strangleton

I am usually patient, calm and good, but when I am sickish, or lack sleep, I become aggressive and any one who annoys me makes them a strangle-ton, adapted the word from singleton.

Me: have we settled the outstanding issues with the user?

Vendor: yes, we have already explained to the user that it cannot be done and customisation effort is required.

Me: and the user agreed?

Vendor: yes, the user agreed to have it in phase 2.

Me: there is no phase 2.

Vendor: yes, there is no phase 2

Me: if we make this application too difficult to use, they wont use it and we don't need to think of any phase 2.

Vendor: yes correct.

Me: the users asked for a breadcrumb trail, why can't we give it to them since it's out of the box?

Vendor: because we didn't give them rights to open the root level folder so the breadcrumb trail doesn't work.

Me: why aren't you giving them rights to the root folder?

Vendor: because giving them rights to open the folder means they will be able to see the files and delete.

Me: can't we just don't give them rights to delete those files?

Vendor: no, because we don't want to break inheritance, and they have delete rights at the root.

Me: what are these files at the root folder?

Vendor: system files, the application pages that the user needs to use the system, that's why we cannot allow them to delete.

Me: why do you store the system files with the user files?

Vendor: because we only used one document library for our applications.

Me: how hard is it to separate the system and user files into two document libraries?

Vendor: it's a simple change of configuration.

Me: then can we do that and give users the breadcrumb?

Vendor: yes

Me: we need to give the users as much productivity features as much as it is within the cost and scope and breadcrumbs is there, and we will be short changing them by your (lousy) application design.

Me: now to the next issue. Why are you telling users to move files one by one instead of using the file explorer bulk moving of files functionality?

Vendor: because we only allow admin to delete/move files in bulk. Users are not admin, so they cant use the function, that's a requirement.

Me: but there is still an option for the user to move files via file explorer.

Vendor: they won't know because we didn't tell them.

Me: they are intelligent people and you think they won't know just because you don't tell them?

Vendor: yes

Me: can we tell them that they can use it?

Vendor: no, they are able to delete files in the file explorer when they don't have rights, but if they use the application they will not be able to delete.

Me: that's a breach of the security model of the product, are you sure you can delete?

His colleague explained to him that the user can click delete but if he refreshes the window, the file will still be there because he only deleted his local cached copy.

Vendor: there is another thing, if they delete from the file explorer there is no audit trail.

Me: audit trail for file explorer is an out of the box feature, why isn't it in the audit trail?

Vendor: because we customised the audit trail so there is no audit trail at the file explorer because we didn't want users to user that function.

Me: since you have already customised the audit trail, there is not much we can do for that, but tell the users that if they use the file explorer to move files, it will not be captured in the audit trail. I don't want the users to use the file explorer and then report the audit trail not capturing the move as a bug.

Vendor: ok.

Me: so think about how you want to tell the user everything we have discussed and we will meet the user next week.

Well the positive side of it is that I know we should be able to sign off the system next week after these issues are resolved. The bad part was to the user I took 2 weeks to get round to this because firstly, the vendors were supposed to be closing all the issues, and secondly, because I was away from work due to yaya's teacher's day school holiday, yaya's HFMD, 1-day course, my own body hibernating, my more ferocious users hunting me down immediately on my return, and of course the 10 chess boards that I rotate playing everyday. Another vendor I met today thought that I only have 1 project with them. Isn't that what every user thinks too? that they have tonnes of work whereas we are idling somewhere escaping from all the work. haha.

The trick is similar to multiplexing, getting the right sampling frequency of the user, and always appearing at a particular frequency to make them feel that you are full time with them, and always there for them, when you are not. And like in networks, you need to have a range of bosses/users/vendors with differet frequencies, so that you don't miss any packet. If they have the same frequency, then we need to double the sampling frequency. Ok digressed too much, the multiplexing bit was just a friday crazy bit, cant really be applied at work, there is no trick. Just pure brain juice being used to play 10 boards of chess concurrently. It helps if your opponent is 10 times slower than you are.