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API feature request: Product filter/search by name

nigelwheelernigelwheeler Member Posts: 20

Apologies if this has been requested before and I'm sure it's in the plan, but the ability to filter/search Products by Product.name string (with wildcards) implemented on the API backend would be useful to me.
Many Thanks

in API & Integrations Feature Ideas

Comments

  • BarsinBarsin Member, Moderator Posts: 2,041 ✭✭✭

    Hey @nigelwheeler

    Thanks for this post. To be honest, I am not 100% clear on the second half of this stage as I'm not really a product developer but would love to hear more about how this would positively impact your business!

  • nigelwheelernigelwheeler Member Posts: 20

    In generic terms, any integration which wants to utilise the invoicing API needs to add products to the invoice. This is achieved through the API by knowing the node id of that product.

    There will be use cases when I already know the node id for that product but I'm sure there are many where I want to look up that node id using the text name of the product in a UI, like when adding a product to an invoice through Wave's web UI.

    I'm sure you can think of many examples when product names are used in a business other than entering them on an invoice: estimates, stock control, marketing, compliance etc...

    My current option is to retrieve the names & id's of all products from the server & implement a search client side. A potentially more efficient, dynamic and effective option is for this to be implemented in the API itself, server-side.

    @BarsinA much as I appreciate your response and interest in the impact of this on my business, what I am asking is a fairly basic question about a technical subject, i.e. if (& when) this could be implemented in the API. Perhaps it is possible to direct my question to someone else who is 100% clear on what I am asking and thus in a position to comment?

    @PaulC as you seem to have a good technical grasp of the product could I possibly ask for your feedback on this, please?

    Many Thanks.

  • PaulCPaulC Member Posts: 186 ✭✭✭

    Hello @nigelwheeler,

    @BarsinA's question is on point: one of the strongest influences in our roadmap across all areas of Wave is understanding customer pains and use cases for potential new or enhanced features.

    With regard to Product Search, we have typically found within Wave that it is more efficient to capture the entire list of Products, cache, and display/search locally. If you imagine, for example, creating an invoice with 10 line-items, we capture the Products at the start of building the invoice in a single round-trip to the server, then use it 10 times - to display the Product drop-down once in each line item.

    One can also make a case for the alternative - 10 smaller round-trips - but so far we have not seen a reason to do this. Most Wave businesses have relatively few products, and add new products infrequently, so building server-side search has not been a priority.

    I do appreciate your feedback, however, and as the community of developers writing against Wave's APIs grows, we'll certainly be alert to whether this is a commonly-requested feature.

  • mhammadlatifACCAmhammadlatifACCA Member Posts: 37

    Is there any update on this feature?
    It would be really useful when you have a long list of items, GL Accounts etc

  • CliveRobertsCliveRoberts Member Posts: 2

    I have a long list of items and the ability to search for a specific item would be very useful. Any chance of this happening?

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