Here's a suggestion that I think Auctiva should implement immediately. How about something like a 15 minute warning before they take the system down for maintenance. After all, while many of us are toiling away here we don't always keep an eye on the clock.
What do you say Auctiva? How about giving us a little heads up before you pull the plug every week?
I just finished a long, complicated listing, posted it and came to the boards. I forgot about maintenance. Just made it. Warnings would save a lot of frustration.
That sounds like nice idea... but while they are making changes - how about the long overdue change to the scrolling gallery notice so that it doesn't say: No ITems Available!!!!
Why not simply replace this nonsense with a Maintenance Notice???? And here's another clue.. try putting in the estimated time as well, so potential buyers aren't chased off!
Yeah, there are a lot of things they could do with regard to the maintenance issue.
I found one thing interesting just now regarding the scrolling gallery. On one of my eBay accounts the gallery is working. Pictures are there and I can click on them. On my other account it shows no items. On that account I actually have more items listed. I'm not sure why there would be a difference in the accounts except that I have selling manager enabled on the one that is working.
Regardless, there really needs to be some indication of the maintenance window both to the users (popup warning) AND to the buyers (note in the gallery).
Maybe Jeff will see this and take it under advisement! What do you say Jeff?
Unlikely Help and Sell, they used to warn of maintenance but that seems to have gone by the board like some other issues lately
P.S. including not saying "no items available" as pointed out by exislegirl. I got no Auctiva response about that either, they are getting very selective about what they reply to on these boards lately.
Posts: 1921 | Location: England, UK | Registered: June 13, 2007
Originally posted by ChooChooGuy: I got no Auctiva response about that either, they are getting very selective about what they reply to on these boards lately.
On one of my eBay accounts the gallery is working. Pictures are there and I can click on them. On my other account it shows no items. On that account I actually have more items listed.
The cache we use expires at different times for each account. We do that so that the database doesn't get killed by all the items needing to refresh at the same time which it does every 1-2 hours.
quote:
No ITems Available!!!!
I'll ask the engineers but I know in some circumstances we've changed it to say that the gallery of items is refreshing, to check back later or to click "View Sellers other items" eBay link.
quote:
they used to warn of maintenance
We've only done that for maintenance we do outside the normal times. Like if we needed to do something on a Monday night for example. We have done our maintenance for 8+ years now on Thursday nights.
If you sign up for the free Google Calendar you can set recurring reminders and set the amount of time in advance you receive the reminder. It will even text message you.
Posts: 1565 | Location: Chico, CA | Registered: November 16, 2001
Regarding : "We have done our maintenance for 8+ years now on Thursday nights."
I do not think new members would know about that until they just happen to collide with it one day and see thier work blown away, scheduling disrupted or see their scrolling gallery images vanish with "no items available".
It is obvious that there are quite few new sellers joining Auctiva on a regular basis judging by the repetitive nature of the posts so would it not be easier to display the maintenance message before they find out the rough way.
Most sellers seem to start posting when a problem occurs and they need assistance, then some like myself muck-in to help others when we can. This must help your staff to get on with developing all the new widgets we can't wait to get our mitts on
So why overload the boards with highly repetitive posts by disgruntled sellers when simple messages could be displayed by Auctiva or is this seen as being a more negative form of advertisng than repeated board complaints ?
Posts: 1921 | Location: England, UK | Registered: June 13, 2007
Thanks Jeff! At least it's something other than the surprise many of us get when it just kicks in.
One of the real problems is that the maintenance often starts a half hour or so before it's "scheduled". So if the warning can be setup to popup a true half hour before the beginning of maintenance that would be ideal!
How about an auto sweep function that just sweeps all "listings in the making" to each individuals draft box? This would save frustration and each person's auction listings.
