Announcing IPP v2.6

The IPP team is excited to announce that IPP v2.6 is now live and available
for IPP partners which includes:

1. INTUIT DATA SERVICES ENHANCEMENTS
We’ve made a
significant number of enhancements and improvements to Intuit Data Services.

All of the new objects and behaviors listed below work with v2 of the IDS
API. Developer must use v2 of the IDS API to utilize these new
services.
Previous IDS versions (e.g. v1) are supported but will not include
new objects/behaviors; developers are strongly urged to migrate to the latest
API version at their earliest convenience.

The following data elements and methods have been exposed via REST API as
well as added to the IPP Flex framework:

New IDS Objects

• ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE
  • Read access to Item Assemblies, Item Groups, and Sales Tax Groups
  • Read access to Customer Message, Customer Type, and Job Type
  • Read access to Deposit and Item Fixed Asset items
  • Read access to Credit Card Charge, Credit, and Refund transactions
  • Create methods for Sales Receipt, Terms, Payment Method, Sales Rep, and
    Class
• ACCOUNTS PAYABLE
  • Read access and Create methods for Item Receipt transactions
  • Read access to Bill Payment Credit Card transactions
  • Read access to Vendor Type
  • Create methods for Bills, Checks, and Class
• GENERAL LEDGER
  • Read access to Payroll item (to identify a wage item to apply to a time
    activity)
• LISTS
  • Read access to Other Names and Customer Message
  • Ability to reference entities by ID in addition to Names
• OTHER
  • Read, Create, and Update access to Time Tracking with Payroll Item reference

Other IDS Enhancements available with IDS
v2.6:

• Custom Field Support
  Partners can define custom attributes associated
  with any IDS object. Partners have full Create, Read, and Update access to these
  attributes from within their applications.
• Query Optimizations
  All IDS queries have been enhanced to allow partners
  to specify the exact list of attributes they want returned; this enhancement
  improves query performance and reduces network traffic.
• “Draft” Flag on Updated IDS Records
  A new Draft flag has been added to
  IDS objects that support Update methods. Setting this attribute on a modified
  data element tells IDS not to sync the data to QuickBooks desktop. This
  attribute enables partners to allow their customers to create and revise IDS
  data in the cloud before committing these changes to QuickBooks desktop.
• Update Optimizations
  IDS now supports update methods that supply only a
  subset of field values. Only the supplied fields will be modified, while all
  other fields are untouched. This enhancement compliments the query optimizations
  mentioned earlier and can improve update performance.
• Changed Data Query
  Additional IDS capabilities have been included that
  allow partners to query for data changed or modified after a given timestamp.
  This capability can significantly improve the performance of applications that
  want to maintain an up-to-date list of data; allowing only new or changed data
  to be retrieved after the initial list is queried.
• Sync Error Handling
  Partners can now query for “errored” IDS objects,
  that is, all objects that failed during a sync with QuickBooks desktop. Objects
  that failed to sync can be reverted to the version last successfully
  synchronized with QuickBooks.
  New methods have also been added that allow
  developers to request that specific object instances in DRAFT state in the IDS
  data store be overwritten with data from QuickBooks Desktop. These methods allow
  partners to handle Sync failures and revisions more elegantly.
• Initial Sync Performance Improvements
  The performance of syncing a
  customer’s QuickBooks desktop company file to the IDS online data store the
  first time has been improved by about 50 percent.

Follow this link to more information on these and other new Intuit Data
Service capabilities.

2. STREAMLINING THE APPLICATION SIGN-UP/SIGN-IN
EXPERIENCE
We’ve added several minor enhancements to the IPP SUSI
experience.

Note: All changes are upwardly compatible. New developer-facing enhancements
are optionally configurable. The end-user changes to make the SUSI process
clearer and easier will be immediately available for new users signing up for
Intuit App Center applications.

Enhancements include:

• Streamlined Terms of Service Process
  When signing up for free, trial, or
  beta subscriptions for third party applications, customers now agree to the
  partner’s Terms-of-Service and Privacy Policy as an integrated part of the
  sign-up process; this is no longer a separate step.
• Preselected Business Profiles
  Users signing up for App Center
  applications directly from the QuickBooks Desktop browser will have the Business
  Profile with their QuickBooks file automatically selected.
• Customizable Help Links on Application Sign-In Page
  Partners who choose
  to customize their application login page now have the ability to customize the
  help links associated with that interface.
• Better Help for Customers Changing or Cancelling an Application
  Subscription
  Under certain circumstances, users may encounter problems using
  the App Center interface to upgrade, downgrade, or cancel their application
  subscriptions. Users who encounter this issue are now presented with a clear
  help dialog explaining the issue and directing them to call the support phone
  number related to the specific application team.

Get more information about these and other new IPP SUSI capabilities
here.

3. INTUIT WORKPLACE APP CENTER IMPROVEMENTS
We’ve made a
variety of enhancements and modifications to Intuit App Center to improve the
overall shopping flow and experience.

Customer Enhancements

• Streamlined Learn More page design
  Learn More pages in Intuit App Center
  (aka AppCards) that describe the specific benefits, capabilities, requirements,
  and support policies for each IPP application have been simplified. Page
  elements that showed other New and Most Viewed applications have been removed. A
  new Support tab as been added, along with a new Requirements/Dependencies
  section on the Technical tab. (See below.)
• Enable Users to Edit Their Business Profile Names
  Application users with
  Admin privileges can now edit the name of their business profiles as well as
  update other profile attributes. This capability is included in the My Account
  section.
• Access to support for users with QuickBooks Sync issues
  The HELP option
  on the App Center application toolbar has been updated. For admin users
  accessing an application that syncs with QuickBooks desktop, a new help option
  has been added to submit a support incident related to QuickBooks sync.

Developer Enhancements

• New Support Tab on Learn More Pages
  A new Support tab has been added to
  the Learn More page (aka AppCard) for each IPP application. This tab will
  include the details on a particular application’s support policies as well as a
  link to the application’s online help services and the Support phone number for
  that application team.

• This information was previously available in App Center on the Technical tab
  within an application’s Learn More page. No additional work is required by
  partners to enable this tab.
  Note: Partners are required to provide this
  information before their application is published into production.

• New Technical Requirements/ Dependencies Info on Learn More Pages
  A new
  section has been added to the Technical Tab on the Learn More page for each IPP
  application. This section provides users with information regarding minimum
  machine requirements, supported browsers, and supported QuickBooks versions to
  run a particular IPP application.

• We urge partners whose applications have specific minimum requirements for
  browsers, QuickBooks connectivity, machine resources, etc. to update their
  AppCard data so that this info can be properly presented in App Center.Improved Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Help Instructions

• Additional
  help instructions have been added to IPP’s Publish Application interface that
  provide partners with suggestions on how to best tag their Learn More
  application pages so that search engines can index these pages in an optimal
  fashion. 

• Google Analytics Tracking Codes
  Google Analytics tracking codes for the
  Learn More pages will be modified as part of v2.6. Developers who have written
  reports to track data flow on the Learn More pages (i.e. “Funnel Tracking”) will
  need to modify their tracking codes. See documentation for Google Analytics for IPP / Workplace App Center

Follow this link for more information on these and other new App Center
capabilities.

4. SOFTWARE UPDATES / FIXES
For a complete list of
software updates / fixes included in IPP v2.6, please review the release notes
here.

Thanks,
—The Intuit Partner Platform Team