End of Day: 14 March
Only 41 weeks in 2008 left. Cripes, doesn't time fly when you are having fun? Here is a suggestion based on this EOD: If you see something in the post that you want to know more about, ask us to blog about it in the comment on this EOD and I'll see what we can do. On with the show! Kat in Development
Hello from the Development! Finally the week is coming to an end - as usual we have been very busy with projects, bug fixes and Workplace improvements. On our desk this week we've had a new starter, Ben (there now 4 in the department which adds to the confusion somewhat!) - he's finishing setting up his Alpha environment (that's his Linux PC to the uninitiated. Ed.), reading documentation, and is soon to get his first taste of programming at PlusNet; his first application will be a reporting tool using our Framework. We also have Phil starting in another of the PHP teams. Sebastian and I have spent a few days improving the call cost calculator tool and together with Robert we monitored the release of our new product - Enhanced Care for business customers. Other work going on includes adding PDF invoices, reviewing email templates and improving the Sign up process. A few people in the department, myself included, are trialling test-driven development (as Seb mentioned in yesterday's EOD) - its currently adding close to 20% time on development, but if maintained properly, will be of great benefit when making future changes to the code. As it is, we're currently happy with the results and are awaiting for a dedicated CodeControl server to be set up for automated code testing. That's it for now,
Steve from the CSC
Hello from the Customer Support Centre... today's top 5 reasons for calling are:You'll notice sales isn't in the list today, this isn't due to no interest today but we now have our Sales Team headed by Mark Kelly handling it all making sure everyone gets the right package and not forgetting their friends when it comes to referrals Hope everyone has a good St Patrick's weekend, I'm now off to start on my Guinness.
- The all time number 1 for weeks now, router configs. Customers setting up their routers. This is something people don't tend to remember so were here to talk them through it.
- E-mail. The usual being mail configs and setting up new addresses with the manage my mail tool, all pretty normal.
- Connection issues/raising faults. People with the usual connection issues of 'no sync' and 'auth', there has been a move of BT exchange connections "Moorgate to Faraday Exchange Migration" which has caused many auth issues. And for no sync we have those lovely extension cables causing more hassle.
- Order Updates. "When is my broadband going to be on". New customers getting ready and updates on house move progress.
- Fault updates. Customers just checking what the latest update is, when its going to be fixed and what's gone wrong.
Chris from Comms
Roll up, roll up for the fantasmagorical comms update on this most wondrous of weekdays, Friday! Whoop whoop. Ringmaster Mand has been taming the problems, swinging from home phone query to project updates on her trapeze and also been shooting training out of a comedy cannon across the CSC. Matt has been high diving into forum queries, driving his clown car around chasing P1's and looking after the trained seals team ensuring they have enough fish. I've been balancing on the high wire being careful not to fall into the gator filled world of CSC queries. I've donned my strongman leotard to lift the weighty customer satisfaction figures up, they'll be available on a sideshow next week.
Jason from Networks
Hi all, Jason here. So what’s been going on within the networks department this week? Well the platform development team have been working on building some new resilient sledb’s. which for those not in the know are the back end oracle databases for our Ellacoya traffic management platform. This will enable the future growth and reliability of an important part of our core infrastructure. In Network Development they have been working on the design plans and strategy for 21CN – BT’s next generation high speed ADSL platform. Also network development have also been working on Cryptocard and an improved authdns platform which are all important to our future capacity and security. In Network Operations its also been a busy week with problem tickets being worked on aggressively – keeping the customers happy. Riz has been developing some scripts and applications that will enable us to manage our infrastructure security more efficiently. Kevin and Carl have been visiting London, not to see the queen, but to visit 3rd party data centres to scope out our future data centre strategy. The DBAs have been working hard again this week. They have been working staging improvements, monitoring improvements, Brightview Phase 2, end of year reports, and last but not least, the all important documentation. All looking forward to a good weekend.
Last up, Colin from Web Dev
It seems to have been meetings galore today, with various people demoing new projects and meetings to discuss existing ones. In between the meetings, we've been writing some specifications for some new features, doing some designing and building of web pages, writing some code for the Community Site and the Marketing team and building some email content. Jonny's also been amusing us with some composing (sort of) and we've also been having a discussion of TV Themes. I think we're all looking forward to the reduced week next week - me more so than some as I'm away more than I'm in the Office
--- Colin! Who approved that holiday?