AUK Finances and Website Project was: AUK Chairman Statement

[FifeingEejit]

A Membership backend can be pretty significant or it could be a simple spreadsheet;
I've seen both the former for a >5000 member car club the later for an 80 member hiking club.

It's certainly not going to be the latter. I've just found this amazing document in which AUK pays £10,625 + VAT not to build anything but for a couple of people to have a brainstorm about what the membership system might look like*. Bearing in mind there's already a 20 page document detailing everything required and dividing it into user stories.

There's also another bill for £4,600 half of which is bug fixes for things that weren't built properly in the first place, and the rest is tiny changes.

This is a fucking racket.

(* In my universe this part of the work would be done over a cup of tea before we actually got on with building it...)

10 grand for a design session and 5 for bug fixes is still minuscule compared to the numbers bandied about here for much less.
The bosses keep discovering that seemingly small changes have tens or hundreds of thousands of pounds on their price tag, and phone calls cost a bit of dosh too...

I'm suspecting you should be a multi-millionaire or at least have been rushed off your feet by a massive glut of work due to your working practices making things relatively cheap!

So many IT experts who could have done this so much better.  If only AUK had known. 

I'm yet to find IT experts that agree on anything... which occasionally gets interesting at work.
Like the colleague who appears to be terrified of me since I rather forcefully put a point across... and lost the argument for political reasons.

[frankly frankie]

The bosses keep discovering that seemingly small changes have tens or hundreds of thousands of pounds on their price tag, and phone calls cost a bit of dosh too...

This is a point I keep making whenever proposals to tweak some AUK Regulation turn up.  Many of the ride regulations and the back-end IT processes are intimately tied together.  For example current proposals to re-classify various types of events according to a new and better heirarchy (though which 'better' of several choices is unclear so far) would send shockwaves through the existing aukweb system, never mind the new developers.
From now on any new "bright idea" such as a new award - duly democratically agreed on and voted in - will have a cost implication.

[FifeingEejit]

The bosses keep discovering that seemingly small changes have tens or hundreds of thousands of pounds on their price tag, and phone calls cost a bit of dosh too...

This is a point I keep making whenever proposals to tweak some AUK Regulation turn up.  Many of the ride regulations and the back-end IT processes are intimately tied together.  For example current proposals to re-classify various types of events according to a new and better heirarchy (though which 'better' of several choices is unclear so far) would send shockwaves through the existing aukweb system, never mind the new developers.
From now on any new "bright idea" such as a new award - duly democratically agreed on and voted in - will have a cost implication.

And so they should be, the job of IT is to carry out business processes in the case of AUK that is defined by the regulations and administration required to facilitate them.

One of the reasons for the shock here is because the in-house development team are not time chargeable, no matter how much work we are doing, or what we are doing, we cost the same.

[D.A.L.E.]

Bit annoying that there's no accreditation on any of the photos mind. I assume I'll be getting a cheque instead?

[The Bonk]

Bit annoying that there's no accreditation on any of the photos mind. I assume I'll be getting a cheque instead?

What will you spend your 340k on?

[HeltorChasca]

Tried everything and can’t log on. Help!

[Cudzoziemiec]

Bit annoying that there's no accreditation on any of the photos mind. I assume I'll be getting a cheque instead?

What will you spend your 340k on?

Event entries of course!

[Cudzoziemiec]

Tried everything and can’t log on. Help!

This was raised somewhere in the thread, IIRC the answer is you have to go back to the old site, alter your password and used your new password to access the new site. That's assuming you're still using your original AUK-issued password.

[HeltorChasca]

Tried everything and can’t log on. Help!

This was raised somewhere in the thread, IIRC the answer is you have to go back to the old site, alter your password and used your new password to access the new site. That's assuming you're still using your original AUK-issued password.

Thanks. Tried that and it didn’t work. I assume it’s still your membership number only. No letters.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Tried everything and can’t log on. Help!

This was raised somewhere in the thread, IIRC the answer is you have to go back to the old site, alter your password and used your new password to access the new site. That's assuming you're still using your original AUK-issued password.

Thanks. Tried that and it didn’t work. I assume it’s still your membership number only. No letters.

Yes, I think so. Well number only worked for me.

[Jaded]

A Membership backend can be pretty significant or it could be a simple spreadsheet;
I've seen both the former for a >5000 member car club the later for an 80 member hiking club.

It's certainly not going to be the latter. I've just found this amazing document in which AUK pays £10,625 + VAT not to build anything but for a couple of people to have a brainstorm about what the membership system might look like*. Bearing in mind there's already a 20 page document detailing everything required and dividing it into user stories.

There's also another bill for £4,600 half of which is bug fixes for things that weren't built properly in the first place, and the rest is tiny changes.

This is a fucking racket.

(* In my universe this part of the work would be done over a cup of tea before we actually got on with building it...)

10 grand for a design session and 5 for bug fixes is still minuscule compared to the numbers bandied about here for much less.
The bosses keep discovering that seemingly small changes have tens or hundreds of thousands of pounds on their price tag, and phone calls cost a bit of dosh too...

