Delivery by Carrier Pigeon

[Sobil]

Cheers John

[sporran]

Hello Sobil,


the certificate was sent 2 days ago, together with apologies for the delay.

For other users, please note that there is an allowance of 15 working days for sending out extracts. This is still a very manual process for staff at GROS.

If there is a delay of more than 3 weeks, and an allowance for postal problems, the first action should be to contact the service provider (in this case GROS, from the confirmation e-mail). If there is still a problem after that action, then members of the User Group are there to help.

If there is a suspicion of a problem that could affect many users, then this forum is a good place to air it, and again members of the User Group will be interested in following up.


Regards,

John

[Sobil]

Thanks John,

Finally received and very scant unfortunately.... back to the drawing board.

The problem with all these web sites (especially the National Archives) is they are designed by librarians and IT experts. Librarians should be able to access information in the blink of an eye and the IT folks should be able to invent ways of getting the system working but the design of the system is best left to those who know how awful people are at following instructions.....

You need to find the best secretary in the building and let them simplify the whole thing, then IT should build a system around that rather than the other way round. Then get a lot of technological idiots to test the system and tell you why all your buttons are in the wrong place.

I speak from experience.... I was a product manager for a similar type website and the last thing I would let anyone do was show me how it worked. If I didn't have the patience to navigate it Joe Public would also give up, and in our case go elsewhere (not an option with SP).

And my other particular bugbear is this suspension of credits after so many days..... most people are part timers when researching relatives and to insist that they buy more credits in order to reactivate the old ones is ridiculous. Suspend or delete after 3 months inactivity, that seems like a fairer option.

The good points.... thanks for the free credits as compensation for the delay.

Sobil

[DavidWW]

.....snipped..........
And my other particular bugbear is this suspension of credits after so many days..... most people are part timers when researching relatives and to insist that they buy more credits in order to reactivate the old ones is ridiculous. Suspend or delete after 3 months inactivity, that seems like a fairer option.Sobil

Just be thankful it's now 7 days, - it started off as 48 hours, and it took a long hardfought campaign by many members and the User Group to have it extended to 7 days

David

[Sobil]

Can't you pull another "Braveheart", collect a gaggle of scruffy scary Scotsmen in kilts and storm the building? Seems to me if they needed committees to decide it wasn't working, committees to decide what the problem was, committees to recommend action, committees to recommend approval, a signature, then a committee to decide how to implement the recommendations of the committee......

Took me 5 minutes.

I can't remember which successful businessman said "80 percent of all business decisions are wrong" but he was right. There is always a better way.......

Seems to me there are a lot of squashed "laurels" over at SP

(PS My father was a dedicated Civil Servant for over 40 years so I do know they are incredibly lovely people )