[From Wrike] List View Users: Your Feedback Needed! 📣

Hi everyone! 👋

You probably know that our Product team continue to work on Wrike Lightspeed, and we really appreciate the feedback you shared in this recent post 🤗

Today, we’d like to start a discussion related to the New Table view and the List view.

The New Table view is designed to enable the creation of both spreadsheet-like Table views that many of you use now and more simple views with few columns and no gridlines which List view users prefer. You may have noticed that one of the important enhancements in the New Table view is the right-side panel for viewing items that allows you to continue using the Table while also viewing the tasks, like you can in List view.

You may already know that our team is planning to merge the New Table view with the List view later this year. Please note that it won’t happen before the New Table view reaches capability parity with both classic Table view and the current List view. For example, we know Mass Actions are a vital part of work for most of you and we will also add Mass Actions to the New Table view which were only available in the List view before.

We understand that some of you may be used to using the List view, and we want to ensure a smooth transition, and that’s why we’d really like to hear from you!

If you use our List view a lot, please let us know if you have any concerns about the future merge of the two views in the comments below. We’ll be taking your feedback into consideration and we may contact you separately to suggest speaking with our Product team directly.

Thank you for helping us shape the future of Wrike! 💚

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Comments

Carolanne Mak

It would be great to get a visual for this change (as you say, my team uses List View 99% of the time, so I would want to ensure that things don't get too weird), but it's definitely good to hear that mass actions will still be applicable - please add me if you're releasing a trial!

Aloi Calvert

Interesting. I wish list view had the ability to expand/collapse the view like the Gannt chart do. If there is any trial, count me in!

Allison Chase

@Carolanne Mak @Aloi Calvert.- have you tried the new Lightspeed (Profile and settings / Try Lightspeed)? I think it showcases the new table view pretty well.

I started with a new company in March and List View hasn't been available to us from the start. I really missed it at first because Table and List were my default Wrike views in the last two companies I worked for, but now I'm very comfortable in the New Table view. A former colleague and I were talking this morning about how to respond to this article and other than mass actions (which are coming), I can't think of anything I really miss from List view that I can't do now.

The change was hard and I whined a lot about it at first, but New Table turned out to be best of both worlds in one view for me.

Shelly Erickson

Our team primarily uses table view and the NEW table view doesn't work for us. It is too spread out and requires us to scroll much more. We have an average of 175 tasks. We can't even see our full timeline on the NEW table view! Will this "NEW" combined view have option to condense and option to have the project title on it? By removing the project name from the table view, we lose our main notes field. Instead of notes being readily available, we have to click the info of the project to see those (another click). The NEW views are not being utilized by our teams. Example of notes and condensed (old versus new):

Krista Beem

I agree with Shelly about the new table view being too spread out. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, do not change the current table view! It is efficient, easy to read and use, and it perfect the way it is.

Allison Chase

@Shelly Erickson - have you tried the Compact View? There's an ellipses that opens a drop down and gives the option to change density. I also prefer the compact format.

It doesn't look like you have the parent row showing in the New view - I think that's where your missing note is. We also rely heavily on a custom notes field and I found adding the parent row gives us what we need.

Brett Williams

The sort by/group by option would be nice to retain.
Table view currently only groups by folders, even when I sort by due date.

Shelly Erickson

@Allison Chase Thank you!!! I didn't see those were now added!

Zachary Caylor

Okay --

Firstly, I want to say I struggle to understand the reasoning for this from Wrike's perspective; both the classic list view and table views function for different purposes and kinds of users - a lot of the members of my team rely heavily on List view as it's the "simplest" view and feels visually aligned with what they expect from dashboards, My To-Do, etc. Most of these users aren't power users or technically inclined, and every UI change that requires either more setup or even just "feels" more complicated to them makes them feel less compelled to keep using Wrike and not switch to an alternate, simpler task-management system. Given that list view is well established throughout the platform, I'm a bit confounded as to why that view needs to be combined with another view & can't continue existing while new board view is improved and eventually just a more enticing switch.

