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Questionable Leadership

rcwynn

It is completely beyond comprehession that the leadership decided that updating the software along with the data is a good idea. Software is SEPARATE from data. I own my data, not Quicken. I should be able to choose when I upgrade the software!

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Comments

mshiggins

Can you provide more details on the issue? Did a patch install cause an issue with your data?

splasher

If you are using Windows, setting your UAC setting high enough will give you that control.

jacobs

And if you are using Quicken Mac, it will pop-up with a box that an upgrade is available, but it always takes two affirmative clicks by a user to install any new version. (And depending on your Mac's security settings, possibly also a login to your AppleID account to allow the installation to take place.) There is never automatic installation of an upgrade.

@rcwynn

The default UAC setting in Windows is set to always notify a user when a program is going to update/install, providing the user with the advanced notification, full control and decision making process. Hope the attached will help.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6031128/uploads/editor/cc/7ykfpc428mpb.jpg

rcwynn

Nope. None of this is what I am talking about. I am fully aware of the UAC and what is in my control to update the software itself.

What happend was that, because of the obserdity of a subscription pricing model. I decided to downgrade from the Home & Business product to the Premier product for the renewal. I downloaded the new product but I DID NOT INSTALL IT in any way shape or form. The very next time I performed a OneStep update to ONLY GET new transactions, with my Home & Business product still installed, the software also changed to the Premier product. I now no longer have access to my Business and Rental Property data. This is MY DATA, not Quickens, and they have no right to deny me access to it. The Premeir product tells me I have to upgrade to get to the Business and Rental sections. I can't even see my data. My intention was to run some reports and save this data to spreadsheets for my historical record before I installed the new product. I can now no longer do that. I called tech support and they told me this was by design. To that I say is very poor leadership. I am a software development manager and I would NEVER couple the software updates with the data updates. Yet thats is exactly what I was told. One tech support guy didn't even know the difference between software and data.

Rocket J Squirrel

I can only guess that when you bought Premier, your online account profile changed to reflect that and somehow downgraded your Quicken. Quicken Support should be able to restore you to H&B when you explain what happened.

Chris_QPW

I agree with @Rocket J Squirrel on what may have happened, and I would like to point out that you have a misconception of what happened if that is true.

Quicken uses one data format for every "edition" of Quicken (Starter, Deluxe, ...). If the user changes their subscription which is tied to their Quicken Id from one edition to another, the actual data file isn't changed. What is changed is Quicken looks at the subscription edition level and changes what features are turned on or off. So, in summary, your data file wasn't changed, Quicken the program's behavior on use of that data changed. and when you get your subscription back to the right edition level you should back to where you were before this started.

And let me state that it is known that if one buys the subscription directly from Quicken.com, they apply the subscription directly to your account/Quicken Id. If one buys from a retailer, then you are given an activation code which you can apply and change the subscription edition level when you want as long as it is between 6 months before your subscription expires and before the 2-year period where the activation code expires.

rcwynn

Some of what is being described is accurate. AND it is why I say questionable leadership. Because 1) it is wrong to change anything about the interface based on a subscription for a DESKTOP product. This is not web product. Until the user actually changes the product on their equipment the interface should not change whatsoever. It should not matter the a subsciption level downgraded because it isn't relevent to the data. 2) There should be NO DIFFERENCE in the usage of the software based on how/where it is purchased. All that does is lead to confusion and cost the company more money in support calls. These kinds of poor decisions have been going on for years at Intuit/Quicken is the was the last straw for me. I demanded and received my money back for the Premeir product and I am no longer going to use any Intuit/Quicken products ever again. I have been a user for over 25 years and I've had it with the stupidity of the leadership and the direction the products have taken.

Rocket J Squirrel

Don't blame Intuit, @rcwynn. They divested Quicken in 2016.

[Deleted User]

@rcwynn - you said you were a software development manager. You then would know how expensive it is to develop and maintain a software product. In my opinion, Quicken is a bargain. What Quicken does with their subscription is no different than what Microsoft does with theirs. When you purchased Quicken Premier directly from Quicken, they updated the product key tied to your online Quicken account. There is only one install program that covers all the different Quicken versions. It is the product key that determines what features are available to you. It doesn't matter that you didn't install the program yourself because you already had the program installed because there is only one program.

Chris_QPW

For what it is worth, I believe that Quicken Inc looks at it entirely differently. They believe that they are helping their users. And I can't say that I disagree.

MOST of the users that buy/renew a subscription want to pay for it and it "just works". That is what would happen for almost every user that buys/renews from Quicken.com.

On the other hand, there isn't any possible way they can use that model for when the user buys from a retailer, so they provide activation code to do it.

