Unfriendly programs
April 28th 2007 10:32
One of the programs we use at my temporary job is called SAP. You can imagine what the workers claim is its full name. I don’t find it user friendly, though it improves as you get the hang of it. Maybe it’s the way it’s been set up for this particular company, but there are some aspects of it that I find annoying.
The worst feature for me are the reports that you can’t save as you’re working on them. If you don’t complete them in one hop, you’ve had it, and you’ll have to start all over again. What program doesn’t allow for saving data you’ve entered?
And then, in two of the reports, you’re given a choice of up to twenty columns which you can reformat into the order required for that particular report. But wouldn’t you think the program could do that reformatting each time you opened a new file in that report, instead of you having to shift columns into place each time? Surely if a report is called blah-blah-blah123, and it’s always called blah-blah-blah123, then the format should be set. Not with this program.
In another part of the program, when you replace some information with fresh data, or when you add new data, none of this appears in the shortened version when you save it and retreat out of it. You have to go back into the file to check that you’ve actually saved it. Of course, after a while you realise that it does save it, but at first it seems as though nothing has changed.
In another section, to find out the plant number (why are vehicles called ‘plant’?) you can enter the company’s registration number. But will it give you the plant number straight away, even though it’s right there? Nope. You have to go through at least four hits on the enter key to get there. Weird.
I’m sure if I used the program more extensively, I could tell you about a lot of other problems it has, but since I’m only a low level worker, I’m party only to a few of its quirks.
The worst feature for me are the reports that you can’t save as you’re working on them. If you don’t complete them in one hop, you’ve had it, and you’ll have to start all over again. What program doesn’t allow for saving data you’ve entered?
And then, in two of the reports, you’re given a choice of up to twenty columns which you can reformat into the order required for that particular report. But wouldn’t you think the program could do that reformatting each time you opened a new file in that report, instead of you having to shift columns into place each time? Surely if a report is called blah-blah-blah123, and it’s always called blah-blah-blah123, then the format should be set. Not with this program.
In another part of the program, when you replace some information with fresh data, or when you add new data, none of this appears in the shortened version when you save it and retreat out of it. You have to go back into the file to check that you’ve actually saved it. Of course, after a while you realise that it does save it, but at first it seems as though nothing has changed.
In another section, to find out the plant number (why are vehicles called ‘plant’?) you can enter the company’s registration number. But will it give you the plant number straight away, even though it’s right there? Nope. You have to go through at least four hits on the enter key to get there. Weird.
I’m sure if I used the program more extensively, I could tell you about a lot of other problems it has, but since I’m only a low level worker, I’m party only to a few of its quirks.
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