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ARE WE THERE YET?
What a difference a week can make. With help from Ancestry, a small army of beta testers, and the advanced report system that our engineers built last weekend, we are closing in on the stubborn issues that were in the way of successful syncing. "Are we there yet?” No, not yet, kids. But we’re getting close.
BETA RESULTS ARE IN
A record 5,500 beta testers with a range of tree sizes and media content tested a series of four builds this week with improving results for each one. In the latest round, successful syncing was reported by 89% of beta testers with all but the largest trees. Of course that needs to be 100%, but we’re pretty pleased with the ground covered thus far.
GATHERING DATA
The advanced report generation system that I described in the last update was put into all beta builds this week, and we have so far received more than 30,000 diagnostic reports all sent automatically from beta testers. Our engineers have written scripts to analyze them, and we have reported our findings of where the syncing was getting off track to Ancestry.
GETTING IT RIGHT
So how do we get from here to release? We will get a series of adjustments today from Ancestry and more as they roll out early next week. And in parallel we are making the corresponding changes on our side. Then back into beta testing and we keep going until we at or above 98% successful syncing and all other systems “go". Then we’ll release.
WHAT YOU SHOULD BE DOING NOW
It’s perfectly safe to continue working on your trees. We recommend working on your FTM tree if possible since you can make complete backups with media. But if your most up to date tree is on Ancestry, that’s fine too. Ancestry continues to help by providing all but sync services, so you can continue your research with Ancestry hints, search and merge.
AN OPTION FOR THE ANXIOUS
If you have a pressing need to sync, please consider signing up for beta testing. Yesterday, for example, a genealogist who needed to post trees made in Family Tree Maker for her clients joined the beta program, and in half an hour had posted all her trees and was back in business. To become a beta tester, just go to www.familytreemaker.com to sign up.
GETTING SUPPORT
Please read the FAQ’s on our support site (support.familytreemaker.com). That will help a lot. Our Live Chat is open all weekend as usual, but with extended hours. We don’t close down for the night until the last person in line is helped. We can’t help you with syncing your older versions but we are open to assist beta testers and all regular FTM users alike.
NEXT STEPS
We will be working through the weekend to be ready on our side for Monday updates from Ancestry. We do not have a release date yet, and do not plan to provide one until we are ready to release, which could be at any time. Could it be in a few days? Sure. Could it still be another two weeks? It’s possible. When we know, you will too. Stay tuned.
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Disclosure: I am a paid Family Tree Maker subscriber and have received no material considerations from Software MacKiev.
The URL for this post is: http://www.geneamusings.com/2017/04/latest-news-on-family-tree-maker-2017.html
Copyright (c) 2017, Randall J. Seaver
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