adding to the Credit Balance or a purchase reducing the balance? 

I really like the date range widgets, very useful.  Thanks again for giving us a peek!

[AccountAbility]

The one sort option that I really use a lot is the date sort, since all my personal records run from beginning downward to most recent.  

If I get a date range search results I hope it is at least sortable ascending or descending.

Paul, the problem of sort options in the full transaction record is that you get the whole thing.  I imagine that for larger lenders this amounts to hundreds of pages.

If I can get an extract of the total transactions by some reasonable criteria and then work only with that extract to sort by columns, that works for me.

Paul, I am a little confused by you questioning the search by loan id.  The loan id becomes very important as Kiva goes more and more to first names only and "anonymous".  Presumably this search would only be useful when you have a specific loan that you want to see all the transactions related to it.  I have tried to do this with the current setup and have run into both name changes and slightly differing character sets which prevent a clean extract.

I guess we shall have to wait and see.

Dan

[Cailin@Kiva]

Hello All -

Thanks for your feedback.  I will be continuing to answer your questions, while Ali takes a well deserved break!

Addressing a few points

1.  The list of transactions will continue to be sorted by date, from newest to oldest.  We were not planning on including the option to sort from oldest to newest, but this could be accommodated if this was truly helpful. 

2. @iampaul brought up a good point that currently, it's not easy to know what the Loan ID is!  The new version solves this problem, by always including this after the loan name.  For example: John Smith (#123456).  @AccountAbility notes that the Loan ID has become an increasingly important concept as a) Kiva strives to protect borrower privacy and b) our portfolio grows to the point where there are naturally duplicate names, and borrowers who apply for more than one Kiva loan.

3. @David2051 - no problem to move the amount column next to the balance column, although I worry a little that somebody out there has an existing Excel macro which would be disturbed by this change.  What do you think?  Likely to cause more harm then good?

4. @David2051 - yes, the amount of space is very constrained, and therefore the PayPal Transaction ID is an annoyance!  This field applies only to deposits, withdrawals, and modifications to the same.  Unfortunately, PayPal is a complicated ecosystem, and sometimes lenders will have a whole slew of transactions related to one deposit or withdrawal, and it is useful for them to be able to cross-reference with their PayPal records.  We are hoping to roll out another improvement in the future that will give this page more horizontal space.

5. @David2051 - "Gift" refers to both purchases and redemptions.  (Which will be shown as either "Gift Purchase" or "Gift Redemption" in the Type column.)

6. @David2051 - Yes, Description is often redundant... except when it's not.  There are occasionally some anomalous transactions on Kiva where the description is important to deciphering what exactly occurred.

Cailin.

[David2051]

Hello All -

Thanks for your feedback.  I will be continuing to answer your questions, while Ali takes a well deserved break!

Addressing a few points

1.  The list of transactions will continue to be sorted by date, from newest to oldest.  We were not planning on including the option to sort from oldest to newest, but this could be accommodated if this was truly helpful. 

 
Hi Cailin!  Welcome to Kive Friends! 

I think it would be most helpful to have oldest to newest as a sort option, just like a check book or a bank statement. That would be my preferred order. Thanks!

[Cailin@Kiva]

Okay, we will add sort from oldest -> newest as well as the default (newest -> oldest).

Just in case anybody had any trouble visualizing "the real deal" from the mockup, here is a screenshot of the work-in-progress.

[iampaul]

Paul, I am a little confused by you questioning the search by loan id.

I didn't. I questioned REPLACING sorts with searches. I would prefer to have both capabilities. Right now I can sort up or down on any column except the "Loan" (entrepreneur) column. In its present form, that column doesn't do much good anyway. But if it included the Loan ID and that was the characteristic by which it could be sorted, it would still give me some ability to make a bit more sense out of the hash.

Paul

[AccountAbility]

Okay, we will add sort from oldest -> newest as well as the default (newest -> oldest).

Thank you, Cailin.  That is really great. 

Since we are throwing around issues with descriptions, I will again raise an old one.  Is there any way to have the description (or any other field) show that this repayment is the final payment making the loan fully paid back.  Somehow the system knows how to move the loan from the "paying back" group to the "paid back" group.   Even an asterisk by the payment would be sufficient.  This is an event worth celebrating, but lenders have to work to even find which loans this applies to.

Dan

[iampaul]

4. @David2051 - yes, the amount of space is very constrained, and therefore the PayPal Transaction ID is an annoyance!  This field applies only to deposits, withdrawals, and modifications to the same.  Unfortunately, PayPal is a complicated ecosystem, and sometimes lenders will have a whole slew of transactions related to one deposit or withdrawal, and it is useful for them to be able to cross-reference with their PayPal records.

Interesting, Cailin. I just went through all my PayPal transactions in my Transactions page to try and understand what you meant by that. Every single one has a unique date/time stamp, significantly so, implying to me that each was completely unrelated to the others. Either what you describe does not describe my situation or I wouldn't know how to use the capability you plan to offer me anyway. Can you provide some insight into what percentage of Kiva's active lenders are faced with the multiple transaction you have described and who may benefit by this new feature?

Paul