Sunday, July 16, 2017

It's Official - Family Tree Maker 2017 Rollout Begins

I saw this on the Family Tree Maker Users Facebook group page today:

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JULY 16 - FTM 2017 HAS ARRIVED

LET THE ROLLOUT BEGIN
It's official. FTM 2017 has been released. We will begin in a few hours rolling out the new edition to our Test Drivers. They will drive alone until sometime Sunday afternoon U.S. time when, assuming all is well with the systems we've worked so hard to tune, the rest will begin to join.

ONWARD AND UPWARD
It's been a great and humbling experience getting to this point. There were times we thought this song might never end. But with the help of all of those who had our back, who cheered us on, who gave us courage to stay the course, and who never stopped believing in us -- we thank you.

No software is perfect and there are still challenges ahead. We won't be content until 100% of you can sync first time and every time. But for a few days we will take deep breaths, re-introduce ourselves to our families, recharge our batteries, and dream of great things to come. Stay tuned.

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I received my invitation to download Family Tree Maker 2017 this morning while I was peacefully sleeping in Monte Rio.  It was waiting for me when we got home this afternoon.  It is downloading (only 619 mB) as I type.

The email said, in part:

Greetings Test Driver Randy!

First of all thank you for signing up to be a test driver. Whether you drove a few minutes or a few months, we were mighty glad to count you among the many who volunteered to do more than just kick the tires. And having taken that first ride together, we're so pleased to present you now with the results of that long road home. Enjoy! You've earned it.

INTRODUCING THE CO-PILOT PROGRAM

There was one thing about the Test Drive program that we wanted to keep going into the real deal – the 48-hour check in. That gave us an extraordinary chance to touch base with each and every one of our drivers, even if only for a few minutes to see how their test drive had gone for them. But we wanted to lose the “test” part of “test drive”. So we're proud to introduce the test drive's new cousin – the FTM Co-Pilot Program.

The idea is simple and will be familiar to test drivers everywhere. We start every new FTM 2017 user off with 48 hours on their own, and then stop for a brief check in on the second day. We run an optional diagnostic test to confirm that everything has gone as planned, and then you're off on your own. But not completely. Live Chat is there for you 24/7, and as a test driver, you will always have a special status there.


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I was a short-time test driver for FTM 2017.  I got my invitation in May (I think), and only tested it out several times over the last two months.  It synced a smaller tree (about 10,000 persons as I recall) to my Ancestry Member Tree well, but without media.  I tested out the new features in FTM 2017 besides the TreeSync.  In the last month, I tried to TreeSync a bigger tree (45,000 persons with 1,300 media items) adding a new Ancestry Member Tree and it stalled out several times uploading media.  Hopefully, my bigger tree will sync well now.   I will report more on the progress.

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Copyright (c) 2017, Randall J. Seaver

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2 comments:

Gayle said...

Test driver here too. Downloaded and up and running smoothly. Have also synced several times with no glitches. Now to catch up on the FTM reports I been waiting to create.

Bill said...

Be patient with all the media items. In the most recent update, my 9000 person tree downloaded in 10 minutes but the thousands of media items took overnight and into the next day. There may be some throttling occurring so as not to overwhelm network resources with so many FTM users doing the update.