At some point I created a scheduled transaction to pay a weekly bill. In the home/overview, the payment is listed as future payment as it should be. Next to the title are buttons for entering and skipping the scheduled transaction. What I just noticed is that it seems only the very next payment in the schedule can be skipped and this despite clicking the 'skip button' next to another scheduled payment. The text displayed in the confirmation box does accurately reflect what will take place upon confirmation. Example: Future payments: Date: 2014 Dec 23 Schedule: "pay weekly bill" Date: 2014 Dec 30 Schedule: "pay weekly bill" Clicking 'skip' next to the entry scheduled for 2014 Dec 23 displays a message with the following text: Do you really want to skip the <b>pay weekly bill</b> transaction scheduled for 2014-12-23? (this is as is expected) Clicking 'skip' next to the entry scheduled for 2014 Dec 30 displays a message with the following text: Do you really want to skip the <b>pay weekly bill</b> transaction scheduled for 2014-12-23? (this is not what I expected) KMyMoney Version 4.6.4 using KDE Development Platform 4.14.2
If we consider the fact that multiple occurrences of the same schedule can only be entered in their proper order then I think that the behavior you described as unexpected is actually correct. The enter button works the same way. If pressed on any occurrence it will actually enter the first occurrence of the payment. All we could do is to hide those buttons for subsequent occurrences of the same schedule but I see this as a setback. Please let us know if you have other ideas about how this could be done.
Hello and thanks for the reply. I think I understand the predicament. And yes, I agree with you that merely hiding the enter/skip buttons for all but the next scheduled transaction may be harder on the user than is the current situation. Let me admit that I may not have read the dialog so closely. Nonetheless, having read it, it still did not strike me as obvious that an upcoming transaction could not be skipped/entered if it were not the next immediate transaction of a schedule. Perhaps it may have been enough for the text in the dialog to appear at a glance to be different when skipping the next time vs any other item in the schedule. Continuing with the example from above: clicking skip next to 2014 Dec 23: Do you really want to skip the <b>pay weekly bill</b> transaction scheduled for 2014-12-23? clicking skip next to 2014 Dec 30: This transaction is part of the 'pay weekly bill' schedule. KMyMoney supports skipping (or entering) the next immediate transaction of a schedule. For 'pay weekly bill', the next transaction is scheduled for 2014 Dec 23. Do you really want to skip the <b>pay weekly bill</b> transaction scheduled for 2014-12-23?
I like your proposal, I think it would be OK to do it that way.
Hello and thanks for the correspondence. Another route may for the dialog to indicate that only the next scheduled item can be entered/skipped and one should click the enter/skip button next to that entry. (That is, clicking skip next to 2014 Dec 30 shows a dialog indicating that 2014 Dec 23 can be skipped, as KMyMoney only supports skipping the next scheduled entry. The dialog is just an OK dialog and does not actually perform the skip in this case. Clicking next skip next to 2014 Dec 23 of course would be the dialog as it is now - sure you want to skip event on date? and perform that action after confirmation) Perhaps a UX expert could chime in.
Honestly, I don't like that idea but do like the former one. If KMyMoney knows what can be done, than why do we want the user to click a few more times instead of just performing the action after his/her confirmation? That's a lot better in terms of UX (I am not the UX expert you asked for, though).
I agree with Thomas, the first proposal is fine but the second sounds like asking the same question twice.
I just noticed that the context-menu shown when right-mouse clicking a scheduled item in a ledger view shows text suggesting only the next scheduled transaction can be entered/skipped.