Now, as to features and other capabilities that are missing from new table (or table views in general) that would help improve it as a substitute to list:

Being able to set a default expand/collapse all option, whether at the account or user level, would be key - as a frequent list view user, opening some of the folders and items that I'm used to in list view is entirely overwhelming once every subitem immediately pops up. It makes it hard to navigate, especially if there's several folders in a folder, and requires me to perform at least two extra clicks for every folder I open.
-- In fact, being able to set viewing defaults (or, easily access them if they currently exist) for an account or user would be preferable for all of the optionality.
Start date and due date need to be viewable & settable in the same panel, much like in list view. Being able to easily set a range of dates (& figure out the size of the timeframe) is something my team values a lot in list view. As far as I'm concerned, if there was a field that was just "Dates" and replicated that information as exists in list view, it would be fine.
Maybe this one is being added, but.. drag and drop into collapsed folders or tasks needs to be an option. Sometimes I reorganize folder structure and desparately need that. Drag and drop, as a whole, would be nice, rather than a toggle on the side that's a bit challenging to find.
Being able to auto-adjust all of the column widths would be beneficial, such that things actually fit.
When shrinking down the size of the assignees column, it feels like at some point the text should just go away, even if there's only one user.
If I want to click into a project or folder - can the open button be larger? I recognize that the sidebar is a good alternative, but sometimes I don't want to open the sidebar and just want to jump down into another folder, and it feels like opening a folder (and not just expanding it, but actually changing views) should be easier than a tiny button, or waiting for the full details panel to load and then using the button there.
Being able to see and navigate to other folder locations is key - I can't find a way to enable these tags for other location in table view.

I do a lot of filtering to narrow down similar tasks in different locations in list view (yes, I could run a report, but that's not always preferable). If I apply filters, I should be able to somehow see only the items that fit those requirements, and not the parent folders. For example, if I filter for a specific type of custom item type, in table view I can get the following:

or a bunch of this, if I include parent items that don't match filters:

when all I really want is this sort of clean list I get from "show tasks from subfolders" in list view:

I'm sure I'll have further thoughts on this, but that's at least my initial impression.

Meredith Selden

I agree with the above comments as this would be detrimental to our new users who like a "simple" view without rows/columns of data. List View has been especially useful with teams migrating from Basecamp to Wrike as it matches the simplicity they're used to. We also heavily use:

The cross-tagging view shown in Zachary Caylor's screenshot above to see what other Folders/Projects the task has been tagged to.
The "show tasks from subfolders" feature to see all the subtasks (without seeing their folders) then we can filter/sort as needed.

We vote to keep it for sure. Hope that helps!

Brandon Larocque

I agree with most of the comments by users that are asking NOT to change the table view. I believe you're focusing on the wrong things. Do you actually have people complaining about the UI look and feel? Our needs are entirely functional and none of those are being addressed.

1) It's still amazing that Wrike cannot save a view and let you apply it to other contexts in the table view. Still users are required to set their columns filters and other view settings at every level of a project or task hierarchy. That's 101 level functionality Wrike doesn't have.

2) Keyboard entry. Unlike with most competitor platforms, Wrike doesn't have good tools for building plans using the keyboard. You can't indent/outdent tasks or even start a new task with the Enter key. Again, 101 level functionality that should come before low-utility UI tweaks. If you've ever tried to build a big project without blueprints you know how time consuming the mouse usage becomes.

3) Easier workload balancing. The current effort manipulation features make load balancing any moderately sized team massively time consuming.

This sounds like a rant, but it's increasingly frustrating to see Wrike hold ticker tape parades for silly UI changes when there are volumes of community feedback on real functionality that professional project managers need.

Sven Passinger

Unfortunately I have to agree with @Brandon Larocque. A new UI does not bring any advantage for us. Maybe it is a marketing thing for Wrike. But I would wish that Wrike would concentrate more on existing users who can recommend Wrike in their newtork if they are happier and hav an easy everyday life. And easy everyday life measn not sitting in front of a nice UI, but having a program making work easy. So I second Brandon, please concentrate on core features and not on nice to have graphical gimmiks.

Furthermore the roll out of Lightspeed confused already users in my company. Not everybody follows Wrike community (most users do not). So a pop up of Wrike Lightspeed with a Beta Test feature (without saying that in the pop up) makes normal users angry.

No good publicity for Wrike.

Pietro Poli

I agree with others members.

For us "list View" is very userful for cross tagging and mass edit action.

