Oracle Time Entry WTF



  • My company just got rid of a horrible time card app named DOVICO...And replaced it with something worse.  "Oracle Time Entry".  Here's a list of some of the fun:

    <FONT face=Calibri size=3>1)</FONT>      <FONT size=3><FONT face=Calibri>Make sure you do not use the browser’s back/forward buttons – you’ll lose everything you’ve entered.</FONT></FONT>

    <FONT face=Calibri size=3>2)</FONT>      <FONT size=3><FONT face=Calibri>Some projects will not let you save your timecard if you use them.</FONT></FONT>

    <FONT face=Calibri size=3>3)</FONT>      <FONT size=3><FONT face=Calibri>If you try to save a template, it will actually erase everything you’ve entered and NOT save as a template.  (NOTE: If you “Save” first, then save as a template, it will work).</FONT></FONT>

    <FONT face=Calibri size=3>4)</FONT>      <FONT size=3><FONT face=Calibri>When you go through all the trouble of picking “Labor” for type, it will helpfully erase that as soon as you “Save” – so don’t bother to enter the type.</FONT></FONT>

    <FONT face=Calibri size=3>5)</FONT>      <FONT size=3><FONT face=Calibri>Once you’ve entered your project #, the display of the description is so narrow, you can’t possibly figure out what that project is.</FONT></FONT>

    <FONT face=Calibri size=3>6)</FONT>      <FONT size=3><FONT face=Calibri>There is no display of what the Task is – unless you call up the little flashlight.  Oh…And if you do that before hitting “Save”, it’ll erase all the other rows just for fun.</FONT></FONT>

    <FONT face=Calibri size=3>7)</FONT>      <FONT size=3><FONT face=Calibri>You cannot delete the bottom row in your timesheet…So don't make a mistake on that row.</FONT></FONT>

    <FONT face=Calibri size=3></FONT> 

    <FONT size=3><FONT face=Calibri>I knew Oracle was bad at writing software, but this takes things to a whole new level.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p></FONT></FONT>

     



  • Holy fuck, that's awful.



  • If even half this stuff is true, you ought to submit a complete article. Please!

    Can anyone else corroborate this software's WTFery?



  • We still use DOVICO and I can confirm it's horrible. Haven't had the pleasure of Oracle's entry yet.

    And yes, plesae do submit a full article; this needs to be exposed for what it is!



  •  How much was your boss paid to use this?



  • Yup, we use that. Then the financial people wonder why people don't put their time cards in...



  • not OTL? "Oracle Time and Labor"?



  • We use DOVICO where I work too.  If you've actually managed to find something even worse, you have my sincere sympathy...



  • I was not involved in the implementation, so I'm not sure what the "official" name of the module is - but here is what the top-left shows:

    Oracle Time Card



  •  Yep, we use that, too (except our company replaces the Oracle logo with our own).

     It is definitely the worst timecard software I've used (and I've used at least four).  My biggest complaint is the unbelievable slowness of the application in general... It takes several seconds to retreive a list of projects to select from, and--wait for it--when you actually select the project, it takes several more seconds to populate the field on the main form.  When I enter "Billable" in the "Type" field, it takes a few more seconds after I tab out of the field, presumably to check and make sure "Billable" is a valid value (although we only have two valid values for that field).

     When I worked on a project for a certain TBTF bank, I used PeopleSoft, and despite the fact that the TBTF bank has an order or magnitude (or two) more employees than our company, that application flew compared to Oracle.  (Ironically, PeopleSoft is owned by Oracle. Go figure.)



  • I can't stand all this hurt, so I'm going to spam one: Replicon's Web Timesheet. We use it. Technologically, it's a pile of WTFs all on its own, but it works and that's all I ask.



  • @dhromed said:

    I can't stand all this hurt, so I'm going to spam one: Replicon's Web Timesheet. We use it. Technologically, it's a pile of WTFs all on its own, but it works and that's all I ask.
     

