Please do not enforce plan builder?

Yeah… so this happened today:

Why? First of all, I AM on a plan (Sustained Power Build MV 2). Second of all, it’s up to me whether I use the plan builder or not. Third, I can make my own plan regardless of the plan builder.

This feels like Strava taking away features from unpaid, and Windows 10 enforing updates on you.

It’s like TR is trying very hard to get people to use the plan builder. Why?

I love TR, but this is really a no-go for me.

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  • Agreed, that TR should be doing some form of checking to see if ANY plan is applied to the calendar (likely in the current day/week/month) and not show this message if it “passes” that test.
  • Not sure how a recommendation (all this message really is), removes any feature or forces an action?
  • It does not appear to force or prevent any use or action.
  • Yes, it is an annoying message that takes up space in an already busy page.
    • I think that TR should add the option to dismiss it (short and long term?) so people can not have it, even if they don’t use PB.
    • Edit: And after seeing how a PB version looks on my page, I think that TR could pull any plan (PB or otherwise) and list info in this space. In any case, the option to condense this header message would be welcomed, to allow more focus on the other page info.
  • Because they do feel it is a valuable tool for applying plans. Previously (and still as we speak today) people constantly ask the “what do I do for my plan?” types of questions.

    • Which plan to use for my event(s).
    • What to do if the timeline doesn’t match the perfect SSB > Build > Specialty plan weekly timing.
    • How to modify the schedule around other rides, workouts, B/C races.
    • And many other questions about setting any and all phases of plans on the calendar.
  • If I understand correctly, a BUNCH of their support time, and many questions we see routinely on this forum, all relate to those types of questions. The PB aims to take data, consider their training philosophy, and apply a full PB Plan that address the users needs.

  • It’s not perfect, but does one heck of a job in working towards that direction. I use it on occasion, even if all I am doing is trying different scenarios and then making my on hybrid plans from their base “normal” phase plans (i.e. not PB applied to the calendar).

For reference, here is what I see when having a PB active right now:

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First of all, thanks for the quick and informative response!

Agreed, it does not force this in the literal sense, so that’s misquoted by me. Nevertheless, it feels like I should (like getting popups on websites for subscribing to news letters of Windows asking you to update but you can postpone).

Yeah, ok, perhaps it’s a bug in the logic as to whether to display this message or not.

That would be great. I was thinking perhaps you can turn off Plan Builder integration in your account or something. If you really want people to nudge them towards Plan Builder as it were, perhaps you can leave Plan Builder on by default, and then have people confirm when they want to disable it and provide a link to documentation to outline its advantages (persuasive communication).

Apparently, then, there seem to be two categories of customers each with their own preferences (perhaps I’m in the minority). I can imagine there is also a learning curve: in the beginnen, the builder is quite helpful for (relative) newcomers. Over time, as you have experimented more with plans yourself (as before the plan builder), you no longer want to be nudged into using it.

Always a difficult decisions the extent to which you should “dumb down” the user interface and guide people (see Unity on Linux, and the recent move by Apple to simplify Mac OS in the newest version).

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Woah, is this new? I went to check my career page after seeing Chad’s screenshot and it does indeed now have my plan overview. I actually love this. I had gotten really tired of scrolling through my calendar every time I wanted a reminder or a timeline view of my plan.

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From many different angles, I have seen the “friction to entry” as an issue with TR and new users or ones even considering whether to join. As such, TR has place a large effort into lowering the barrier to entry and usage of the app and plans.

The PB is probably the single most important part of that, while they still maintain the great plan info on the site, podcast, blog, and any other “help” resources… that are intended to educate potential and new users about the best way to leverage the TR resources.

I do think there should also be consideration for “advanced” users that may be doing any number of atypical TR use. I am a firm believer that for any option added, there should be the option to NOT use it. People all differ in preferences, not to mention knowledge, background and many other factors. A single option is seldom the “best” option since you are unlikely to get something that works for more than 80% of users in any particular case.

Nothing bugs me more in apps and service when someone makes a new tool, takes the old one away, and then forces me to adapt. It is inevitable in some cases, but more often than not, it’s best to maintain both paths if at all possible.

Real life is often more complex than we’d like, but I do think considerations of “non-adopters” are very relevant and worthwhile.

  • Yes, this is new as of a few days ago? I know it wasn’t there for me earlier this week.
  • I do like the direct connection and option to access the PB info from the button on the right. Cool new function in some ways.

As one of the new users, I have to say plan builder did really help the onboarding. I’ve listened to the podcast for a while, but just barely bought a trainer and signed up. Even having listened to all the talks about training plans, I would have been a bit lost about where to start. I still have a lot of questions, but at least I won’t have to worry about missing workouts while I learn what workouts I actually want to do.

All that said, I agree with the general theme. Apps need flexibility to adapt to new and advanced users.

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Hey all! Plan Builder has proven to get the best results for the largest proportion of our athletes, so we want to make sure it’s utilized by as many folks as possible. This banner isn’t a sign of any features being changed or taken away, it’s just intended to convey that your plan isn’t as customized to you as it could be if you used Plan Builder. Admittedly, our implementation of this custom plan notification wasn’t perfect, and we’re working on fixing it now. Sorry to those of you who do have a plan but were told you didn’t. We’re going to adjust this to only show “Current Training Plan” if you are on a custom plan, and it will appear as it used to if you’re not on a custom plan.

We’re always adding new features and trying to find ways to make TrainerRoad more beneficial for more people, and this notification grew out of that mission! :v:

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Ivy, I don’t doubt it but do have any figures you can share on this, even general figures. Just interested.

But this is just incorrect. My plan is actually more customized to me than PB could ever be, down to the actual workouts. Seeing the PB ad is quite off putting.

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Right! And this is intended for folks that do not currently have any plan as clarified above. Again, Sorry to those of you who do have a plan but were told you didn’t, that is being fixed! We’re going to adjust this to only show “Current Training Plan” if you are on a custom plan, and it will appear as it used to if you’re not on a custom plan! :+1:

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Sure! I can check into this! Regarding success rates of Plan Builder, how many athletes use it, etc? I’ll for sure see if these numbers are available to share!

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Agree that an option to dismiss it would be nice, but other than that I don’t have an issue. Certainly doesn’t feel ‘enforced’ to me- having a feature that could potentially make the user experience a lot smoother/more intuitive displayed fairly prominently makes sense to me.

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Or how many Watts it will guarantee me compared to not using it :wink:

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We’re updating this now, probably up today. It won’t show if you’re on an “ad-hoc” plan.

Sorry everyone!

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I’d also like it if you could dismiss the nudge once it has been acknowledged.

I spend long periods of time building my own training structure and would like the opportunity to dismiss the nudge so it isn’t on my Career page permanently

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We’re going to make it be hidden with no nudge for everyone who’s not on Plan Builder.

If you’re on plan builder, it gives you the status of your training plan with link to edit and delete (more coming in the future).

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I finished a Plan Builder plan in July and it says that it is my current plan even though it does show the end date of the plan in July. After that plan I just went though another base, build and specialty to finish of the season.
Wondering why it shows a plan that I completed as my current plan?

We’re smoothing out the wrinkles and working on a fix! Sorry for the confusion!

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Aside from the issue I have above, I actually like the implementation and being able to quickly see my overall plan details.

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