I'm suspecting you should be a multi-millionaire or at least have been rushed off your feet by a massive glut of work due to your working practices making things relatively cheap!

So many IT experts who could have done this so much better.  If only AUK had known. 

I'm yet to find IT experts that agree on anything... which occasionally gets interesting at work.
Like the colleague who appears to be terrified of me since I rather forcefully put a point across... and lost the argument for political reasons.

10k may seem minuscule, but it has to be seen in its proper context.

That is not the context of comparing with other IT projects but the context of the reserves and income of the organisation procuring the work for 10k.

[bhoot]

Tried everything and can’t log on. Help!

This was raised somewhere in the thread, IIRC the answer is you have to go back to the old site, alter your password and used your new password to access the new site. That's assuming you're still using your original AUK-issued password.

Thanks. Tried that and it didn’t work. I assume it’s still your membership number only. No letters.

The problem comes if you did change your password, but then continued to use your original system generated password. The new site only accepts the one you changed it to. And yes - no letters, just numbers please.

If you still have a problem pm me or better still write to membership@audax.uk with your real name and number and I am sure we can sort it out.

[willpom gwraudax]

Being a relative newbie to audax and AUK (4yrs) and below the average age I'll say this:
The old site functioned and was clear and concise.
It wasn't a turn off to me to enjoy riding my bike.
Not denying it could do with an overhaul and as has been stated previously the actual innards are straining.
The new site looks like an improvement; but I'm what is now considered middle aged and think it looks like a mediocre makeup job.
If the aim is to attract new riders/members then AUK are mainly going to be trying to attract sportive riders (as a recent tweet implied) and the younger demographic, they are used to better sites, this is going to need a refresh pretty soon.

My honest opinions:

Calendar

• Like the event name central in bold - but centrally justify it? and...
• ...come on any thoughts other than a list view? The same functional plain old spreadsheet. Perhaps a double line between weeks and merge the common date cells at least.
• Where is the calendar subscription so we can all see a list of events in our diaries; device, email client etc to compare with what we have on in real life, obv with a link to enter...
• ...that then transfers it to your personal calendar that you can also subscribe to.
• Optimised for phone is diabolical, I get 2 events; each in its own little box with its own date, even though the next event is on the same date. The old site by zooming in I can see and read all the relevant data for 23 events.
• Too much info when all is contained within the actual event page? - in the day and age of responsive sites and roll overs wouldn't this be better?
• I hope Mr PW is going to overhaul the calendar map too as if more than one event starts at the same point you never see them...

Event Pages

• Look like a poor rehash - too muddled.
• ...page looks better at 70%
• Why does it load the full description then truncate it mid load with 'view more'. On PC @ 1980x1080 & mobile so when would it not truncate it? 2 monitors stacked?
• Event & Organiser details look terrible as multiple columns of title and detail when on a landscape monitor display. On a device Event is org'd into 2 columns Title: Information; Organiser 1 column with Title above information.
• What's with a full width Start venue map, it is like that is one of the features of the event.
• Minor - the new event codes been redefined then? F was free food en route, now food may be available en route. R no longer displayed. Again why all the text why not roll overs, or double taps for touch screens?

   
Being an organiser I hope the planner is vastly improved along with some customisation of org's relevant events' pages; as personally I'd change the whole order of mine.

All this just from looking at the calendar and an event. I'm not going any deeper...

As a benchmark load a new event page in one tab and corresponding old in another (ignore the outdated graphics etc), flick between the 2 and tell me which gets the event over better. Even on a mobile phone the old site once zoomed in to fit the main column to the screen reads better IMHO.

Right, back to baking for this weekends event, that's what really counts.....

[wilkyboy]

Will, I think that's great feedback 

[Pichy]

Bit annoying that there's no accreditation on any of the photos mind. I assume I'll be getting a cheque instead?

What will you spend your 340k on?

Event entries of course!

You mean membership renewal... surely?

[FifeingEejit]

10k may seem minuscule, but it has to be seen in its proper context.

That is not the context of comparing with other IT projects but the context of the reserves and income of the organisation procuring the work for 10k.

AUK has better financial reserves and income than Scottish Health Boards by a long way!!!

That comes back to the question of why was this model of development chosen, and it is one that is now far too late to go back to.

When it comes to cost comparisons, there is relevance, companies don't usually have significantly different charging models depending on the sort of company they are selling to; there may be "adjustments" (and some like to mark up for government corporations on the basis that they print money... which is a pain in the arse as there's a couple of tools we wanted where this happens) due to bargaining skills or being charity or not for profit though, but ultimately the company employed wants to a) pay their staff b) make money for the directors and c) make money for investors.

Designing and Implementing the AUK requirements shouldn't take significantly different amounts of time between different companies so the costing should have limited variance.
Unless of course you employ a company that likes to make life difficult for themselves and so you pay for their stupidity, or have a significantly different model of working.

[grams]

That comes back to the question of why was this model of development chosen, and it is one that is now far too late to go back to.

