Angus French wrote:A few comments on the newly-announced membership system:
1. I was able to use the ‘Forgot password’ function to retrieve my system-generated password. I was then able to login and see that my details had been correctly migrated.
2. I wasn’t able to renew in advance (my current membership expires at the end of April 2013). This functionality doesn’t seem to be available (I tried to use the ‘Payment’ option but this took me to a near-blank page).
3. The three-year membership rates appear to be incorrect, with a £3 discount rather than a £1 discount for on-line applications.
4. There doesn’t seem to be any validation of an input ‘Grading reference’ value. It would be useful, for example, to ensure that the format is six digits followed by a letter. It would also be useful to check for multiple uses of the same Grading reference to help prevent input of incorrect values.
5. It appears to be possible to make multiple applications for membership and then to make a single payment to cover all applications. I think this is useful.
6. A minor point: there’s reference on the registration and ‘My Details’ pages to the ‘Club name’ field but the field is labelled ‘Club’.
7. Another minor point: there’s reference to
http://ecfgrading.org.uk/ on the registration and ‘My Details’ pages. It would be useful if this was hyperlinked.
8. A further minor point: on the registration page, I would position the ‘Submit and Finish’ button below (rather than above) the ‘Submit and add additional members’ button.
9. I wonder: Has the system gone through a formal user acceptance test? Appearances would suggest not and this makes me uncomfortable.
[I've given your questions numbers so that it's easier to cross-refer to the answers.]
1. Correct. You can do this. As I indicated earlier, you will also receive an e-mail shortly confirming your username and password.
2. True, you can't renew that far in advance. For the vast majority - who will be on a 31 August expiry - they will be able to purchase the following year's membership around 1 July. We could make it available earlier if there was a demand. In individual cases, if you really wanted to do your April 2013 expiry now, you'd have to contact the office.
3. See my answer to Roger, who raised the same question. The rates in the system are intentional (and are better value for members than those previously indicated).
4. This is true. We are encouraging PaySubsOnline to introduce appropriate validation checks. In the meantime, there is a process for checking grading reference codes at the grading database end.
5. I haven't tried it, but I think you're right. And I agree, it's useful.
6. OK - thanks for the spot.
7. We asked for this in our original specification, but it wasn't possible to deliver it in time. It will be added as soon as the developers have coded and tested the necessary change.
8. Not sure whether we can change this.
9. I believe that the process which we went through before launch was user acceptance testing, but we may have different definitions. I'm not proposing to post chapter and verse here.