Conditionally show/hide columns on the Search page depending on available data

shawnborton commented 4 months ago

The current Search experience can feel a bit confusing for a Track user. Every expense row on the page shows their own name twice (in the From & To columns), which makes Expensify not seem like the right product for their needs. For workspace users, we run into a similar problem where we repeatedly show the employee's name in the From column which feels overly heavy as well. We also show columns that may not contain any data what so ever (like a Category or Tag column) which can occupy valuable horizontal space on desktop. Furthermore, the repeated "View" button also adds to the heaviness of the page and doesn't serve a good purpose given that a user can simply tap the row to view the expense.

To solve these problems, we've identified the following improvements we'd like to make to the Search page:

If all rows in the From or To columns only show your own name, omit those columns
- Someone that only tracks expenses (From Shawn, to Shawn): do not show From or To
- Someone that has only ever received expenses from someone else (From Alice or Bob or Cathy, to Shawn): do not show the To column
- Someone that only sends expenses to a workspace (From Shawn, to Workspace): do not show From
If all rows have blank values (not $0.00, but truly nothing) for a certain column, omit the column. If any have a value, show the column.
If all rows for the Action column just show a View button, let's omit the column (tapping on the row works the same anyways)
Show both Merchant and Description columns on desktop as using the rules above
When scrolling on the Search page, when we load new rows that might contain new columns, to prevent the sudden jump/shift that might happen with the table, we should implement a clean fade out/in pattern to make the data load in a smoother manner

For someone who only Tracks expenses, we would get this for our Search page:

If you did have both Merchants and Descriptions for your tracked expenses, you would see this:

For someone who only submits expenses to a single workspace, we would get this:

If you had a combination of tracked expenses and expenses sent to a workspace, we would get this:

If you had mixed use cases that are From/To multiple people, we would get this:

cc @luacmartins @JmillsExpensify - not sure if we want to handle this one mostly internally or what the implementation details might look like.

shawnborton commented 3 months ago

Friendly bump on this one - should we make this one external so we can get it into motion?

luacmartins commented 3 months ago

Sure, we can make this external since we're still focusing on other Search v2.1-2.2 functionality

shawnborton commented 3 months ago

Sounds good, will mark as external and we can go from there. Can I assign you as the managing engineer?

melvin-bot[bot] commented 3 months ago

Triggered auto assignment to @miljakljajic (Bug), see https://stackoverflow.com/c/expensify/questions/14418 for more details. Please add this bug to a GH project, as outlined in the SO.

melvin-bot[bot] commented 3 months ago

Current assignee @miljakljajic is eligible for the NewFeature assigner, not assigning anyone new.

trjExpensify commented 3 months ago

Going to move this into #wave-control with Search now. Don't know if you want it in Search v2.1 or later, @JmillsExpensify @luacmartins?

Also, maybe we can ask a C+ or agency dev with bandwidth to work on this?

luacmartins commented 3 months ago

I think this might be internal, since we already do some of this logic on the server.

trjExpensify commented 3 months ago

Ah, okay.

shawnborton commented 3 months ago

@luacmartins let us know what the next steps here should be!

luacmartins commented 3 months ago

This is internal, so either I or another internal engineer could work on this. That being said, I'm prioritizing other Search issues atm and won't be able to work on this one any time soon. We could look for another volunteer if we want this one out soon though

miljakljajic commented 3 months ago

What do you think @shawnborton - should we try and get this prioritised higher or are we good to wait?

shawnborton commented 3 months ago

I would be down to find another volunteer to do this if Carlos has a lot on his plate. Perhaps the #wave-collect curator can solicit this as a hot pick?

shawnborton commented 2 months ago

What's the latest on this one? Are we actively looking for volunteers?

miljakljajic commented 2 months ago

@dylanexpensify you're curating wave control - would you be able to give this a shout out in the next update?

luacmartins commented 2 months ago

Still looking for volunteers

miljakljajic commented 2 months ago

posted in wave-control: https://expensify.slack.com/archives/C06ML6X0W9L/p1726153212329969

melvin-bot[bot] commented 2 months ago

Triggered auto assignment to @alexpensify (NewFeature), see https://stackoverflowteams.com/c/expensify/questions/14418#:~:text=BugZero%20process%20steps%20for%20feature%20requests for more details. Please add this Feature request to a GH project, as outlined in the SO.

miljakljajic commented 2 months ago

@alexpensify I've reassigned as I head out on parental leave today. I have bumped the thread where we requested volunteers and tagged you so you can keep an eye out. Thank you!