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The EF23 Hotel Booking Disaster

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Hai λ:
Discussing possible other workflows for the Estrel booking here is really moot. The EF is not the Estrel, and as I've pointed out before, there is no work force available to take that back into EF hands as it was years ago.

Behind the scenes, people from all involved parties are now scurrying to analyze what happened today and strengthen the systems for next year, but that is all that can realistically be done regarding this hotel at the moment.

zuzu:

--- Quote from: Hai on 16.01.2017, 21:00:55 ---Discussing possible other workflows for the Estrel booking here is really moot. The EF is not the Estrel, and as I've pointed out before, there is no work force available to take that back into EF hands as it was years ago.

Behind the scenes, people from all involved parties are now scurrying to analyze what happened today and strengthen the systems for next year, but that is all that can realistically be done regarding this hotel at the moment.

--- End quote ---
And please do free up the duplicated reservations somehow.... So make it available to the others waiting gor rooms....

sneeuwvos:

--- Quote from: Futeko on 16.01.2017, 20:10:07 ---If I understand properly, the idea behind the change in the booking system was to reduce the strain on the Estrel Staff (and sadly it had the opposite effect).

Instead, to even out the stress on the system and to reduce frustration for all parties involved, how about adopting a system similar to how big planes are boarded?
The way it happens, is that seating opens up by row ranges - e.g. passengers with seat rows 70-99, then 50-99, then 30-99, etc. - as a way to control the boarding flow.

Applied to hotel booking, the basic idea would be:
1) Registration opens on day X
2) On day X+7, hotel booking opens for registrars with ID 1-400
3) On day X+14, hotel booking opens for registrars with ID 1-800
4) On day X+21, hotel booking opens for registrars with ID 1-1200
etc.

That way:
1) The registration system itself acts as a "queuing system" by re-using your registration ID as your hotel booking ticket number;
2) The stress is evened-out in a way that is known in advance both for registrars and the Estrel Staff;
3) It requires pre-planning (do we open up for 400 registrars at a time, or more, or less? Do we leave 7 days between openings, or more, or less?), but once that is done, it requires minimal efforts to maintain once running - just cross-checking the registration ID with (1) the planning (is booking open for that ID range?) and (2) the registration details (to avoid people saying "I have ID 244, book me a room" whereas they actually have ID 2440).

--- End quote ---

You are right, but I still think it isn't very friendly to open a booking system at an unexpected time. So you have to quote date+time tables for each EF number frame. Like 0-100 at [date] and [time]. As you see that might become a hassle. Neither its fair if you live in the US and you have to do a registration at 4:00AM.... :)

The hotel will sell out anyway, with or without crappy system.

Vector:
With the previous booking system (on the SAME server/website) workload was spread along the night and the day after so as soon as you got the link (when EF staff manually processed your REG) you could log into booking system and get your room without any problem.

Now, it's 2000-3000 persons booking at the same time, so if you don't have a good internet and a lot of chance (or you use a secret link) you have basically very very few chances to get your room, even if you regged to EF (and tried to book the room) during the first minutes.

Diavoletto76:
Hello and good evening.
First of all, excuse me for my bad english,I'm not used to write a lot in English so, forgive my several grammatical errors.
I don't want to say anything or even want make controversy.
I was one of the lucky ones to be able to take a room for me and 2 other furries.
With the problem that occurred today some people managed, thanks to a link that has circulated "secretly" as long as needed just to get the room without any problems.
I know for sure, however, that there are people that with this trick took more than one room.

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