We hear from customers frequently that an account’s ability to refresh automatically is confusing. We’re exploring ways we can surface this on the Tiller Console.
Concept
I’m including a mockup below of what some indicators might look like that could help make it more clear which accounts can refresh automatically vs which can’t and how errors can impact refreshes as well.
Refreshes typically fall into 3 categories
Automatic refresh - this can change and we don’t control it, it’s up to the aggregator (Plaid or Yodlee) and the bank
Manual refresh - requires you to click “refresh” but does not require you to enter a secondary authentication code
Requires 2FA - requires you to click refresh AND enter a 2FA code
Errors/connection issues are their own thing
The automatic refresh eligibility (above) is completely independent of any errors, outages, or connection issues so these need their own label. An account may be eligible for automatic refreshes, but is experiencing an outage or connectivity issue that prevents the automatic refresh from working.
Your input
We’d love your input on this concept, here are a few discussion questions to help us choose a direction
Have you ever been confused about whether one of your accounts refreshes on its own vs. requires you to do something?
Have you ever stopped using Tiller — or nearly did — because you weren’t sure if your accounts were updating correctly?
Have any of your accounts been able to automatically refresh for a period and then suddenly stopped automatically refreshing? What information would have been helpful for you to understand this change?
We’re thinking of adding a label to each institution showing its refresh type: “Auto refresh,” “Manual refresh,” or “Requires 2FA.” Do these labels make sense to you, or would different wording feel clearer?
If an account is normally set to auto refresh but is currently having a connection error, how should we communicate that? Does seeing “Auto refresh” alongside an error or connection issue badge feel confusing, or helpful?
Would you find it helpful to hover over (or tap) a status label for more detail about what it means and what you need to do? Or would you prefer the explanation to be visible without any extra step? (see vanguard example)
How much does this problem affect your day-to-day use of Tiller? Would better refresh status labels change how confident you feel about your data?
Please chime in with feedback below! Especially @Beta folks!
In my case, some of my accounts like Wells Fargo and Vanguard consistently refresh automatically but Northwestern Mutual has always been hit and miss. I frequently have to manually refresh or “fix” the connection by re-entering the same login credentials. I suspect this is caused by the connection between Northwestern and Yodlee because I have the same problem when connecting Northwestern to online portfolio management services.
I think it would be a very good idea to indicate the accounts that need manual refreshing vs those that don’t along with a small “i” that opens a discreet info box explaining what it means. A user will only need to read it once so I don’t think it needs to be especially prominent.
I would like the ability to recategorize an account into a 2FA account. When I Refresh All, i have several accounts that Tiller tries to automatically refresh. I think it would be confusing if Tiller identified that account as a Manual Refresh or Auto Refresh and I couldn’t change it.
Have you ever been confused about whether one of your accounts refreshes on its own vs. requires you to do something? NO - IT’S PRETTY OBVIOUS ON THE CONSOLE
Have you ever stopped using Tiller — or nearly did — because you weren’t sure if your accounts were updating correctly? DATA FEEDS ARE THE LIFEBLOOD OF TILLER (WITHOUT ACCURATE, REGULAR UPDATES OF DATA, THERE IS NO REASON TO USE IT IN MY OPINION.) ALL OF MY ACCOUNTS WORK GREAT EXCEPT PERSHING AND IT’S A LOW PRIORITY FOR YOUR DATA PROVIDER, SO THAT’S FRUSTRATING
Have any of your accounts been able to automatically refresh for a period and then suddenly stopped automatically refreshing? What information would have been helpful for you to understand this change? YES. A PROACTIVE NOTIFICATION FROM TILLER INDICATING AS SUCH - A CONCIERGE DATA SERVICE WOULD SET TILLER APART FROM OTHERS WHO SIMPLY STAY “IT’S OUR DATA PROVIDER’S FAULT.”
We’re thinking of adding a label to each institution showing its refresh type: “Auto refresh,” “Manual refresh,” or “Requires 2FA.” Do these labels make sense to you, or would different wording feel clearer? SOUNDS GOOD - NOT A HUGE DEAL AS MOST OF US ARE SUPER FAMILIAR WITH OUR ACCOUNTS
If an account is normally set to auto refresh but is currently having a connection error, how should we communicate that? Does seeing “Auto refresh” alongside an error or connection issue badge feel confusing, or helpful? JUST INDICATING THE ERROR TYPE IS ADEQUATE - MAYBE HIGHLIGHT IN THE DAILY HELLO MONEY EMAIL. AGAIN, THINK DATA CONCIERGE. HOW DO WE MAKE OUR CUSTOMER’S LIVES EASIER BY PROACTIVELY MONITORING THEIR DATA LINKS?
