| Description | The "Linked Items" screen is very powerful but currently is frustrating for users who want to explore more than one linked item from that screen (typical scenario). The frustration is because when you select a "linked item" from the screen, the screen disappears and you can't get back to it via the application "Go Back" button or the browser Back button. In fact, you don't even "go back" to the place where you can re-select the "Linked Items" option again, and and you don't return to where you just came from. Clicking on a Linked Items screen link is like entering a wormhole--very cool way to quickly get somewhere else in your "universe" of data, but essentially a one-way ticket (which loses the normal context and leaves the user confused).
Also, you can't right-click on a linked item and spin off a new browser tab, as noted in 0009046. If that one is implemented, then this one is less important (but still independently very valuable).
I am thinking that this suggestion is cheaper than 0009046, and a practical "quick win". Allowing the user to quickly get back to his recent "Linked Items" screens really provides powerful, fast access to the user's "working set" of information. |
| Proposed Solution | in the upper right corner of all screens that currently have the Linked Items feature, replace the "Linked Items" single url with a combo-box containing that same link, plus a list of the Last 15 Linked Item screens accessed (in the current user session), in MRU sequence. No need to persist across sessions. Each menu item is named based on the Object Type / Name that was the origin of the link, e.g. "Business Partner: Asad ,Corporation". If the same origin link is already in the list, remove the old one from the list (so the user only sees the most recent access).
When the user clicks on one of the "Recent Linked Items" menu items, simply restore the screen (which has been saved exactly as it was last constructed). Saving/restoring the previous screen state is important because in many production cases accessing this screen is slow because of the many queries. Include the "Last Date/Time Refreshed" and a refresh button (so the user can refresh if he knows there is new activity that should show up, since he last accessed the screen). Also include a "Back" button directly on the Linked Items screen, which will allow the user to return back to the screen from which the Linked Items screen was generated.
This simple feature will unlock the full power of the Linked Items concept, which is very powerful, but not as real-world usable as it could be for quickly accessing important information to track down answers, solve customer problems, etc. Imagine a customer on the phone with multiple requests and you are trying to use "Linked Items" to serve the customer in real-time (one reason people buy ERP systems). For example, your best (and very demanding) customer gives you a phone number change, a change to an order, a question about 2 separate invoices, and a question on a payment. With this feature, you could easily meet all of the requests in realtime on the phone by quickly going back to the Linked Items screen for the customer (using this new feature), and launching into each area of information from that screen. The only wait would be initially bringing up the Linked Items screen for the Business Parter, and the rest would be very fast.
Additionally, this "important user data caching" feature can be built on further, allowing, for example, selection of multiple items in the Grid View and selecting "Linked Items". This is currently prohibited (you have to select one at a time). In the new world, if a user selected 5 items, then all 5 "Linked Items" screens would be generated--4 of them would not be rendered (only the first one), but the other 4 would be quickly available in the list. The non-first ones should be generated in the background, so that the user only has to wait for the first one selected. With this consideration, perhaps it makes sense to persist the list in the database (which would have the added benefit of persisting across user sessions, so a user could pick up where he left off).
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