Please remember this functions

Shelly Erickson

Before you work on the list view, can you fix the current information view for a project? I have asked many times with no luck. I don't get why it's so hard to fix on the project level when it is already on the task level. Example of project which is where most of our fields are completed vs the task level:

Brandon Larocque

Specific item for New Table View. The old table view allows adding columns from one window (open settings where you can see and check all). New Table View requires scrolling through a list where you "turn on" each field and have to wait for the view to update...after...each...individual...selection. Be careful when developing this new view not to make things harder to do or take longer (e.g. because you're waiting for the view to update in real time).

Kelly Recinos

I agree with all of these comments.
A little more continuity in the UX design would be good.

Melissa DeKoff

I agree with a lot of thoughts mentioned above. I'm very open to the new Table view but I also began using Wrike and left SmartSheets a year ago after a merger at my company. As the Marketing Ops Manager and owner of the PMO software for the team, there is a lot of frustration with the constant changes. As a newer power user, I'm excited to see where you all land and show the team the benefits.

That said, the biggest things for me would be to have the as close to the same functionality regardless of the view. When I right click in a view, there is no consistency in the functionality options that opens up for me. A true training on Wrike Discover covering Lightspeed and the New Table View would also be helpful for user adoption.

Lyra Helms

Our company uses strictly the list view. What changes will I see? We like the list view and if we didn't, we would be using one of the other views that are available. I agree with Zachary Caylor's comments. We have many users that already feel overwhelmed by the use of Wrike and, frankly, we don't need anything added by your team to make that problem worse. Like Zachary, I have no idea of the logic behind this. We simply want to keep the list view simple. That's why we chose it.

Sherrie Besecker

I like everyone's comments above - I think one of the things where Wrike stands out above its competitors is the ability for a user to view the work in the unique way that makes the most sense to them. I like that the New Table view - it combines many of the great things between the current Table and list view - but allows the user to adjust and customize the way they want to - and has many new features too. I think the only thing I see missing is predecessors, but everything else is in place. That being said, I do have teams who use list view as their primary view - so there would be an impact if it goes away. Ideally, it would be great to retain both.

Eric Bernier

I agree to a lot of comments here. I use List view the majority of the time. I prefer to leave things as is...

Karen Bullock

I agree with other comments that a focus on UI instead of functionality is a mistake. I was already feeling nervous about "Lightspeed" (which was very slow for me when I tried it out) and now to learn that an entire view will be going away feels like more frustration than gain. Our team members who are in Wrike every day tracking their work need CONSISTENCY the most. Otherwise, our teams end up spending all of their time on training and navigation when they should be focusing on the content of their tasks.

Ashleigh Brummund

Adding my voice to the chorus that we'd prefer for the list view to remain as-is. It conveys a lot of info/details w/out having to scroll over for multiple columns.

Ralph H

I agree with the comments before me. List and Table serve two very different purposes for me, and losing list view would worsten my user experience. The advantage of list view is the simplicity. Wrike supports the use of many levels of folders and sub-tasks, which creates very messy table views but works perfectly fine in a list view. This change would fundamentally affect the workflow of many users.

Jessie Stith

My team is in List View 95-100% of the time. It's elegant in its simplicity - easy to read and understand. Not everyone likes to look at things in a spreadsheet type style format. Myself included. I find the list view easy to read and navigate, especially when I need to update a lot of info on the fly in a meeting. Sure I use the table view occassionally. It has it's uses. But I wouldn't want to be forced to pick one over the other. Why change or eliminate something that isn't broken?? The list view is great the way it is, and frankly, I'll be very disappointed if it goes away.

I'd much rather see Wrike UI efforts go toward making a better solution in the board view that mimics the flexibility of Trello so my social media team can plan and execute everything on one platform. Or improving on other core features that power users need, like being able to add dependencies without dates and pulling estimated effort into a report. I agree with a lot of others in this thread about putting resources elsewhere besides major UI overhauls that don't even really seem to need to be happening; especially when they are going to cause major headaches for current users to relearn everything they've gotten used to.

Daisy Hibbard

I agree with many others that losing the List view might be a shock to our teammates because that's our primary view—HOWEVER, remember that List view is the default so that's probably why so many of us gravitated to using it over other views! I use List and Board view the most, and really only use the Table for monthly or annual outlooks/data points.

