eShop upgrade occured 18th August

[graemewilliams]

I noticed that my eShop was upgraded this morning. The system (main website and admin section) were both down between midnight and 6.00 am.

Following on from Bertie's longstanding post on this subject (eShop version & upgrade notes😞

1. I don't believe BT notified customers in advance of the upgrade. Out of courtesy, it would've been nice to know that my website and business would be unavailable.

2. Please can BT provide a list of new/deleted features resulting from the upgrade. After a quick scan through the Admin section, I can see the product search function has improved (the previous search wasn't much good so this is a welcome addition).

3. What is the current software release of the software?

I'm always grateful for the upgrades because I'm assuming they always improve the operation and functionality of the system. However, it would be nice for BT to inform customers following basic business practice.

Thanks

[Bertie]

It appears that yet again BT has implemented software improvements issued by epages without any notification to, or consideration for the end user. Certain additional features/changes have appeared seemingly from nowhere. Again, we are expected to know what these are using some mystical psychic ability.

Please James, do not talk to me about understanding my frustration. This is sheer incompetence. How the country manages to function with BT running the majority of the network is beyond me.We are fortunate in that this is the one and only service we have to use BT for.

Can you tell me James, how people in BT keep their jobs when they are so inadequate? The number of other messages that users post highlighting the total lack of ability/knowledge/effort of BT staff is damming, yet nothing whatsoever is done about it.

The sooner BT is broken up and staff have to actually perform in order to keep their jobs - as happens in the majority of the private sector - the better. The company is clearly being run as if it is still part of the public sector.

Please provide immediate information as to the version number we are now using, the changes made since 6.09.1,  why we were not notified either before or after these changes were made, and the name of the person who is actually accountable for eshop.

Bertie

[James]

All, I sent your messages to the team in charge of eShop. Here's their response:

BT eShop is currently on version 6.10.1. This was released on December 1st and was one of many regular maintenance releases that seek to address known issues and provide feature improvements. These are not intended as significant upgrades and the intention is that they should be intuitive, easy to use and of benefit to the merchant. Customer feedback is very important and we will provide additional support when it is evident that the features need additional help and support material.

BT does not promote maintenance patches but we monitor feedback and we will consider doing so for future releases.

James

[Bertie]

Thank you for your reply James.

As you have no doubt realised, the introduction of a new release without notification goes against what the eShop department promised to do in your September posting.

Their comments regarding addressing known issues and providing feature improvements show a complete lack of common sense. These fixes & improvements may be intuitive, but if a) we have to stumble across the fact that there may have been an upgrade, and b)  we do not know what these fixes and improvements are, how can we make use of them no matter how intuitive they may be?

Why is it so difficult for them to issue a sticky posting notifying us of the intended upgrade and the fixes and features that will be implemented, and how many times do we have to go over the same ground?

They say that customer feedback is important and they will respond to it - so why haven't they issued the support material following my previous message requesting it?

We would be extremely pleased for patches to be installed as these often fix crucial areas. But again, we would need to be given dates and details.

It seems that the eShop team are not able to put themselves in the position of the user. One of the consequences of upgrades can be that links with 3rd party software such as eBay can be broken or altered with a resulting problem or change of process required - which happened with the latest release. If we had been made aware of the upgrade and the fixes & improvements, we would know which areas to test/look at in order to either make sure there are no problems following the upgrade or to take advantage of any enhancements.

Again, can I request that they provide a list of fixes, features and changes which were implemented in this latest release.

Thank you for your help James. I would imagine that you are as frustrated as we are.

Bertie

[graemewilliams]

To BT Moderator

There is something else you might not be aware of when BT does this upgrade. I have hundreds of products listed on Google Base/Merchant Centre. I rely on this service for a significant amount of traffic/business to my website.

Google Base crawled my site during the latest upgrade by BT. Google subsequently marked about 25% of my products as "Disapproved" and therefore not available for listing on Google Base. This lasted for about two days until they eventually came back up. This is not good for business when leading up to the Christmas period.

If I had been informed by BT prior to the upgarde then it may have been possible for me to make a contingency plan with my Google Base account.

Please pass this info on to the powers that be.

Thanks

[James]

Hi all, Please see the FAQ eShop upgrade 6.10.1 which details the recent changes. I'll ask the eShop team again for notice prior to all updates. James

[graemewilliams]

Brilliant! Thanks very much for that James. I read the list with great interest. One or two of the new features I had already discovered "intuitively" by myself. Others I hadn't seen and will hopefully put to good use.

[Bertie]

Many thanks for your help James, it is much appreciated.

Regards

Bertie