ArcGIS Pro Bug Reporting w/o the Hassle

[ScottStopyak]

I would like to report bugs with the current "stable" ArcGIS Pro. Is there a way to do this yet without having to go through the support system? I don't have time in my life to go through a lengthy zoom share issue reproduction with a non-development team support tech which will typically end in no bug even being submitted. I want to help. I just want to report an issue and be done. I want to say, "I tried this tool in this environment. This unexpected thing happened." Done. I don't necessarily want a string of follow up emails, phone calls, shreen sharing...etc. I certainly don't want to spend half a day troubleshooting or finding a work around. I know what the work around is. Use ArcMap or ArcCatalog or QGIS instead. 

[VladimirStojanovic]

Yes Zach Anderson‌, you speak out of my heart. How many times I looked over to PRO online help, only to see there are no screenshots and clear steps, ending with python and other developer reference hints about coding I don't understand and don't need at all and still with no clue whatsoever about what I was looking for.

And then I would try to search online help, mostly getting only peculiar results I don't need, nothing at all or some error message.

[H__AlexHuskey]

Vladimir: Yes, and ironically I've been told by Esri Support folks that old ArcMap Help isn't being maintained or enhanced anymore because all efforts are going to ArcGIS Pro. But if Pro's Help actually lacks good explanations & screenshots, where are the efforts really going?

[H__AlexHuskey]

Scott: You took the words right out of my mouth! The gist of the answers is basically: let's keep things hard for the user, because Esri staff is too busy taking care of real problems. Let's make paying customers do the legwork of documenting problems, because Esri has no actual users. But If they were using the software every day, they'd find the problems and could likely fix them before customers are impacted. Maybe it's not that Esri staff prefers to deal with "real" problems (whatever those are) because maybe there there are simply too many problems. In that case, hire more staff!

We need founder Jack Dangermond to spend some time making maps in Pro (or Desktop, for that matter) and witness first-hand the problems we're exposed to. Even more intense: Jack could spend time with a group of customers actively doing their daily routines (hosted at Esri HQ for camaraderie and immediacy) where he'd be able to field their challenges as they happen. A development SWAT team could also be right there, working in Extreme Programming style (where two share one screen to supercharge their effectiveness) to analyze and resolve the problems. This is far beyond customer focus groups or blogs with suggestions. I'm ready to take part in the HQ customer workgroup and strut my errors!

[ScottStopyak]

I think it's a matter of a far too aggressive release cycle, lack of internal testing and also really bad (maybe intentionally bad) backward compatibility. You have to upgrade an entire enterprise GIS in one fell swoop anymore, which is hard. Then add new bugs into the equation and it becomes really hard. We won't even touch a major release anymore so our ROI on the maintenance we pay is diminished. Still, there are some exciting developments and helpful staff at esri and they're way ahead of the competition, if you can afford their products.

[H__AlexHuskey]

Scott: Yes, all those factors contribute to the problems we all share. Meanwhile, there's a whole world of Cloud and Containers opening up, with only lip service from Esri. The backward compatibility challenges might be a misguided way to perpetuate their business model, but the lack of forward motion is disturbing. There are no real competitors, because most GIS upstarts aim for low-hanging fruit like providing simple maps embedded on websites with a few functions. Mapbox is there, and all the visualization programs like Tableau, Spotfire, etc are happy with rudimentary maps as-is. Google Earth seemed on its way to conquering the professional mapping world with innovations nobody else saw coming, but its founders are distracted by shiny objects, balloons, and language research. We need to catch the ear of an Esri "intrapreneur" who'd like to make money by wrenching cartography into the 21st century at last, and bid the early 2000's goodbye. They'll have to embrace Cloud, and elastic compute that can free us from on-prem CPU/ GPU tyranny.

[ScottStopyak]

Containers is really interesting for keeping environments isolated and intact. Esri is using docker containers with the Notebook server which I thought would be awesome for automating workflows in a single, stable environment...then I saw the price tag. Arctortionate. (Arc + Extortionate). I thought google was going to do big things in GIS too but it doesn't seem to be happening. If I'm looking into the crystal ball, I think esri will port a lot more tools to AGO but, right now, it's nowhere near being able to replace the desktop and lacks some essentials like automated backups and required security compliances. That and every time they change it, I end up with a broken app, widget or something, which is frustrating...and (to circle back to the main point of the post) would be better understood by esri if bug reporting was easier. You think Pro bug reporting is painful? Try reporting AGO bugs via the overseas support. Yikes.

[DrewFlater]

H. Alex Huskey‌, pretty much exactly what you described happens once per release, most recently in October 2019 for the Pro 2.5 release that will be publicly available early 2020. We call the process Holistic Testing, as you look at not just one area of the software but usage across all the functional areas necessary to get your job done.

Roughly 25 individuals from primarily the U.S., across every industry, join us at Esri development headquarters in Redlands, CA for a week of testing your workflows with your data in a new software release, and reporting problems you find directly with the development teams. It is hands-on full days of testing and talking between you and the dev teams, and extremely useful for us to see the work you are doing and any struggles you are having. It's the closest you can get to the zoo animals, outside of the User Conference showcase floor

If you want more information about participation send me an email at dflater@esri.com.

[H__AlexHuskey]

Drew: Thanks for the encouraging news, and I've emailed you to find out more information about possible participation. The main difference seems to be that Esri's Holistic Testing focuses on new releases, while users are mainly concerned with the lack of progress in existing software. The elephant in the room is the obvious lack of users at Esri itself--because if they were present & accounted for, not only would outright bugs be found before customers suffer, but they'd raise Cain about having to click forever into buried settings to get things done, and point out the many unintuitive steps required to do things that ArcMap ought to do automatically after all these decades. But there's always the possibility that internal Esri users aren't the type to ruffle company feathers, and might simply acquiesce to "the way we've always done it." This is no time to rest on one's laurels and remind users to appreciate Esri's hard work which moved beyond the days of pen and paper--because that's pretty condescending don't you think? By that token we should be happy with Excel and not expect Robotic Business Processes or elastic Cloud compute.

[TimMinter]

I have to comment on this thread.  Why are we, the paying customers, having to spend time helping Esri identify so many bugs in their software and platform?  It seems to me that Esri needs to improve their software testing and error correction prior to releasing.  Maybe there's an internal subset of Esri employees who actually use the software to do their work, like manage the Living Atlas content or like provide technical consulting to premium customers.  Certainly those groups of Esri employees experience bugs and could be the first line users past the developers' internal release to serve as a quality gate.  Esri is certainly transferring a lot of cost to its customers along with the invoice for the software.

I expect that I'll just keep running directly into bugs every time I fire up Esri's software.  I feel like I'm in "beating a dead horse" mode on this issue, but obviously the horse is not dead, and is in fact hobbling around and biting me.

Enough for now, gotta go fire up ArcGIS Pro...

tim

[BranislavBlagojevic]

Kory,

Is Bug-000111741 (from your picture above) really fixed?!? I didn't notice it in ver. 2.5 Beta 1!

Thank you!