I posted our Alpha 2 release to the site yesterday. It's a big improvement over our Alpha 1 back in December. And a minor improvement over the last Alpha 1f build.
New major features since the original Alpha include:
- Search
- Several new interfaces (FinFolio XML Generic Spec, Schwab, Pershing, DST, TD Ameritrade)
- Several new reports
- Graphs
- Rebalancing (with the TradeWarrior plugin)
We're still a long way from beta quality. This is our last release without solid quality assurance testing, so you should still expect crashes and incorrect information on the reports and when importing.
The TradeWarrior rebalacing plugin is their first release and you can expect numerous iterations and refinements before they get to beta. We've included it in our release mainly as a proof of concept for FinFolio's powerful plugin architecture. They've extended the object model and database, and added screens, ribbon strips and buttons to FinFolio. Very cool stuff, and I'll talk much more about this later.
We have only one big feature left for the beta release (billing) and after this week we will shift into test/fix mode. We have a lot of work to do getting everything cleaned up and debugged, mainly with the interfaces and reports.
Our plan is for the beta to have all the critical features, interfaces, and reports in place for advisory firms to start running parallel systems. It's extremely important to our development that we start getting real, actionable feedback on our imports and software quality.
We're purposefuly delaying several features until after the beta release because we don't feel they are necessary for an advisor to run parallel systems. Our development team can continue adding features while our ops/testing team works with the beta group to improve the quality of the software and interfaces.
Features we're holding back until after the beta release include:
- Dashboard
- Fixed income calculations and reports
- Multi-currency reports
- Options calculations and reports
- Indexes
- Composites
You'll hear more about the beta later this month in the blog, and advisors who have expressed an interest in being beta testers will be contacted by our ops team prior to the release. We're now planning on late February, although we're a bit leery of doing a release right before several key people leave for the Tech Tools conference in Texas.