I'm pretty sure that your use case is pretty rare, and as such they are getting far fewer calls doing it their way than if they make it consistent and make everyone enter the activation code and have to explain on how to do that, and what limitations it has.

rcwynn

The bottom line is I should be able to choose when the features become active/inactive based on when I choose to change the software. I own the data, I should have the right to access that data with the product I installed right up to the point I decide to change that installed product. Microsoft doesn't change my desktop version of Word or Excel just becauase I buy a new version from them. It is up to me to install that new version. Quicken took that choice away from me and they shouldn't have done that. The Onestep update should ONLY be downloading transactions. It should not in any way alter the feature set of the installed software. Fundamentally I think subscription based software for desktop version is completely stupid. Subscription based should only apply to online/cloud versions. Not ever using Quicken again. Good healthy discussion but I'm out. Have a good day all.

TTSguy

@rcwynn for the money Quicken isn't too bad, if you figure what it costs per month, and everything you can use it for in a month. There are issues, but it's probably as good as it's gonna get. Hunker down and use it for what it does do for you. I feel you pain though!

Look, I understand and agree with your frustrations but that is not the best approach. You encountered a unique situation.

rcwynn said:

... 1) it is wrong to change anything about the interface based on a subscription for a DESKTOP product. This is not web product. Until the user actually changes the product on their equipment the interface should not change whatsoever.

Almost every software program including desktop changes what functions are available based on the level paid. My AV's functions vary based on the Free version, Base, and Pro. Ditto with backup program, remote desktop, tax, zoom, etc. So Quicken is following a very similar and common model.

rcwynn said:

...I am no longer going to use any Intuit/Quicken products ever again. I have been a user for over 25 years

That is unfortunate after all these years and hopefully you reconsider later.

A thought and lessons learned for all of us in-light of this unique situation: Perhaps one can create a new Quicken ID/email and use the newly purchased downgraded edition under that new ID. Then I think we can continue to access the H&B data under the old ID (with annoying ads) I think, assuming an expired H&B behaves similar to the other editions?

[Deleted User]

@rcwynn - you decided to change your version when you purchased the product key directly from Quicken because they updated your Quicken account directly. If you had purchased Quicken Premier from a retail source and not installed the product key, then yes, you could have delayed the install. But then again, you would have gone through the same issues at a later time. Going from H&B to Premier is rare because the purpose and use is different for each. BTW, if you upgrade windows, and purchase it directly from Microsoft, they will update your version of Windows, and update your product key in your Microsoft Account. You do not get a product key that you install yourself.

Chris_QPW

It is a shame that they will lose a long-time customer over this, and an interesting study in how people react.

Given all the really terrible things that can happen in Quicken with Quicken Cloud sync data file corruption, and downloading with Express Web Connect problems, and all the bugs and such in Quicken one would think those would be the reason for not using Quicken, but instead a reason like this.

I guess it has to do with that last straw instead this exact problem.

I will say this. The first time I got on a Quicken forum was in 2006, and it was out of frustration. That year I didn't follow my normal practice of waiting till the next year (from October release of Quicken 2007, to January) and bought and installed it when it came out.

What I hit of course was all the "big bang release bugs". I was so frustrated with it, I convinced myself that Intuit/Quicken was dying and it would be only a matter of time before it was gone. I even started writing a replacement for me. I didn't buy Quicken again until the very last week of the support for downloading of Quicken 2007 (I bought Quicken 2010). Since I had waited for the yearly bugs to be fixed and such, I was actually pleasantly surprised that Quicken 2010 was even a bit better than Quicken 2007. I have been following the Quicke forums ever since.

And that is the reason I don't have a copy of Quicken 2008 and 2009!

EDIT. I should have added this. In summary, I definitely agree that the Quicken Inc manages it in a way that I certainly wouldn't, but as far as I'm concern it isn't anything new. Intuit was just a bad before them. We can't control them, and we each have to decide what is important to us and move forward from there.

jacobs

rcwynn said:

it is wrong to change anything about the interface based on a subscription for a DESKTOP product. This is not web product. Until the user actually changes the product on their equipment the interface should not change whatsoever. It should not matter the a subsciption level downgraded because it isn't relevent to the data.

@rcwynn I do understand why you were upset, but it is based on a misconception. In the old days, you licensed a piece of software, installed it on your computer, and it ran until an operating system update broke it; then you bought an update or a new version, installed it, and moved on.

In Quicken's case, in the old days, they actually had different builds of the software for Starter, Deluxe, Premier, Home & Business, and Rental Property Manager. Each was supported for three years, which meant that making bug fixes repaired a lot of repetitive work to fix one bug across that matrix of 15 products. (And that doesn't count Quicken Canada, or Quicken Mac.) One of Quicken management's stated goals in switching to a subscription model back in 2017 was to simplify things so their developers could do more productive work to improve the product than wasting considerable time applying the same fix to more than a dozen separate pieces of software. Now, they can fix it once (again, speaking just of Quicken Windows) and instantly make it available to all users, irrespective of subscription level.

Another of their stated goals was ending the process of having users have to install different software each year and/or when they changed to a higher or lower level of the product. Now, you download and install the software once, updates are rolled out online periodically, and product level changes are managed by the software.