Would you find it helpful to hover over (or tap) a status label for more detail about what it means and what you need to do? Or would you prefer the explanation to be visible without any extra step? (see vanguard example)VISIBLE
How much does this problem affect your day-to-day use of Tiller? Would better refresh status labels change how confident you feel about your data? LABELS AREN’T SUPER MEANINGFUL. THE GOLD IS FOUND IN THE QUALITY AND REGULARITY OF THE REFRESHES.
I’ve been using Tiller since 2020 and my accounts are very stable at this point. In the past I had some issues with a couple of credit cards and those have resolved themselves - Target and Bank of America come to mind. For the most part, I am not seeing connection issues unless there is a known outage. Everything is connected via Yodlee, except for Target which is connected with Plaid. For some reason, Yodlee wants 2FA on Target and Plaid does not.
Is this extra information on the Tiller Console also being considered for the Tiller Money Feeds Linked/Connected Accounts? My Tiller routine is to start on the Tiller Console, and usually hit the blue Refresh button so I have the most current data for all accounts. I almost never look at the connected accounts via Tiller Money Feeds. I believe that there are people who seldom visit the Tiller Console. Having the same information in both places is probably necessary.
That’s a lot of information to process on that mockup page, but also hovering to expand info may not be obvious to someone who is having connection problems. Getting the known outage information to the Tiller Console would be very helpful information - even if it just says there is a known outage with a link to the other sheet for more detail.
1)I have no confusion on what accounts are automatic, manual, or 2FA. All of my account currently auto refresh though; I manually refresh outside of the auto refresh.
3 and 5) Knowing a bank outage or a known issue in the console would be helpful for me.
6)Either way for the status label if fine with me. Knowing there is a status message if more important to me. Though I do like the little “i” that ScottC mentioned.
My biggest issue is no refresh available for Plaid outside of their schedule, and only then because I am sometimes impatient. I have made changes in my account or see something in my account that doesn’t get pushed to my sheet until Plaid is ready to make the change unless I reconnect my account. Overall refresh frequency is good for me.
I’ll cut right to the chase. Yes I love the idea and example shown below. Many times I will just click them all , except plaid accounts, just to make sure, kinda like the mouse pushing the food button expecting food to come out and doesn’t, but still pushes the button anyway. Automation is the future. Open banking and standardization is essential. Keep up the great work.
While I use the Tiller Console regularly due to an account that requires 2FA, it isn’t part of my regular workflow. I’m happy enough with updates happening on their own schedule, and seldom feel a need to force a refresh. That said, if there’s a known error with a connection it would be more useful to me to surface that error in the Money Feeds extension, even if it is just a banner that says there’s a connection error and points me to the Console for more information.
Have you ever been confused about whether one of your accounts refreshes on its own vs. requires you to do something? *
NO*
Have you ever stopped using Tiller — or nearly did — because you weren’t sure if your accounts were updating correctly? NO
Have any of your accounts been able to automatically refresh for a period and then suddenly stopped automatically refreshing? What information would have been helpful for you to understand this change? Not that I remember. I’ve been using Tiller since 2019, so maybe?
We’re thinking of adding a label to each institution showing its refresh type: “Auto refresh,” “Manual refresh,” or “Requires 2FA.” Do these labels make sense to you, or would different wording feel clearer? These labels make sense to me
If an account is normally set to auto refresh but is currently having a connection error, how should we communicate that? Does seeing “Auto refresh” alongside an error or connection issue badge feel confusing, or helpful? If the account normally says “auto refresh” when it isn’t having an error, it should continue to have that label even if it also has an error label.
Would you find it helpful to hover over (or tap) a status label for more detail about what it means and what you need to do? Or would you prefer the explanation to be visible without any extra step? (see vanguard example) I’d prefer to have an info icon that I hover or tap to get more information.
How much does this problem affect your day-to-day use of Tiller? Would better refresh status labels change how confident you feel about your data? This is not a major issue for me.
Yes, nearly did. It was because of my credit union feed going down for over a month. Once it came back online, I had a bad duplicate transaction situation.
Mockup seems clear enough. all of my accounts are auto, so i’ve never had to think about different refresh types.
I would like to see more detail on refresh status in the daily email. BECU regularly requires an MFA update, so having something besides “last refreshed 4 days ago” would be helpful.
