Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Crappy Software, Still

Collapse
This topic is closed.
X
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Crappy Software, Still

    The software that I mentioned in this thread is still giving us issues.

    Scroll bars on the left, scroll bars within scroll bars... sometimes even a third scroll bar.
    The placement of fields and buttons is inconsistent between the deposit side and the loan side (for example, the Customer Information button and the Account Information button is swapped).
    When you're loading an existing loan by application number, it tries to autocomplete the number, moving the cursor as it does, so you can't just type in the whole number (which would be much faster for me than watching the screen for all the digits it just added to what I typed).
    Very few of the fields are in the same order as in the documents they'll be printed on. For example, the Asset screen has places for deposit accounts, vehicles, stocks and bonds, and life insurance, but they're in a different order than on the application.
    The section for real estate asks for the number of months left on the mortgage (and won't let you continue if you don't enter something there), even though that isn't printed anywhere on any document.
    If you accidentally hover your mouse cursor over a field that could have a scroll bar (even if it doesn't because the field is blank), the outermost scrollbar will refuse to move.
    Most screens have lots of blank space at the bottom (but I always feel like I need to scroll to the bottom, in case there's something there I missed).

    Often when I try to bring these issues up to the software company, they say something like "we know this is an issue, and it will be corrected in a future release." But this one is frustrating: One of the documents for a mortgage loan lists the Settlement Agent. The fields default to the loan officer's info, which is fine for refinances. But if it's a purchase, we have to switch that to the title company. We have several of our local title companies in the drop-down list. But when we choose one, it doesn't switch out all the fields. Loan officers and banks have an NMLS number (National Mortgagor Listing Service, I think). Title companies don't. Instead, they have license numbers, which go in a different field. When we switch it from a loan officer to a title company, the software leaves the NMLS numbers in those fields, when they should be blank.

    When I brought this to the attention of the software company, I got this response: "Thank you for contacting me. I am the process of finding out how soon we can get this changed." In other words, they know it's an issue, but they don't even know when they will be working on it. I know it's a minor inconvenience, but it's frustrating.
    "I look at the stars. It's a clear night and the Milky Way seems so near. That's where I'll be going soon. "We are all star stuff." I suddenly remember Delenn's line from Joe's script. Not a bad prospect. I am not afraid. In the meantime, let me close my eyes and sense the beauty around me. And take that breath under the dark sky full of stars. Breathe in. Breathe out. That's all."
    -Mira Furlan

  • #2
    Ya sounds like crappy code, and that the people who signed off on this deal didnt even bother to look at it. Who ever signed off on the purchase of this should be fired but chances are they are high enough and can blow enough smoke they wont be.

    "Bob did you buy this crap wigatron 2000 system?"
    "Frank its not crap thats the best wigatron 2000 on the market"
    "Well Bob the peons say its garbage and doesnt work"
    "Now Frank we both know peoons dont know anything, if they did they would be managment"
    "Good point Bob great idea buying the Wigatron 2000 we should give you a raise and fire anyone that says its crap"

    Im assuming thats how thoes conversations go.

    Comment


    • #3
      Sounds like all it needs is "special" handling when it's time to commit/abort a set of changes. Have hotkeys for the two options, but randomly choose between "(S)ave/(K)ill changes?" and "(S)crap/(K)eep changes?".
      Any fool can piss on the floor. It takes a talented SC to shit on the ceiling.

      Comment


      • #4
        I have to get my idiot brother-in-law a job so he doesn't move into my house...

        He says he's a computer programmer...
        I am not an a**hole. I am a hemorrhoid. I irritate a**holes!
        Procrastination: Forward planning to insure there is something to do tomorrow.
        Derails threads faster than a pocket nuke.

        Comment


        • #5
          Quoth dalesys View Post
          He says he's a computer programmer...
          Does he live in Wisconsin? I don't know if this company is hiring, but it's worth a shot.