So that's key in your case. There is no separate software to install for Quicken Premier versus Home & Business. When you say you downloaded but didn't install Premier, that's actually not what you did. You downloaded Quicken — the same Quicken you already had installed on your computer. I know you thought you were downloading a different software product, but that's not the way Quicken actually works. Again, I understand this isn't what you were expecting, but that doesn't mean Quicken management is stupid, deficient, or immoral for making Quicken work like this.

As others have noted, your data wasn't changed when you downgraded your subscription, but your ability to access the Home & Business features was turned off. I understand that's not what you expected. If you contact Quicken Support and tell them you didn't understand it would get shut off as soon as you downgraded your subscription, and that you'd like to reinstate your Home & Business subscription level for the time being, they should be able to accomplish that for you. And once you're done with what you need in the Home & Business version, you can downgrade to Premier again. This should be an easy issue to resolve; you just need to talk with Quicken Support to get your subscription level changed.

Best wishes!

smayer97

It seems ONE of the MOST IMPORTANT point by the OP is being missed here. "they have no right to deny me access to [the data]."

With Quicken's Data Access Guarantee, I think the OP is identifying a major gap. When a user downgrades the product, I can appreciate that certain functionality stop working BUT it should not prevent accessing data that was generated by that functionality.

Currently, Quicken's approach is to simply hide that functionality, with the byproduct of losing access to any data already generated. It would seem that the "simple" solution is to disable the functionality to prevent generating new data but leave enough access to view existing data. Of course, I say "simple" but that is only in concept... I have no idea what it would take to implement that in Quicken... BUT what is does highlight is the gap to address this.

Chris_QPW

@smayer97 I have never use Home & Business, and as such I have never downgraded, but as I understand it, the user can in fact still see the data. What happens though is that the type of accounts changes and as such might not be where they expect it.

Chris_QPW

@smayer97 I might add that Home & Business takes a bit of a different approach than say going from Deluxe to Starter for the business accounts.

When you go from Deluxe to Starter, Stater doesn't have support for investment accounts and loans and such. For this downgrade they don't change the accounts, but they make them read-only.

For the business accounts they actually change the account type. For instance, an account might be "accounts receivable" in Home & Business and changed to a non-business account type in Premier or below.

I think in this regard they are doing "the right thing". The only real complaint here that is valid is that they switched his edition level on his license without him being notified that was what was going to happen. Or in his words, in a consistent manner for all, as in everyone would be forced to use an activation code, so that he wouldn't have fallen into this trap.

[Deleted User]

@chris_QPW I think Quicken, Inc. should develop some sort of communication, or document that describes what happens when a user downgrades their version of Quicken. You bring up good points in that respect. I use Premier, but I have not idea what would happen if I went to Deluxe. In regard to the activation code, I think Quicken Inc. is trying to prevent the possibility of the codes being shared. So It seems like they did two things - 1. They removed the need for the user to input an activation code when they purchase directly online from Quicken, and 2. The retail version's activation codes are one-time use only. In either case, the activation code is tied to the user's Quicken account ID.

Chris_QPW

@Damian Premier to Deluxe is problem the "least" change of all the downgrades. Deluxe supports all the same account types as Premier, so it more about features. Like Zillow, X-Ray Portfolio, some tax and investment reports (creating them, saved ones still work), ...

I agree with that Quicken Inc should better document the differences, but don't really see them doing it. they have yet to do it all these years, and only give a very rough description of the differences.

It is the users that have filled in some of that information in this forum.

On this part:

Damian said:

1. They removed the need for the user to input an activation code when they purchase directly online from Quicken, and 2. The retail version's activation codes are one-time use only.

From day one, it has always been that if you buy from Quicken.com it activates the subscription immediately. I'm sure this just what they believe is easiest for the user. Buy it, use it, with no other steps. Nothing has changed in that regard.

And the activation codes have always been one-time use. There only purpose is to record in your Quicken Id/account the subscription information. After there isn't a reason for the activation code after that. You can't activate a different Quicken Id/account, that requires a paying for another subscription. Once the Quicken Id/account is "tagged with the subscription information" you log in with your Quicken Id to any data file you like.

jacobs

Chris_QPW said:

I agree with that Quicken Inc should better document the differences, but don't really see them doing it. they have yet to do it all these years, and only give a very rough description of the differences.

The comparison page on Quicken.com is much better than it used to be; there's a lot more detail:

https://www.quicken.com/product-selector

Chris_QPW

jacobs said:

Chris_QPW said:

I agree with that Quicken Inc should better document the differences, but don't really see them doing it. they have yet to do it all these years, and only give a very rough description of the differences.

The comparison page on Quicken.com is much better than it used to be; there's a lot more detail:

https://www.quicken.com/product-selector

I agree, better, but far from giving all the details. Especially for downgrading to Starter. Lots of surprises in it that people don't expect.