dorchadas: (Office Space)
[personal profile] dorchadas
So we've switched over to the new new database at work and it is a shit show. Just unbelievably bad. Here is a litany of my complaints:
  • There's no actual work queue UI, so I'm working of a hastily-built database output in a totally different system where I have to manually delete table entries after they're done.
  • Everything displayed on a single screen in the 20-year-old database requires clicking through 6-8 screens in the new database.
  • You might remember the old new database and some checkboxes for important settings that we needed for our work, that we couldn't default to on and had to click every single time we performed any task? Well, so does the new new database.
  • I just learned moments ago that when searching in the new new database, I can display birth city but not current city, which--since most information we get doesn't contain "city of birth" as info--is basically useless.
  • Search in the new new database doesn't work unless you search in ALL CAPS.
  • Search is missing critical fields like "address" and "birthdate" by default. I made my own search query with those, which fortunately is functionality we have, but I find it illuminating that we told them multiple times those were vital pieces of information and they're not in as search fields by default.
  • Even though I can add those fields to the search, I can't add them to the information displayed about a record. That information is available, but requires--you guessed it--more screens and more clicking.
  • There's no way to search within the results of any search query without individually scrolling through and looking at all of them. The only function is to order columns alphabetically.
  • Settings are not preserved. If I change "display 100" to "display 200," not only do I have to do that every time I search, I have do that every time I reorder a column.
  • There's no way to display critical information in multiple places. If I'm comparing two people's data, I better remember the data of one source because it's impossible to see it while looking at the other source and I can't sick back to the first source without losing my search results.
That's from using it for 45 minutes and completing one (1) task. I'm in the middle of trying to complete task 2, but the database is trying to punch me in the dick the entire time.

I would actually say it's basically nonfunctional. Tasks that took me a max of 30 seconds and were entirely keyboard-controlled previously now take 10-15 minutes of clicking through multiple windows, trying to remember multiple discrete pieces of info and compare them, clicking back and forth repeatedly, trying to find where information that was once available at a glance is hidden...it's trash.

Some of you might remember the story of the data director in a meeting taking requests for the new database, and one my co-workers said "It has to work!" so the data director turned to the board and wrote MUST WORK, circling it multiple times.

Oops. Emoji rain

Will any of this ever be fixed? Who knows! The problems with the old new database were never fixed, so I'm not confident. But in that case, I hope work is only with my output dropping roughly...95%. Conservatively.

Looking forward to us just going back to the old database again because it actually works!

Edit: The birthdate search field won't search unless you include the birth time! Who coded this?!
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