          The bank chose this software because it was recommended by the Wisconsin Bankers Association. But what do a bunch of lobbyists know about software?
          "I look at the stars. It's a clear night and the Milky Way seems so near. That's where I'll be going soon. "We are all star stuff." I suddenly remember Delenn's line from Joe's script. Not a bad prospect. I am not afraid. In the meantime, let me close my eyes and sense the beauty around me. And take that breath under the dark sky full of stars. Breathe in. Breathe out. That's all."
          -Mira Furlan

          Comment


          • #6
            They now how to get paid to push lipstick on a pig lol.

            Comment


            • #7
              Accounting Software

              When the computer store that I used to work for decided that they needed new POS and accounting software they let the company accountant test and review each package.

              She went thru 13 different programs before she found one to work with how the company already did things, and she had no positive things to say about the sales-people who tried to push their software as the ideal solutions.

              In her words, 50% of the software was junk could not handle sales data properly (especially when doing tax reports), and the other 50% was not configurable/flexible enough to match the company's business plan close enough to be useful.

              The one she finally choose was very close to how the business was ran, could be configured even closer, and the few remaining differences were things that needed to be changed in the business itself for a match up. She got lucky find that one.

              It is very rare if you are not using custom software to get good software, and even custom software needs good planners and programmers.
              Last edited by earl colby pottinger; 07-14-2016, 12:12 PM.

              Comment


              • #8
                I'll refer you to this: "How a plan becomes a policy"...

                http://ogun.stanford.edu/~bnayfeh/plan.html

                Also, I would refer them to "Sturgeon's Law", essentially summed up as "90% of everything is crap."

                So your company should look for the 10%.

                Not only that, I'd refer them to Robert C. Martin in relation to what software should be. He makes it known that programmers are professionals who often times write code that businesses rely on to conduct their business, and so it needs to be high quality.

                If your company is using low-quality software, and it's taking away from your productivity, they need to get different software, or have people write better software in-house.
                Last edited by mjr; 07-14-2016, 01:53 PM.
                Skilled programmers aren't cheap. Cheap programmers aren't skilled.

                Comment


                • #9
                  Quoth mjr View Post
                  If your company is using low-quality software, and it's taking away from your productivity, they need to get different software, or have people write better software in-house.
                  The problem is still in management.

                  I wrote an A/R program for one company. I got rid of the real bugs in the program but found a number of edge cases where I did not know what to set the limits to.

                  So I went to the manager, pointed out the edge cases and what could go wrong and asked how he wanted the program to handle them.

                  His response, "Oh, we don't want to spend the extra money to fix those bugs, since they will happen rarely we will just catch them by hand and do the paperwork ourselves.".

                  This of-course will not happen in real life since rare problems are ones not see often and so slip by the users the easiest. Worse, some of those problems have legal consequences if they slip by. I got his statement not to fix the bugs in writing and then never saw him again.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Yes, the problem is management. In this case, the mentality that we've spent tens of thousands of dollars on this software, so we're going to stick with it, no matter how crappy it is.

                    Yesterday, I had to call the software company because I was getting a strange number in the deposit (earnest money) field on the Closing Disclosure for a mortgage loan. It should have been $1000 and was on the screen that should have filled that field. But on the document, it was showing $110,000. I couldn't figure out where that number was coming from.

                    It took 2 employees and over half an hour for them to figure out that it was coming from the application. There's a field for the cash deposit (down payment) that the customer has available. Which, in this case, the customer had much more available than they needed, and the field for the application was overriding the field for the Closing Disclosure. I guess the good part is that second employee was able to fix it so that it showed correctly on both documents, and she said she would look into getting it fixed in a future release.

                    But it makes no sense that it was programmed that way in the first place.
                    "I look at the stars. It's a clear night and the Milky Way seems so near. That's where I'll be going soon. "We are all star stuff." I suddenly remember Delenn's line from Joe's script. Not a bad prospect. I am not afraid. In the meantime, let me close my eyes and sense the beauty around me. And take that breath under the dark sky full of stars. Breathe in. Breathe out. That's all."
                    -Mira Furlan

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Sounds like it would be an improvement to have a set of completely blank forms stored on your computer, bring the appropriate ones into WordPad, and fill them in manually.
                      Any fool can piss on the floor. It takes a talented SC to shit on the ceiling.

                      Comment

                      Working...
                      X