Things I like about List view that I don't want to lose:

SIMPLE way of seeing a limited number of data points at once without visual overload/clutter
Task pops open on the right while the List view stays open (though I see that's coming with Table view - yay!)
Mass editing (this is how I easily remove every month's "Done" tasks from Marketing's Board)
Easily drag and drop tasks and/or subtasks into each other (this is my hack for applying a blueprint to a task that's already been created, like through the request Form)

Adele Kozlowski

Please do not get rid of list view! I continuously have used Wrike in that view preference in past company's I've worked at, and now that I'm bringing wrike to my company now (I'm currently setting it up company-wide) -- I'm extremely worried that not having a list view - will negatively impact my team's ability to easily understand how to use wrike. I truly use wrike in a list view --- and can imagine that 90% of other users do the same.

It's the most intuitive way to use wrike.

Shelly Mikkelson

Our team utilizes list view the most. This change will definitely impact our teams ease of use. Do you have stats to show that List view is not utilized by your end users?

Kelly Recinos

100% what @Melissa DeKoff said about updated training on Lightspeed and the new views. I need tools to explain the tools to my users. The majority of my users do not understand Wrike and I spend a lot of my time walking people through navigation and process just to help them find their own work.
I could really use an option to organize Boards by something other than statuses in a workflow. I do not want List view to merge with Table view.
I am frustrated that Lightspeed has not been a smooth transition for us. It is much slower than before. The global notifications failure a few weeks ago resulted in missed deadlines. We now seem to have lost all follower settings in each task, so I reset them as I review projects. Even my Wrike Success /Pinnacle Deployment Team has noticed our loading time is longer than expected. We are supposed to have our lightspeed updated (?), but we are still waiting. This despite paying thousands of dollars Q1 to upgrade.

Please get all of your developers rowing in the same direction. We need consistency (again, as Melissa said). We need the menus, features, and tools to work the same way throughout Wrike. The menus and navigation tools often differ slightly view to view, project to task, and space to folder to project. Get that tightened up before making other changes. I honestly thought that Lightspeed was going to be that solution.

I am a huge Wrike cheerleader in my company. I know it is the right program for us. Please listen to the comments all of these brilliant superusers are sharing with you.

Roberta Michals

Our team also exclusively uses the List View. Although it is similar to the New Table View. The List View is more compact and easier to do a quick glance to see who is assigned to each task and what the status of the task is. Honestly this was the first time I even looked at the Table View.

Elizaveta Bogdanova

Hi everyone!

We really appreciate all the feedback that you’ve shared with us about the List view and the new Table view. Thank you for such detailed inputs!

We understand the concerns that you’ve shared, so let’s go through the main benefits of the new Table view over the classic one for easier reference:

Loading speed for large-sized tables
Opening items in the side panel (you can continue using the table while having an item open)
“Fields” menu that is easier to use for creating new fields
Priority sorting for projects and folders
Project filters that apply to folders
Single-click to edit items
Conditional formatting for custom fields (in addition to calculated fields)
Clickable links in text-type custom fields
Toggle gridlines
The view remembers the previous expand state
Freezing the Name column by default

And here are the main value points of the new Table view over the List view:

Adding any columns to the view
Editing fields in cells without opening the item
Viewing the full hierarchy, not just a single project
Mass updating projects and folders (this will be added soon)
Priority sorting for projects and folders

Next, here is some context behind the decision to merge the two views and how our team is planning to work with the concerns you shared with us:

List view is built on old technologies which we can’t either improve or even maintain. So we had a choice between building a separate New Table and List or make sure both sets of use cases can be supported in one.
We designed the new Table view to support the needs of both power users requiring the full capabilities of Table, and users looking for a simple list of their tasks. With the new Table, you can create either a spreadsheet-like view with lots of columns, calculations and rollups, or a simple view with just a few needed columns and no gridlines (per user preference). You can also create both in the same folder using Custom views.
Even with a simple List-like version, you can still customise it by adding one or two needed columns, arranging them in order, and viewing items within more than one project.
It is also important to confirm that we are not migrating users from List to the new Table until it supports the capabilities of List including:

Reference to Location (cross-tagging) - in this column you will also be able to manage and add cross-tags
Show “items from sub-projects”
Mass Actions - including mass editing of project and folders

Finally, the List view will not disappear at the full Lightspeed rollout. We will give time for users to get used to the new Table before migrating all existing List view users to a simple Table view in each corresponding folder or project.

We continue to closely monitor all feedback you post here, so thank you again for voicing it in this thread.