I put together a 6 Figure quote yesterday and it took me close to 3 hours todo. I had error after error and bug after bug. Was very frustrating. Every time I would arrange rooms it would basically stay in that "stacked" format. The only way to get it back to "proposal" view was to close my browser.

The search is extremely frustrating now.

I went to upload an image of my clients home and basically crashed, took 20 minutes before it "populated"

There were a few other bugs too....

Again, I would probably just shrug this off if it was free, but Im PAYING for a service that seriously broken. as a previous Dtools user this was still quicker but not by much. After last nights experience I have signed up for the D-Tools/Snap deal to try their cloud service. Will report back with bugs and things that are better/worse.

Brendan, sorry to hear about your experience yesterday. When you're re-arranging rooms now, you have to hit "Done" to get out of the "stacked" format. I'll DM you a screenshot.

We've been working on search the last two weeks on ways we can improve it based on how dealers currently search the catalog. Specific examples are really helpful so I'll DM you for some.

Josh

Portal did call me yesterday to work out the problems on my last order.

In addition, they fixed the photos being too small on the PDFs. I do wish that the photos were less blurry though. The font size is only slightly bigger, however.

They are working on the tabbing issue on line 3 for labor on the pdfs. They do appear to be making progress.

Thanks Josh! I did get your email and will respond when I get a chance.

For example: when I search EA1 or Epson 6040 it returns nothing remotely related to what I’m looking for. I have to be very specific or even have to go to the manufactures website to get the proper model number and then your system finds it.

I want to be clear. I like you guys and I want to see you get through this rough patch. It’s just extremely frustrating to have a system that worked so perfectly only to get moved to a platform that should barely be in beta. To be charged for it before it was ready ust makes it a crappy situation. I mean you guys no Ill will, it’s just time is money and in the case of that proposal it was just irritating to have these issues so prevalent.

Josh,

I just watched the video in your email re the rewards program. Am I understanding correctly that rewards are only paid on Select partners going forward?

I just received confirmation that my previous post is correct. Since ONE of our many vendors is Select I can say that this changes everything for me. Ordering from companies like Sony, C4 to name a couple is already too much work via Portal (even though that is not necessarily Portal's fault) so the small monetary reward was just enough to make it worth while. This won't be the case for now so I'll probably just go back to what we were doing before.

We are in the same boat. I’m not sure it makes sense to order through portal any longer.

Meh... Reward was just a bonus. Still the best and cheapest tool out there for placing orders.

Can't believe Brendan still in here whining. Move on.

Still loving it too. Have written a massive amount of MAC proposals while on site and sent at later time to create the illusion of putting work into it.

Your suppliers must have terrible websites. Only one of mine had a bad site and they just redid it. IF portal is any faster, we are talking seconds, and that only because it's all on one site. However I have to check to ensure it still set to m default suppliers as I keep seeing an issue where the items that show at the top from a search are not from my default suppliers so I have to change it.

I will race you from proposal creation, proposal delivery, to customer approval and order creation any day.

Bonus points if you can track view history and earn rewards.

Score will be track on time, effeciency, and cost of the software against your bottom line.

Seconds? Hardly

Anything in my life to help me not do the same thing 3 times, I support. Especially if it actually provides a better product (customer facing, po tracking, etc) than anything we've used. Here about it positively from customers all the time. "Love your new software"...

I'm literally sitting in my conversion van at the gates of a National park, writing proposals on my phone and sending orders before I call it a night. Couldn't do this as effeciently without Portal, and I for one want to show my gratitude for that. Just the way I live my life.

Congrats. Happy you found something that works for you. I do not share your enthusiasm. I CAN order just as fast with my suppliers native sites. I don't have to double check pricing and don't receive errors every time I order. Unfortunately I still have to double check pricing that portal shows and I get lots and lots of errors. I guess you just have the magical computer that just works as lots of others are having issues. Do I NEED rewards? No, but I was sold on them and have not seen them for quite some time. To hear that the plan will change to only offer rewards on certain items is certainly off putting. Creating proposals with portal IS fast, but it is definitely a bit limiting. It does work for the bulk of what I do but $50/month software it is not. If ordering everything through portal does not result in rewards then the only reason to do so is to get access to the software. From just a book keeping standpoint, ordering from each separate supplier is easier in the end, to track how we are doing with each supplier. It can be managed with ordering everything through portal but takes a bit more attention to detail to ensure mistakes are not made. Anyway, I have my reasons for conducting business the way I do, and I've tried both ways. You have your way of conducting business and you've tried both ways. I think we should just leave it at that

FYI a certain distributor has 1 year non compete on portal select against all other distributors selling the same product lines.

