PH7.29 vs PH8.19

[Chris Sharman]

I wrote:
>>Yes, it can waste a lot of time - this is exactly what I've ranted about in
>>months past. It's not that Powerhouse is any buggier than other people's
>>software, it's just that Cognos don't seem able or willing to publish the
>>info fast enough. Digital (now Compaq) for example have long had information
>>channels for this: DSN for supported customers, and patch-announcements for
>>anyone with email: all the "show-stoppers" appear on patch-announcements,
>>the more minor "gotchas" tend to be DSN only.
>>
>>If all new-version specific bugs were posted here and/or somewhere more
>>official (ie the website), we'd all be able to go forward to new versions
>>faster and with more confidence. Everyone's got bugs, so where's the big
>>deal in publishing them ?

>All I can say Chris is that we are trying! 
Yes, thanks, just encouraging you along.
>There are currently a number of people in Cognos' Support organization that
>are solely responsible for populating our knowledge base on the web. This
>knowledge base is generally packed full of useful information about
>upgrades. Admittedly we gather much of this information from our Customers
>experiences. This means that those that upgrade the weekend after receiving
>the tape/CD might experience some difficulties and not find anything useful
>on our web site.
I had to go with 7.10G urgently, because we based our Y2K plans around it, and
its original scheduled ship date (April?).

It may be packed full, but unfortunately not readable, only queryable. To use
it I first have to invest lots of time in discovering the bug for myself, so
it's too late to benefit me much, then I have to figure out suitable keywords
to search under, and 7.10.g, 7.10g and 710g didn't yield much last time I
looked.
I'm happy enough if everyone just posts them here, as I do: then everyone
knows, and wonderful people like Allison Hamilton can post the fix in hours,
when I've been trying to get a response out of telephone support for days.
She's then aware of the problem too, and can fix it, so everyone benefits.

>Bug information is not generally available since some of our competitors
>like to use these lists in sales situations. However, there are plans to
Who ? Very few salesmen are that unprofessional, and even fewer customers
likely to listen to such cowboys.

>provide RBF (maintenance release) information on the web with lists of bugs
>fixed in each RBF. 
>The idea would be:
>Search the website for the problem you are experiencing.
>If it's a bug, list the RBF that it is fixed in.
>Follow the link to download that RBF.
Good for problems encountered day-to-day, but too little too late for upgrades
and RBF installations. I don't want to know what's fixed in 7.10G1
when it ships, I want to know what's really wrong with 7.10G as soon as you do,
and before I invest more time and effort in it than necessary:
no need for it to be pretty, and the solution (ie 7.10G1 in X weeks) can be
posted later, but it would save customers a lot of work, telephone support some
fielding, and would make it easy to see when a version was stable & usable,
making customers less nervous and more willing to upgrade.

>I realise this isn't new for some s/w companies but I do think it will be a
>useful tool for our Customers. Of course, all of this will only be available
>to supported customers.
Fair enough I suppose - unsupported customers don't get upgrades, do they ?
Although as I said, Digital make patches public for problems likely to crash
software their customers have already paid for!
>I hope this will help! 

Thanks - I'll get off my soap-box now!

Regards, Chris
______________________________________________________________________
Chris Sharman			Chris.Sharman@CCAgroup.co.uk
CCA Stationery Ltd, Eastway, Fulwood, Preston, Lancashire, PR2 9WS.
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