    I've never tried the timesheet portion of Replicon (we use a homebrew dev time tracker), but the Replicon scheduling tool seems to also be reasonable.  At least if used correctly, it does do some weird looking things when the schedules of projects overlap but your assigned work load on them aren't properly configured (I've been at 600% work load before due to projects in test, dev, and vacation time on the same day).



  •  Yes, this sounds like OTL.  Never did any software have a more appropriate acronym.

    The one redeeming factor of the installation of Oracle Time and Labor, when I was forced to use it in a previous job, was that it had a CSV import feature.  So I was able, with the help of Perl and WWW::Mechanize, to bypass the horrible web interface and hook it up directly to a random number generator.  Nobody ever noticed.



  • @Iago said:

    bypass the horrible web interface and hook it up directly to a random number generator.  Nobody ever noticed.


    +1 ROFL



  • Well, it's 2012 and I'm bumping this thread since "Oracle Time" is still just as bad as it ever was. I too experience the horrid 'features' of this quick and dirty piece of crapware, and have a few more items to add the list above:

    8) There is no button/method to delete a row in the current timesheet (no 'x' button, no menu bar command, nothing) In order to delete an old project, you only have one chance, and that is just after you've created the timesheet, and just before you add any time to it, and you delete a row/project by deleting the zero in the Sunday column, and then saving the timesheet. Yikes.

    9) The tool is implemented using the old style java controls from Oracle 9i or earlier forms, and as such contains outmoded tools that are slow and ineffective. It looks like something out if the 90's.

    10) The forms elements in Oracle Time is 'rendered' somehow and the whole window has a visual lag similar to a slow remote desktop connection. Scrolling up and down sees a 100-200ms lag which feels sluggish

    11) Speaking of scrolling, the layout of Oracle Time is so poor, and there is so much wasted space since it does not compact cells properly, that I routinely fill my 1600x1200 monitor just so I can see 7 days 10 projects without something being cut off.

    12) It takes me from 20-40 minutes to fill out a weekly timesheet in large part because of performance

    13) If the server hiccups during one of these long edit sessions, all data is lost. So I routinely screenshot my entries for quicker recovery in case of crash.

    14) As mentioned above, back/forward buttons are not allowed. If you do press back, and then try anything, your data is deleted and you are met with an angry warning that you should not have used the back button and you must return to the main menu and start over.

    15) If comments have been entered for time entries, they are embedded in each of the days, and are not printed when you print your timesheet! The only way to see them again is to open the timesheet and click 'Details' beside each project. If you have to go back and prepare a work summary from your notes, you have to drill down into each and every project this way, and YOU CAN"T USE THE BACK BUTTON.

    16) Due to the cell sparseness mentioned in #11 above, printing is problematic. A single week's timesheet cannot typically be contained on one sheet, and I use 2-pages-per-page, landscaped, front to back printing (4 pages on one sheet of paper) to make sure I don't have a 2 page timesheet for my files.

    ...

    <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p>I believe my company uses Oracle Time because it is included in the super expensive Oracle licensing packages they purchase, and because it is already tied in with their financials. At the same time Oracle either can't or won't improve this Model T software. So 30,000 employees waste a portion of their lives (and client's money perhaps) using this tool. Not a good situation.<o:p></o:p><o:p><FONT size=3 face=Calibri> </FONT></o:p><o:p><FONT size=3 face=Calibri> </FONT></o:p>

     



  • @Dusty said:

    Well, it's 2012 and I'm bumping this thread...

    For future reference, please don't bump an old thread. If you've got something new to say, make a new thread and link to the old one. Thanks.



  • For future reference, I disagree with that sort of strictness. I don't mind this particular bump and creating a new thread seems odd to me.

     

     



  • @dhromed said:

    For future reference, I disagree with that sort of strictness. I don't mind this particular bump and creating a new thread seems odd to me.

    For future reference, I hate you.