All of my accounts except for three of them auto refresh and those three require a code to refresh. I’m not sure what the manual refresh is. The thing that frustrates me the most about the auto refresh is that there is no consistent interval to when they refresh. I would love it if all of the accounts that auto refresh would pull new data in the morning before I receive the hello money email. I understand how the auto refresh works for Plaid as it seems to refresh anytime there is a new transaction. Yodlee is a complete mystery to me. However, regardless of how each aggregator works, why isn’t it possible for you to essentially click the refresh accounts button on a daily basis without the need of the user logging in to click it themselves? For the accounts that require me to enter a code I would be fine if they were left out of this process and only the auto refresh accounts were actually updated on a scheduled basis
1. No. I’ve never paid any attention to automatic refreshes. I go to the console and refresh each account every morning to get the most current data.
2. No
3. Not that I’m aware. My one MFA account has occasionally not refreshed for 4-5 days. Nothing I’ve tried has had any effect; only time has resolved it. A “connection issue” notification like you’ve put in your mockup would be helpful to let me know I should just wait it out.
4. Only “Requires 2FA” might be helpful to me, but only mildly. I have just one 2FA account, and learned long ago to refresh it manually before using Refresh Accounts for the others to prevent the 2FA from being caught in a spin cycle that prevented my ability to refresh it manually until later in the day.
5. Noting known connection issues would be extremely helpful, but I assumed this was the purpose of the Fix button. My one MFA account has connection issues nearly every Monday, and occasionally on other days as well. The Fix button is a good heads-up and helpful when it works, but it frequently takes multiple attempts. I’ve begun to circumvent the problem by entering my credentials after the first failure, and that usually resolves it.
6. I’d rather hover over or tap to get more info if I need it, to keep the UI cleaner.
7. Minimally. My data confidence is much more affected by connection issues and routine transactions that are missing from the data when there wasn’t a connection issue. Yesterday, for example, a routine monthly deposit, which we depend on for income every month, was present in our bank account but didn’t get pushed into transactions until today, despite having a correct entry in my balance history yesterday.
One of my accounts is confusing, see discussion below
Yes - several years ago I quit Tiller after 6 months, mostly due to the amount of time I spent trying to get data to update. It was especially frustrating because the other software I was using at the same time would update much faster. I came back a year later and most issues had been resolved with OpenBanking at almost all my accounts.
Yes - a message in the console as in your example would be great
Seems ok, but see my discussion below
Helpful, and I think this applies to my “Requires 2FA” discussion below
I like the full explanation visible
My connections have been quite reliable for a long time. Showing more information when there are connection problems would make it much smoother when there are issues. I don’t like hiding that type of information behind hovers or having to look for information on another page.
One of my accounts (Barclays USA) doesn’t seem to neatly fit into the “Auto refresh” “Manual refresh” “Requires 2FA” categories. It requires 2FA, and once provided it will automatically refresh for some indeterminate period (sometimes a few days, sometimes an entire month). Then suddenly it requires a manual refresh to provide 2FA. If I manually refresh I never know if it’s going to ask for 2FA or not. (Yesterday it needed 2FA, today it did not).
The example screenshot confused me a bit because the “Requires 2FA” label looks like a status indicator that it requires 2FA now (and you show a Fix button consistent with that status). I think the way my account is behaving, it should show “Auto Refresh” and if 2FA is currently required, a “Requires 2FA” message next to it (it’s just another kind of connection issue, really). Hope this makes sense.
Putting my developer hat on I understand that this account is not the same Auto Refresh as all my other accounts since they never stop for 2FA. But from a user standpoint it’s automatic until it’s not. I used to have another account that required 2FA on every connection attempt. That’s what “Requires 2FA” would mean to me.
I really can’t tell which of my accounts refresh on their own regularly. Some do refresh but it isn’t at a predictable interval so I manually refresh my accounts each morning so it doesn’t really matter.
@jono Jon, you make some good point. From what I have read in various help guides, there are dependencies on when the aggregators run, when the financial institutions allow access, and of course when Tiller triggers a refresh. It would be nice if the status indicators could link to a help guide for dependencies annd actions to take.
I’m not clear as to whether Tiller makes the decision as to how a particular bank refreshes or whether we decide. If Tiller decides, I would want the ability to manually override. It’s a crap shoot for me. Sometimes a bank will auto-refresh, sometimes it requires 2FA, sometimes it just needs a manual push. And then the next time, something changes. So, I’d like the ability to flag each bank with one of the 3 proposed categories. And, if I do have that ability, I’d like it so that unless I label a bank as auto-refresh, selecting the auto-refresh does nothing. Right now auto-refresh is essentially useless for me because of the inconsistencies in my bank feeds.
Yes, I’m Canadian, and it’s kind of a mess for the most part, but I think the principle would likely stand for anyone.
