New PCG Website

[mudskipper]

It's a good rule of thumb that once you've logged in you should remain under TLS. The mixed content is a pretty poor experience though.

Sent from my tweeting foot massager.

OK, possibly. But it remains secure when you log out.

[Moscow Mule]

Tried to get a login yesterday, crashed in a snotty heap, which I think they sent an email about yesterday.

Haven't been back since.

[vetran]

well at least it looks vaguely modern, last one looked like it was 1970.

[mudskipper]

I'm battling my way through this now. I believe my membership expired in Jan. No reminder from PCG, so logged in to check. First indicator that it had was that, as soon as I logged in I got an 'unauthorised' page.

So I clicked the 'join now' button and am trawling through the forms

Entering my phone number, for example - I enter it area/space/number. Submit the form and it tells me I mustn't enter a space. It's not rocket science to strip the space out!! So I click back into the field to remove the space, and the number disappears, meaning I have to retype it. OK, admittedly not that onerous, but completely unnecessary!

2 error messages later, and I've made it to the payment page, where I have to enter my address even though PCG have it. Grrrr. At least this page hasn't got the eyestrain italics!

Yay, success.

[cojak]

You want to look at their forums, it looks like CUK from 5 years ago. I'll bet some of the regulars are foaming at the mouth over the change away from their old(er) thread format.

[malvolio]

You want to look at their forums, it looks like CUK from 5 years ago. I'll bet some of the regulars are foaming at the mouth over the change away from their old(er) thread format.

Well yes, we had the usual outpourings of bile from the neo-conservatives who hate any changes to "their" forums. I don't like it that much myself, but you get to adapt. The trick is to ignore the PCG skin and use the Default one which is much simpler. Other skins are on the to-do list

To be fair, there has been a pretty massive behind-the-scenes change to their IT in the last few months to get to this point. Most of the early glitches are now sorted and things will continue to improve (says he, reading form the the earlier prepared script... ). However IMHO mudskipper's reaction to the joining process is disappointing; signing up new (or returning) members is supposed to be the simple bit. As for no renewal reminders, 90% of the time the cause is an out of date email address; using your email as the sign-in is partly meant to ensure they have the current one. That might also expalin why the old records didn't make it to the new CRM system.

[mudskipper]

Well yes, we had the usual outpourings of bile from the neo-conservatives who hate any changes to "their" forums. I don't like it that much myself, but you get to adapt. The trick is to ignore the PCG skin and use the Default one which is much simpler. Other skins are on the to-do list

To be fair, there has been a pretty massive behind-the-scenes change to their IT in the last few months to get to this point. Most of the early glitches are now sorted and things will continue to improve (says he, reading form the the earlier prepared script... ). However IMHO mudskipper's reaction to the joining process is disappointing; signing up new (or returning) members is supposed to be the simple bit. As for no renewal reminders, 90% of the time the cause is an out of date email address; using your email as the sign-in is partly meant to ensure they have the current one. That might also expalin why the old records didn't make it to the new CRM system.

I got the emails telling me about the new website. I signed in successfully and saw my membership record at the time, so it should have had my details - I didn't need to re-register, it knew my email and password, but then took me straight to a 'you are not authorised to view this page'. A 'renew now'/'join now' page would be better. I think the new site looks nice, but it does seem to be form over function - personally I think the italics thing is really awful - very difficult to read.

[cojak]

New PCG Website

The UX review probably cost extra..

[administrator]

brokenpromises.com

Ouch!

Anyone seen it yet?

Yes, am a member so saw it when it went live. Nice to see they have looked to CUK in terms of their set up - Drupal main site and VBulletin for the forum. How much was the consultancy for that then

Massive behind the scene changes? It's just a web site with a few thousand members. Sounds like mountain out of molehill to me and jobs for the boys...

Are we able to ask how much the new site cost? VBulletin license is £100 or so and Drupal is open source so if the bill was more than £10K (one good techie for a couple of months) then I would be well annoyed.

[malvolio]

Ouch!



Yes, am a member so saw it when it went live. Nice to see they have looked to CUK in terms of their set up - Drupal main site and VBulletin for the forum. How much was the consultancy for that then

Massive behind the scene changes? It's just a web site with a few thousand members. Sounds like mountain out of molehill to me and jobs for the boys...

Are we able to ask how much the new site cost? VBulletin license is £100 or so and Drupal is open source so if the bill was more than £10K (one good techie for a couple of months) then I would be well annoyed.

They've replaced the whole infrastructure, ditched the antiquated disconnected systems (commercial, website, fora, membership and assorted back office functions) and consolidated the old data (the original had over 400 pages, mostly hard-coded) on to either the website or the new CRM system. The website is a small part of the whole, and the fora an even smaller one. So yes, a bit more than £10k I suspect, but how much to replace everything CUK owns?

And that's 21,000 members, growing at 5% a month, incidetnally.