    This is less annoying than the "Me too!" rezzes we're used to, but I still dislike it because the people in this thread have moved on, stopped caring, what-have-you. So you end up with people seeing the thread at the top, assuming all of the comments are recent, and replying to people who haven't been to the site in 16 months. Then you get a backlash of "Read the date, idiots" and so-on. This drowns out the interesting conversation that the rez might have provided.

    My criteria for a "useful rez" is one that would make a good post on its own (possibly with a callback to the original thread). At which point, why not just make a new thread? You'll get more attention, fresh eyes on the topic and people will correctly see that your post is the main topic, not a post somebody made several months or years ago. I didn't lock this one because I don't feel as strongly about this "rule" as I do about people rezzing 3 year old threads to say "I, too, hate it when Windows crashes, good sirs!"



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    So you end up with people seeing the thread at the top, assuming all of the comments are recent, and replying to people who haven't been to the site in 16 months. Then you get a backlash of "Read the date, idiots" and so-on.
     

    This is possible, but I still believe in people. If we never allow rezzes by virtue of that funny word you sometimes use, diktat, or frown so heavily upon them (from our ivory towers, obviously), then nobody expects them and you get exactly what you describe.

    It's kind of like that self-fulfilling prophecy where some ancient hero "borne of two moons" arrives after his arduous journey, to deliver us all from forum hell.

    Or something. I mean you just know it's going to happen.



  • @dhromed said:

    This is possible, but I still believe in people.

    Screw you, hippie.

    @dhromed said:

    If we never allow rezzes by virtue of that funny word you sometimes use, diktat, or frown so heavily upon them (from our ivory towers, obviously), then nobody expects them and you get exactly what you describe.

    "Diktat" comes from German. In English it means an authoritarian decree; it has a negative connotation and is usually used to imply that a particular decision was made arbitrarily and without input from the governed.

    @dhromed said:

    It's kind of like that self-fulfilling prophecy where some ancient hero "borne of two moons" arrives after his arduous journey, to deliver us all from forum hell.

    Or something. I mean you just know it's going to happen.

    I thought I was the ancient hero our prophecies fortold of.. You're saying I'm not? Aw, man, this is just like the time I read the Bible: all through the Old Testament they're talking about a Messiah and I'm thinking "Okay, it's gonna be me.. definitely gonna me be." Then I get to the New Testament and I'm like "What is this shit? Somebody else is the Messiah!?" That's when I knew the Bible had jumped the shark and I stopped reading then and there.

    As for the forum: whatever, we can do it your way. Let's see if these foolish drones who can't figure out which end of their digestive tract the food goes in can self-govern.. Bwahahahaha!!



  • Would you two get a room already?



  • What is worse, rezzing a year-old thread, or instantly veering it off-topic?

    The answer involves anti-gravity shoes.



  •  I warned y'all about sausages.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @morbiuswilters said:

    I, too, hate it when Windows crashes, good sirs!

    Fuck, yeah....that sucks. Did its anti-gravity boots fall off or something?



  • @boomzilla said:

    @morbiuswilters said:
    I, too, hate it when Windows crashes, good sirs!

    Fuck, yeah....that sucks. Did its anti-gravity boots fall off or something?

    Yeah, must've tripped over its parachute pants right in the middle of some fresh popping..



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    @dhromed said:

    For future reference, I disagree with that sort of strictness. I don't mind this particular bump and creating a new thread seems odd to me.

    For future reference, I hate you.

    This is less annoying than the "Me too!" rezzes we're used to, but I still dislike it because the people in this thread have moved on, stopped caring, what-have-you. So you end up with people seeing the thread at the top, assuming all of the comments are recent, and replying to people who haven't been to the site in 16 months. Then you get a backlash of "Read the date, idiots" and so-on. This drowns out the interesting conversation that the rez might have provided.

    My criteria for a "useful rez" is one that would make a good post on its own (possibly with a callback to the original thread). At which point, why not just make a new thread? You'll get more attention, fresh eyes on the topic and people will correctly see that your post is the main topic, not a post somebody made several months or years ago. I didn't lock this one because I don't feel as strongly about this "rule" as I do about people rezzing 3 year old threads to say "I, too, hate it when Windows crashes, good sirs!"

