sort the order of products etc. a programmer vs. a salesman

searain

for example, I have a list of products, it is default to be sorted by product codes.

but for some number of the products, we want to get the clients attention, we will break the sort by products codes rule, and bring them on top of all the other products.

here is my solution it works well for a programmer.

i add a field called "rank", every product will get the default rank 0, and then for the special products, we will give them the rank such as 15, 10, 8, 5 etc.

and the highest rank number goes, the top it will be on the sort results. it is "order by rank desc, productcode".

but my salesman told me when he saw the word "rank" he will always assume that rank 1 will be the first, rank 2 will be the second etc. and after that it will be rank 3, no empty room between them.

Yes, I can make the salesman happy. I can set up all the products to the default rank say 10,000, and then ask the salesman to assign the 30 important products he wants to display first specially as rank 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 ...20 ...30. basically it is "order by rank, productcode".

But I told him if he already has 1 to 30 special rank values assigned. and then he want to add another 1 to the top, he will have to re-rank all these 30 products from 1-30 to 2-31, and then name new one rank 1. (the room to go down is limited)

I am only use the products as an example here, I am using this for the products category, proudcts sub_category etc. If things has to work this way for all of them, it will be a disaster. Very ugly.

By my way, he just simply ranks the new top one product the highest value, the room for rank to go up is not limited, and we sort from high to low (plus we will leave the rooms between each rank to plug in).

Also I told him that I use the word "rank" instead of "display order", first i don't want people think it has to be 1-30 not 30-1. Second, i want people not always use 1,2,3,4,5 ... I want them to use 5, 10, 15, 20 etc. so it will give them the room to "plug in" some new products in the middle of the sort results. (i am an old guy from old Basic time 🙂)

even I made the instruction about how it works right there, the salesman says our software clients will not read it, they will always assume rank 1 on top off rank 2, and then it must be rank 3 follows it.

I can do the salesman's way, but it is just ugly.

What's your solution? I am sure not just me as a programmer has this discussion with my salesman. And they will always wave this flag "hey the client wants this" in front of your face.

Do you have a clean programming solution to make my salesman happy?

Or a simple English language solution? How about call it "Attention Points", "Attent weights" instead of "rank"? Will people better understand me by these words? The higher the "weights", the top it will be on the sort results. Any other "name" you can suggest?

Thanks. When I have the problem with the sales department, who I am going to ask for help? programmers!

Thanks!

kevinsequeira

what you want to do makes perfect sense, kill the salesman and give your idea to the client directly. 😃
maybe u can use a name like "product_listing_order" or "product_listing_number" or
"product_listing"

hope that helps ...
reg
kevin

searain

The most frustrated thing here is that salesman said he was English major, he would know what public would think when they saw the word "rank" (no matter i put instruciton "how it works" right there or not.)

Then I asked well, you are English major, could you find a word for me to better describing my attention to the public rather than using the word "rank"? He said no.

I am thinking about using the word "attention points", "attention weights", "priority points" or "priority weights" to avoid the confusion of the word, "rank". (or it is still too scientific-ish?)

Any people here can help me find better words I can use or better, give me example of what word some general public software is using in this situation? So I can sell it to the salesman.

By the way, kill salesman is out off the options. 🙂 you cannot live with them and you cannot live without them.

Thanks!