BlackWire will give you your rebate as an instant discount on your order for things like Just Add Power, Luxul, Ring and others. Email me if you want to discuss and set anything up.

Hi, everyone. I appreciate all the feedback. We do read all of these. I want to touch on two points:

1. Rewards on More Brands

You are soon going to see the Portal Select status show up for brands you already have direct accounts with. This will allow you to start earning rewards on more purchases. This feature required additional technical implementation, which we are finishing up now. Until now Portal Select has only been available to dealers who didn’t already have an account with the participating supplier. This will open up Portal Select for many more brands you already buy. This is a big focus for us - helping you earn rewards and send orders using Portal to your existing vendors you love and support.

2. We’re Not Perfect

I know, crazy, right? I worked with dealers on our Dealer Happiness team for almost four years before moving to the supplier side of our business. I've talked to hundreds of dealers on demo's, calls, shows, etc. I love reading the posts where dealers boast about how great we are and how much time we save, but I also love the critical posts. The critical ones always contain at least a nugget we can use to improve. One thing i’d like to suggest though… Let’s try not to “win” the arguments about whether Portal is simply “amazing” or “shit”. It’s really not that binary and only seems to cause tension. The truth is that both opinions are right, or at least somewhere in the middle.

In theory, a single web catalog for ordering should save you time, plain and simple. Going to 1 website vs. 10 is better. I think we can all agree on that. There are major challenges in deploying that in a way that works for everyone, with hundreds of suppliers who don't necessarily all know who we are. We work hard, with dealers and suppliers, to keep that data current and accurate. If you trust the feeds from your suppliers on portal, the process of ordering can only be simplified. We don't completely eliminate the need to go to a vendor portal, there are things we don't provide you - like your purchasing level, VIR status, technical documents, training etc. But in terms of purchasing, it should be simpler, especially when used in conjunction with our proposal tool.

Our platform (scratch that), our INDUSTRY is incredibly complex, so we’re not always going to get things right the first time. Based on the thousands of users who are on our site every day, we know we’re doing many things right. We aren’t even close to being done though, we have so much to improve, and we will. Change is very difficult for established industries like ours, which is why seemingly simple tasks like getting a data feed from a supplier can take much longer than anyone would like. For example, we want to tell you that companies like Control4, Sonos, Sony (Tech Data) are fully integrated. These large companies are taking much longer than we could have imagined, despite agreeing to integrate (we are actively working with all of them right now, FYI). We appreciate your patience as we continue to improve. I’d like to thank all our supporters, and for the haters... We’ll win you over soon, all the new stuff we work on is for you!

Thanks again for the feedback Josh.  Two points I wanted to make from your comments.  I agree ordering from one website should be better than 1.  The issue that arose for me on a few occasions was pricing being off (this bit me in the ass in the proposal stage).  As such, I find myself going to my provider websites to confirm pricing now both on proposals and during ordering.  In one case, my supplier noticed the price difference after I ordered and contacted me to see if I wanted to proceed with the order.  I was unavailable in a spot where I had no cell signal and thus delayed the order which required a separate trip to install the piece.  I know the pricing part requires cooperation on the suppliers side to ensure it is correct in your system, but the fact still remains that after encountering the issues on a few occasions, I am gun shy to move ahead with any proposal or order without first double checking, thus slowing down the process.

Second point is, at least for me, I am not a hater.  Frustrated with some of the issues and the timing to push us to either place larger quantity of orders or pay for the proposal software.  I too continually get errors and it just seems like it was not the right time to make the change with the software so seemingly in need of further work.  I still want Portal to succeed, and work as planned 100% of the time.

Lastly, I promised my wife a free meal or two with rewards.  Now she is not speaking to me.  Thanks Portal!!!