     

     morbiuswilters,

    I
    see your points about bringing back old threads and the possible
    confusion it might cause if readers try to reply to very old comments. I'll be more careful on this forum if that is a concern.

    But here
    are some counterpoints since a nice discussion about it got started: I
    wanted to emphasize the time span of 2 years to show just how frozen in
    awefulness this software was. Also, I don't know about others, but when I
    look at threads, I check dates of past posts, especially when the
    poster says the thread is being 'bumped'. I suppose with many followup
    responses that could get lost. But imagine how damning a thread like
    this would be against a bad piece of software if there were similar
    complaints occurring over years and years. It has more sting that way...
    It is my hope that someone from Oracle sees this and uses it as
    justification for either upgraded their products, or deprecating the old
    crappy ones being used by clients.     

     

     



  • @Dusty said:

    I
    wanted to emphasize the time span of 2 years to show just how frozen in
    awefulness this software was.

    Fair enough, although you can do that pretty well by linking to the old thread and stating in the new thread something like "This was still a problem 2 years ago!!"

    @Dusty said:

    Also, I don't know about others, but when I
    look at threads, I check dates of past posts, especially when the
    poster says the thread is being 'bumped'.

    Right, but your bump doesn't appear at the top of the thread, it's at the very bottom. So someone sees a "new" thread and starts reading at the top, then they reply to a comment made 2 years ago, then they realize their mistake and feel pissed-off due to the loss of continuity. Also, I've never been so "tricked" by a rezzed thread; usually there are enough hints (like posts by people who haven't logged in in over a year) to make me check the date. But I've witnessed plenty of people making the mistake of responding to old comments, so it does happen. Then, inevitably, someone starts bitching about the thread being rezzed and we get derailed into a meta-discussion about forum etiquette, whereas if you had started a new thread it could have been derailed with bawdy in-jokes.

    @Dusty said:

    But imagine how damning a thread like
    this would be against a bad piece of software if there were similar
    complaints occurring over years and years.

    fanbox omg

    We also had a thread about how bad Ektron sucks, but it was deleted for some reason. Both of those threads got continually rezzed over the years, pointing out how awful those particular companies/programs were. We sort of let it run as a morbid experiment, to see how many people had complaints about these particular topics, but somebody finally locked the fanbox thread.



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    So someone sees a "new" thread and starts reading at the top, then they reply to a comment made 2 years ago, then they realize their mistake and feel pissed-off due to the loss of continuity. Also, I've never been so "tricked" by a rezzed thread; usually there are enough hints (like posts by people who haven't logged in in over a year) to make me check the date. But I've witnessed plenty of people making the mistake of responding to old comments, so it does happen. Then, inevitably, someone starts bitching about the thread being rezzed and we get derailed into a meta-discussion about forum etiquette, whereas if you had started a new thread it could have been derailed with bawdy in-jokes.
    Signature guy just gets old, ya'know?


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @Dusty said:

    I
    see your points about bringing back old threads and the possible
    confusion it might cause if readers try to reply to very old comments. I'll be more careful on this forum if that is a concern.

    The key to a good rez is to do it with razor sharp wit. xkcd is a forum favorite.



  • @boomzilla said:

    @Dusty said:
    I
    see your points about bringing back old threads and the possible
    confusion it might cause if readers try to reply to very old comments. I'll be more careful on this forum if that is a concern.

    The key to a good rez is to do it with razor sharp wit. xkcd is a forum favorite.

    No, Dusty, don't listen to him! Boomzilla is the Lord of All Lies!!

    Dusty NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!



  •  

    it talks about emacs and one of them is wearing a hat. I think that about covers it.



  • @BC_Programmer said:

     

    it talks about emacs and one of them is wearing a hat. I think that about covers it.

    +1


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