This article explains why OnePlan removes features and functionality from our product.
You many run into a situation where a feature that you use regularly is removed from our product. Feature removal happens all the time with software and it can be frustrating. So why does this happen? Why remove features and functionality from the product?
Tip
The Short Answer: When OnePlan decides to retire a feature, it is mainly because a new module or capability is replacing an old one.
It is costly, time consuming, and confusing to manage two versions of a feature. The additional cost and time it takes to maintain multiple versions of a feature limits our ability to provide value to our customers.
Let's break it down even further and explore the limitations that maintaining multiple versions of features / functionalities pose for OnePlan.
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New features are often designed and built in a different way than their older version. This means maintenance doubles to support the same functionality as different versions of the feature can behave very differently.
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Maintaining two versions of a feature takes away resources from developing new capabilities and improving the product.
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It can become costly to support multiple versions of a feature as the various versions may require different hardware or software to run.
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Supporting multiple versions of the same feature takes away support resources as the team needs to provide support and documentation for every version of the feature.
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Multiple versions of features can increase the time to resolution for issues as Support Engineers need to clarify which versions of which features customers have.
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When there are many versions of a feature, the Support team needs to train staff on all versions of a feature to properly support all of our users, further taking away resources from directly helping customers.
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Customers may not even know that there is a new version of a feature, and are missing out on the latest and greatest that OnePlan has to offer.
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Customers may become frustrated that OnePlan no longer makes improvements to older versions of a feature, as the OnePlan team's focus shifts to the new features.