10002level
15th Jul 2005, 07:48
email from BALPA:
"Dear Colleagues
We understand the importance of the BALPA website and forum to you and our representatives and this made the unsatisfactory launch of the new website even more disappointing. The standard of the new website was not acceptable and we are sorry for the inconvenience we have caused you.
Background
When we embarked on the new website project our aim was to provide a website that met a number of key aims:
1) Security - The website and forum should be secure, making it a safe place for you to discuss sensitive issues, including pay negotiations.
2) Keeping you informed - you should have easy access to information on the range of advice, services and resources BALPA provides
3) Forum - A user-friendly forum that is secure and integrates with the main website, alleviating the need for you to login twice
4) Content Management System (CMS) - Representatives should be able to upload content to the website using a system that is inexpensive, adaptable and easy to use
5) The look - The site should have a fresh, clean design that fits in the BALPA corporate identity
6) Fully integrated - The website and forum should be fully integrated with the membership database to ensure access rights and login details are robust and reflect up-to-date member information
7) A platform - the site should be to a standard that would allow us to build on a range of new services such as on-line balloting and the ability for you to change your personal details.
We are resolute in our aim to provide you with a quality website that fulfills these aims and more, but we were unrealistic in the schedule we set to achieve them, and this led to shortcomings in a number of areas. We have also been running a number of other IT projects (on our e-mailing lists and a new on-line Career Services system) and we did not allow enough time for the various projects.
What next
Since the launch of the website we have had a lot of feedback from members. We listened to this and tried to action the changes that we felt were necessary whilst keeping the site up and running. However, we have realized that sticking plasters are not the answer and have taken the decision to revert to the old website and forum as a temporary measure to give us more time to develop the new website.
During this time we will review the forum, resolve the compatibility issues, find ways of making the site load faster and perform vigorous testing. We have invited a group of members with website expertise to join the existing group to assist in this work and we thank them in advance for stepping forward. If you have any ideas or comments on how you would like the new site to work for you, please forward them to: atlynforde@balpa and we will make sure these are fed into this group.
We will keep members updated as the website progresses and will try to launch the site as soon as we can, but we are determined to get it right this time - we will not launch until we are confident all aspects are working.
The BALPA website and forum is an important feature and will shape the way BALPA is able to work in the future. It has huge potential, but we realize its reputation has taken a bit of a battering. We hope we can restore your confidence and ask you to please bear with us while we do the necessary work and we aim to have the new site operating as quickly as is practical.
On a practical level please delete any bookmarks you have and use www.balpa.org to access the site, which will be the "old" site in the state it was in when was shut down. Once there you can bookmark your CC homepage and forum as previously. Any changes made to passwords over the last 10 days will not be valid.
Yours sincerely
Jim McAuslan
BALPA General Secretary"
"Dear Colleagues
We understand the importance of the BALPA website and forum to you and our representatives and this made the unsatisfactory launch of the new website even more disappointing. The standard of the new website was not acceptable and we are sorry for the inconvenience we have caused you.
Background
When we embarked on the new website project our aim was to provide a website that met a number of key aims:
1) Security - The website and forum should be secure, making it a safe place for you to discuss sensitive issues, including pay negotiations.
2) Keeping you informed - you should have easy access to information on the range of advice, services and resources BALPA provides
3) Forum - A user-friendly forum that is secure and integrates with the main website, alleviating the need for you to login twice
4) Content Management System (CMS) - Representatives should be able to upload content to the website using a system that is inexpensive, adaptable and easy to use
5) The look - The site should have a fresh, clean design that fits in the BALPA corporate identity
6) Fully integrated - The website and forum should be fully integrated with the membership database to ensure access rights and login details are robust and reflect up-to-date member information
7) A platform - the site should be to a standard that would allow us to build on a range of new services such as on-line balloting and the ability for you to change your personal details.
We are resolute in our aim to provide you with a quality website that fulfills these aims and more, but we were unrealistic in the schedule we set to achieve them, and this led to shortcomings in a number of areas. We have also been running a number of other IT projects (on our e-mailing lists and a new on-line Career Services system) and we did not allow enough time for the various projects.
What next
Since the launch of the website we have had a lot of feedback from members. We listened to this and tried to action the changes that we felt were necessary whilst keeping the site up and running. However, we have realized that sticking plasters are not the answer and have taken the decision to revert to the old website and forum as a temporary measure to give us more time to develop the new website.
During this time we will review the forum, resolve the compatibility issues, find ways of making the site load faster and perform vigorous testing. We have invited a group of members with website expertise to join the existing group to assist in this work and we thank them in advance for stepping forward. If you have any ideas or comments on how you would like the new site to work for you, please forward them to: atlynforde@balpa and we will make sure these are fed into this group.
We will keep members updated as the website progresses and will try to launch the site as soon as we can, but we are determined to get it right this time - we will not launch until we are confident all aspects are working.
The BALPA website and forum is an important feature and will shape the way BALPA is able to work in the future. It has huge potential, but we realize its reputation has taken a bit of a battering. We hope we can restore your confidence and ask you to please bear with us while we do the necessary work and we aim to have the new site operating as quickly as is practical.
On a practical level please delete any bookmarks you have and use www.balpa.org to access the site, which will be the "old" site in the state it was in when was shut down. Once there you can bookmark your CC homepage and forum as previously. Any changes made to passwords over the last 10 days will not be valid.
Yours sincerely
Jim McAuslan
BALPA General Secretary"