While that's true for phase 1 and possibly phase 2, the option of saying "bloody hell, we can't afford any more of this" is always on the table.

Designing and Implementing the AUK requirements shouldn't take significantly different amounts of time between different companies so the costing should have limited variance.

Even if you accept that, but AUK is different from other companies in that it has options other than building a brand new system from scratch at commercial rates, amongst them (a) doing this with volunteers like literally everything else it does, or (b) not doing this at all and spending a much smaller amount of money / volunteer time patching up the fully functional existing system.

[HeltorChasca]

Tried everything and can’t log on. Help!

This was raised somewhere in the thread, IIRC the answer is you have to go back to the old site, alter your password and used your new password to access the new site. That's assuming you're still using your original AUK-issued password.

Thanks. Tried that and it didn’t work. I assume it’s still your membership number only. No letters.

The problem comes if you did change your password, but then continued to use your original system generated password. The new site only accepts the one you changed it to. And yes - no letters, just numbers please.

If you still have a problem pm me or better still write to membership@audax.uk with your real name and number and I am sure we can sort it out.

Thank you. I’ve tried all combos to no avail. I’ll pop an email across. Thanks all. Hope to see you soon Cudzo.

[frankly frankie]

That comes back to the question of why was this model of development chosen, and it is one that is now far too late to go back to.

While that's true for phase 1 and possibly phase 2, the option of saying "bloody hell, we can't afford any more of this" is always on the table.

Designing and Implementing the AUK requirements shouldn't take significantly different amounts of time between different companies so the costing should have limited variance.

Even if you accept that, but AUK is different from other companies in that it has options other than building a brand new system from scratch at commercial rates, amongst them (a) doing this with volunteers like literally everything else it does, or (b) not doing this at all and spending a much smaller amount of money / volunteer time patching up the fully functional existing system.

      ^^^^ this !! ^^^^

[frankly frankie]

Thank you. I’ve tried all combos to no avail. I’ll pop an email across. Thanks all. Hope to see you soon Cudzo.

The issue could be something to do with mixed case?? Although I can't actually visualise what it would be.  The old site stores mixed-case passwords but the login comparison is all done in lowercase for some reason.  The new site is unlikely to work the same way!

[FifeingEejit]

Even if you accept that, but AUK is different from other companies in that it has options other than building a brand new system from scratch at commercial rates, amongst them (a) doing this with volunteers like literally everything else it does, or (b) not doing this at all and spending a much smaller amount of money / volunteer time patching up the fully functional existing system.

Aye true, I do find it slightly surprising that one of the aims I read was to get away from volunteers writing and maintaining the system.
It's not like there's s shortage of IT bods into cycling that could have done the job as a volunteer collective that could have take option a
There is a point where option b isn't suitable either due to obsolescence or bad code... or both.

Although there's not a hope in hell I'm working on a LAMP stack unless it's to avoid starvation...
Finding enough willing volunteer developers that can agree on a sensible technology to use is another problem.

[Craigus]

So to be clear, how long do you think this has taken? Do you really think it is value for money?

£150K seems like an exorbitant amount to me.

You've had since August to add your comments about the VFM of the work done: http://forum.audax.uk/index.php?topic=1564.225 (or on a thread near this one)

Just posting that "It's a bit crap and expensive" was never very helpful, even less so 3 months down the line.

Of course if you contributed to the work in getting this project off the ground, you have a little more right to make unhelpful complaints (but not much more ... )

I didn't realise that voicing an opinion on the internet required me to have a right to complain. If I needed one I think being a paid up member is plenty enough reason, but thanks for pointing out my error.

[jochta]

I quite like it. A few things need changing (the headless rider on widescreens on the home page for example). Adding HTTPS is an absolute must and I'm shocked it wasn't done sooner. Event pages are cluttered. Using tables to display the calendar (which isn't very responsive and gets truncated on narrow screens) is a bit old school. The View Event column is totally superfluous as well.

My biggest bugbear is opening new tabs/windows when clicking on events from the calendar (and possibly elsewhere, I've not tested thoroughly). Taking control away from the user to use their back button and to open new tabs if they wish using shortcuts is  very annoying and not very accessible. There should never be a target="_blank" attribute on any anchor within the same website/domain.

[HeltorChasca]

Thank you. I’ve tried all combos to no avail. I’ll pop an email across. Thanks all. Hope to see you soon Cudzo.

The issue could be something to do with mixed case?? Although I can't actually visualise what it would be.  The old site stores mixed-case passwords but the login comparison is all done in lowercase for some reason.  The new site is unlikely to work the same way!

Thank you. It wasn’t this, but good thinking. The cogs that grind are on the case behind the scenes for now. Thanks again.

[Greenbank]

Thank you. I’ve tried all combos to no avail. I’ll pop an email across. Thanks all. Hope to see you soon Cudzo.

The issue could be something to do with mixed case?? Although I can't actually visualise what it would be.  The old site stores mixed-case passwords but the login comparison is all done in lowercase for some reason.  The new site is unlikely to work the same way!

Storing plaintext passwords in 2018?