Camc Queue

[Bobby-gg]

I've just checked again, and whilst I can't see my bookings, and I haven't received any email confirmations, one of the weekends I'd booked, chatsworth house for the country faire in September 2023 is now full on the Saturday so quite a few bookings must of gone through

 

[Riggers1]

Managed to make a booking eventually this morning for the August bank holiday weekend in 2023 and got a confirmation email. It also showed correctly on my bookings. I think it will settle down eventually but should have been properly tested before release. The wardens are apparently using the same system as well!

 

[kevenh]

I can’t even log in

Luckily, I have already booked sites up until next Monday but can’t get anything for next week yet.

Will probably have to go private for a few nights. At least Cornwall has plenty of sites to choose from!View attachment 663108

That error message screenshot looks like the one their app has.
The Desktop Browser UI let’s you logon.

FWIW even using the web browser UI we’re still queuing. I had a place in the queue that had a 15minute wait.

 

[A S R]

What a complete load of bullshit this new system is!
How the hell does a company / organisation like this get into a complete mess as big as this! If this crap carries on for another week or two I shall be cancelling my membership. Utter incompetence!
And I only want to check my bookings not make a new one! Oh Please!!

 

[kevenh]

What a complete load of bullshit this new system is!
How the hell does a company / organisation like this get into a complete mess as big as this! If this crap carries on for another week or two I shall be cancelling my membership. Utter incompetence!
And I only want to check my bookings not make a new one! Oh Please!!

Maybe they had no data on the number of request the old booking system had and went live on one that can only cope with 10% of real life load

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[xYachties]

Best thing with CAMC was the booking system and flexibility. You could see all availability and simply book. Not now.

How many businesses gone under when they've bring in modified IT systems not fit for there unique purpose?

Explains why it wants everyone date of birth and full names etc. if it's a botched hotel system.

 

[Langtoftlad]

It's not a unique issue - many big scale IT systems fail when initially launched.
I don't believe it's possible to conduct real world testing.
I'm sure the contractors are working hard to identify the issues/bottlenecks and it will be resolved in a few days.
Whether the members/customers will be happy is another issue.

 

[hja]

One of the pressures they do not seem to have understood is that because the launch had been delayed for so long there was a build up of people waiting to book, especially, I guess, for June (end of half term week). This was bound to put an above normal pressure on the system.
I am no IT expert, but presumably it would not have been too difficult to release, say, the first half of June, then a few days later the second half and so on. Of course that would have meant telling ALL members what was happening and what the plan was, and I appreciate that would have been a huge challenge for the Club, perhaps greater than building the new booking system!!

 

[Janine]

It’s gone back to how the system was a few years ago when they released all of the dates for the following year on something like December 12th.

It settled down within a few days. Hopefully this will too or I might be parking in a layby next week

 

[Brains]

There was talk that CAMC were buying a 2nd Hotel booking website and having it adapted for them,

Pre-Pandemic, I used to train web designers in the maritime sector, how to do things so that sites worked as the users needed them to (Not as the designers wanted them to)

I used to use the C&MHC site as a classic example of what NOT to do.
We would bring it up on a big screen and the class would critique it.

Buying a website made for something else, is not the way forward. On the face of it, it's a cheaper way to progress faster.
But in the long term it's an expensive way to get left behind.

They would have been far better off employing a team of developers who had built a major hotel booking website (or something very similar) and starting from scratch.
It would have cost 3 or 4 times more initially, but saved the 'club' a lot of money (and grief) in the long term.

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[Mikey RV]

I think any new system has hurdles, they just need to sort through them and the members need to get used to the new system. A lot of peaple are creatures of habit and change spins them out.

 

[Brains]

It's not a unique issue - many big scale IT systems fail when initially launched.
I don't believe it's possible to conduct real world testing.
I'm sure the contractors are working hard to identify the issues/bottlenecks and it will be resolved in a few days.
Whether the members/customers will be happy is another issue.

Real world testing is possible.
It just takes a lot of proper planning.

The way they should have done it is to roll out the new app to a very limited number of membership numbers, say 100 to start with. You then leave it a day or two and fix any issues, You then roll it out to the next 200 membership log in numbers, and wait and fix, and then perhaps go for a couple of thousand membership numbers, and so on.

Always keeping the 'old version' in place, so that if (when) you need to revert a few hundred or even a few thousand users back to the old version, you can do it in a matter of minutes.

It means that the rollout would have taken at least a week if no major faults were found, and more likely two to three weeks as issues were found and dealt with.

'Big Bang' rollouts never work without serious problems, and if the software is mission critical, it's a classic example of how not to do it.

 

[Brains]

The first rule of computer Development:

The new app must do everything the old app did.
It must be at least as fast as the old app.
It must be at least as easy to use as the old app.
It must work on all old and new hardware.
If any of the above does not apply. Start again.

You'ld be amazed how often these basic principles are 'forgotten' by developers!

In my previous job we used to roll out utterly mission critical software that controlled millions of dollars per hour to thousands of users globally.

