Sort order of Policies broken?

In Web \ Policies I believe there is alphabetical sorting.

In the editing of a Firewall Rule, in the dropdown list of Web Policies...  oh it gets fun. 

It is unsorted - which actually means it is sorted by ID number.  So if you create new policies they go to the bottom of the list in creation order.  However if you delete a policy then it fill in the gaps.

So it is a...  design indecision?  eg there was no requirement so there was no design.  Its not really a bug its...  Sorted list is not a feature?  :)

I've complained about it internally, but priority is low.  Perhaps if there was external complaints.

I'm complaining :-)

How do I make it official?

log a feature request and post the link here.

Ian

Arie said:

I'm complaining :-)

How do I make it official?

In order of visibility:

Log a ticket with Support. 

Any Partner channels

https://www.sophos.com/en-us/support/feature-requests.aspx

I'm using a Home license (on my home network) to get a good feel for XG. Can I log tickets on a Home license?

For what it's worth, I'm part of the Proxy Team of a Fortune 500 company. I'm also frequently consulted about 'IT-stuff' by small non-profits. Maybe that adds some weight?

Hi,

the only avenue you have for a home user is the add features site as suggested by Michael.

Ian

Perhaps a slight rabbit trail, but isn't the whole point of the (free) Home license so IT-professionals get a taste for Sophos so they'll introduce it at the company they work for? Now, I'm not saying that the Home users should be allowed to log tickets. But I do know from experience that many IT-professionals are running it at home and their decision to implement it at their company (commercial licensing) is based on their experience at home. 

The ideas forum is a great idea, but it's also rather unstructured and doesn't seem to get culled/organized by Sophos.

Arie said:

Perhaps a slight rabbit trail, but isn't the whole point of the (free) Home license so IT-professionals get a taste for Sophos so they'll introduce it at the company they work for? Now, I'm not saying that the Home users should be allowed to log tickets. But I do know from experience that many IT-professionals are running it at home and their decision to implement it at their company (commercial licensing) is based on their experience at home. 

The ideas forum is a great idea, but it's also rather unstructured and doesn't seem to get culled/organized by Sophos.

Ultimately though Sophos gets hundreds of requests from many sources.  It makes sense that the requests that come from paying customers are given more weight than those by people using a home license.  The middle ground is when a customer is doing a trial and is working with a Sophos Partner or a Sales Engineer - that is a way for an IT Professional who is actually trialing it for potential work use can speak to an expert about how to configure things, what is supported, and to raise defects.

But lets for example take the following issues:

- A list has not been sorted for years and has had a few home users complain about it.

- A bug causing a minor memory leak in a configuration used by 1% of customers, but one that no will ever notice.

- A large current customer who has requested a minor feature.

- Sophos Partners have told us that about a minor feature our competitor has that we don't that is causing us to lose sales.

The project manager will see these different requests, the cost (time/resources) of doing each, see the resources that they have for a release, and decide which ones we are going to do.  It is a complex balancing and prioritization act.  All of the issues above are indeed issues - including the unsorted list.  I'm a QA - I agree - it is wrong.  But given other competing projects, when should it get fixed?  And no matter what a project manager decides - someone will be upset.

I understand, and I agree.

There are, however, items that could be addressed without a formal (dev) effort. One of those is a reasonably reliable roadmap. Roadmaps drive a myriad of business decisions, ranging from vendor selection to upgrade decisions. Or, in the case of SG / XG, when and whether to select XG. 

Having said all that, overall I think Sophos has a good product and a serious contender for many businesses. XG seems to be getting close to being one of the stronger choices for schools and other non-profits. 

Do not forget, most of the time, issues looks "simple" but are harder to solve in the backend. 

The process to fix a issue has to run through couple of QA Processes and other stuff. There are more than one person involved to resolve such thing. So the estimated time spend on such issues is higher than excepted. 

I have couple of time such discussions with partner / customers. 

Arie said:

One of those is a reasonably reliable roadmap. Roadmaps drive a myriad of business decisions, ranging from vendor selection to upgrade decisions. Or, in the case of SG / XG, when and whether to select XG. 

I fully agree, and it is frustrating to me.  As a Sophos employee I know a lot about what we are working on right now, and a little about what the future plans are.  But I cannot communicate that in the forums.  It is up to product management, marketing, and so on to relay that to partners and customers.

I can say that roadmaps change, and the further you go out the less sure we are.  The v18 that we are working on right now is pretty set in stone and IMO should have a least the high level features announced.  But it is different from what we thought v18 was going to be 12 months ago.

The sort order issue is mostly just a nuisance for small organizations. For larger orgs it might be a show-stopper - especially since search/filter isn't really functional either.

The sort order issue is mostly just a nuisance for small organizations. For larger orgs it might be a show-stopper - especially since search/filter isn't really functional either.