Some of these rollouts would take 3-9 MONTHS to get to every desk, as the initial rollout to a small department of say 10 people would fail time and again due to new features the users 'had' to have that they had omitted to mention that they wanted.

But also basic things like the colour of the screen was not good on some makes of screens,
or it worked fine if the light was behind you, but not if your desk faced the light.
Or we had not given the colourblind the option to remove reds or blues or greens
Or that we confused the Americans by using 24hr clocks, back to front dates and metric measurements, so we had to have an 'American' Language feature.

But you only find these things out by doing slow rollouts, but the end result works!

You then start on the next roll out as soon as the first is completed, so that at any given moment there are always two releases in play, the old one and the new one.

 

[cyberyacht]

Skimming quickly through this thread, why does none of it surprise me. CAMC's only redeeming feature is the CL network. Mind you, if the rumours of a discontinued Handbook come to fruition, they will be inaccessible as well.

 

[Gellyneck]

Skimming quickly through this thread, why does none of it surprise me. CAMC's only redeeming feature is the CL network. Mind you, if the rumours of a discontinued Handbook come to fruition, they will be inaccessible as well.

They are accessible through the website along with the main sites (if you can get into the website, right enough!).

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[Swifter]

Website down . I know, just call the site directly.

“ welcome to camc Brecon Beacons , we are unable to take bookings over the phone . Please use the website to make or amend any bookings “

 

[Gizmouk]

From the Caravan Club Facebook Page:
" Hi Yan, please keep trying the website as we are seeing a high volume of traffic with the Clubfest page. "

With that much web traffic, are they trying to rival Glastonbury ?!?!

 

[Langtoftlad]

Buying a website made for something else, is not the way forward.

Back in the day - I recall when Hilton Stratford on Avon went computerised - their system adapted from a car hire system. Nightmare.

 

[Brains]

Back in the day - I recall when Hilton Stratford on Avon went computerised - their system adapted from a car hire system. Nightmare.

I would be surprised if it were otherwise.

Buying a vaguely similar website on the cheap and then trying to convert it is a well known recipe for disaster.
The only things you can guarantee is it will never work as it should do and that in the long term it will cost more.

(Most professional Web Developers would refuse a job of this type, as you know you will never have a happy client, and it will probably be the web team that gets the blame)

 

[Brains]

I wonder what it would have cost for the C&MC to buy this software ?
https://www.campmanager.com/

I've used it to make bookings, it works very well

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[IAnn]

The new booking system is not as good as it's predecessor even after you've been allowed access to it. The new format of pitch selection is slow and clunky and why do they need me to enter my wife's birthday? She is a registered member! Once I've paid the deposit (fair enough I suppose) the payment system is so slow that I thought it had disconnected, but eventually confirmed a booking number and a promise to send an email. Well, so far I've had 18 identical emails confirming the same booking over the last 2 hours. Not good.

 

[Brianmor]

I've just tried to book, but won't let me without the height of my MH, unfortunately there's no box to put the info in. Piss up and breweries.
Can't believe that they have let this go live with all the stupid problems

 

[DuxDeluxe]

I can’t even log in

Luckily, I have already booked sites up until next Monday but can’t get anything for next week yet.

Will probably have to go private for a few nights. At least Cornwall has plenty of sites to choose from!View attachment 663108

They have found you out at last then, Janine

 

[DuxDeluxe]

Pre-Pandemic, I used to train web designers in the maritime sector, how to do things so that sites worked as the users needed them to (Not as the designers wanted them to)

During my time with SGS I had the dubious privilege of being involved in three IT projects on reporting and job flow. Arguing with them on each occasion was like playing chess with a pigeon.

 

[A S R]

Well I just sent them a shitty email! Not that it’ll do any good! Complete bunch of incompetent clowns! I queued for 20 minutes to find out you can’t check bookings you think you’ve already made! Round and round in frigging circles!
A company like this should NEVER have problems like this! Sheer stupidity. This is definitely my last year with these idiots!

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[Pennee]

I still can’t log in via the app. Invalid credentials. I can’t believe 24 hours on it’s still the same!

 

[Swifter]

This is definitely my last year with these idiots!

That’s what I said but forgot I had selected auto renew membership

 

[A S R]

That’s what I said but forgot I had selected auto renew membership

Already turned off the auto renew.

 

[AndyPK]

Just managed to (nearly) book 4 nights the week before Christmas - at £35.30 p/n - at Warwick Racecourse site………. £28 deposit required. I declined to proceed.
But the booking system seems to be working via the website, but not the app.

 

[POH]

Got in the queue last night at 7pm and finally got on the site at 10.45pm managed to make my 2 bookings , went on tonight at 6pm to make another booking on my phone got all the way through up until I had to put wife's birthday in and up pops a calendar ,so tried to the put the dates in 28/10/2022 it kept say invalid date but does not let you put the correct dates in ,drove me mad had to use my PC instead might think hard about using it in the future .

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