Royal Caribbean IT department

[orville99]

While I am sure the IT department isn't perfect. These problems your describing aren't IT issues. IT provides the systems, they don't provide the content/data in these systems. This would fall on other employees.

 

For example, if an Itinerary is wrong someone who is in charge of maintaining that information is making the mistake, that is not an IT function.

IF a price is wrong, again this isn't an IT issue.

 

Don't confuse the system providers with the systems users. If the system was completely down that likely would be server or networking failure and this be an IT problem.

 

 

Disagree. The programs IT write make the calls to the data base to populate a field in the GUI that we see. If the program isn't making (or validating) the proper calls, it is an IT problem. When the data is correct on Monday, but wrong on Tuesday, IT is definitely the culprit

 

 

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[Paulette3028]

Disagree. The programs IT write make the calls to the data base to populate a field in the GUI that we see. If the program isn't making (or validating) the proper calls, it is an IT problem. When the data is correct on Monday, but wrong on Tuesday, IT is definitely the culprit

 

 

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While I am sure the IT department isn't perfect. These problems your describing aren't IT issues. IT provides the systems, they don't provide the content/data in these systems. This would fall on other employees.

 

For example, if an Itinerary is wrong someone who is in charge of maintaining that information is making the mistake, that is not an IT function.

IF a price is wrong, again this isn't an IT issue.

 

Don't confuse the system providers with the systems users. If the system was completely down that likely would be server or networking failure and this be an IT problem.

 

In some regards both of you are correct. My DH works for a huge insurance company in IT. They handle everything from mailing labels and actively keeping up their database of existing clients to providing access to the material on the multitude of webpages that constitute their website.

 

However, other employees actually change the specific material that is on the website on various pages....so if one of those other employees changes something, the work that the IT has done to provide access to the end user (person accessing the Royal website) gets accomplished and they see what is there.

 

The payment and billing systems run the same way. If the specific content is changed in some way, the system will follow it along, as the programming directions that were created instructed it to do.

 

IT isn't the problem, 99% of the time. But it is easier to blame that department than the department (which may be unknown) that should be blamed.

[orville99]

In some regards both of you are correct. My DH works for a huge insurance company in IT. They handle everything from mailing labels and actively keeping up their database of existing clients to providing access to the material on the multitude of webpages that constitute their website.

 

 

 

However, other employees actually change the specific material that is on the website on various pages....so if one of those other employees changes something, the work that the IT has done to provide access to the end user (person accessing the Royal website) gets accomplished and they see what is there.

 

 

 

The payment and billing systems run the same way. If the specific content is changed in some way, the system will follow it along, as the programming directions that were created instructed it to do.

 

 

 

IT isn't the problem, 99% of the time. But it is easier to blame that department than the department (which may be unknown) that should be blamed.

 

 

The difference, and it is not at all trivial, is that your DH's company is using one of two or three commercially available third-party software applications, so his job of keeping up the SQL database is relatively straightforward. Unfortunately, RCL more than likely is using a home grown software system (built and maintained by their IT department), or a mix of disparate systems that have been coddled together over time as the requirements for more sophisticated queries and display complexity coupled with all of the Itineraries/ships/inventory/pricing data (also loaded into the system and maintained by IT) is breaking faster than the IT folks can fix it. And, since no good programmer ever documents or annotates their code, the result is a mess (we used to call it spaghetti code in the early days of relational database development). Either IT is responsible for fixing it, or IT is responsible for raising he&& with the COO to get it fixed. Either way, IT owns the problems.

 

 

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Edited December 15, 2014 by orville99

[Johnamac123]

The difference, and it is not at all trivial, is that your DH's company is using one of two or three commercially available third-party software applications, so his job of keeping up the SQL database is relatively straightforward. Unfortunately, RCL more than likely is using a home grown software system (built and maintained by their IT department), or a mix of disparate systems that have been coddled together over time as the requirements for more sophisticated queries and display complexity coupled with all of the Itineraries/ships/inventory/pricing data (also loaded into the system and maintained by IT) is breaking faster than the IT folks can fix it.

And, since no good programmer ever documents or annotates their code, the result is a mess (we used to call it spaghetti code in the early days of relational database development). Either IT is responsible for fixing it, or IT is responsible for raising he&& with the COO to get it fixed. Either way, IT owns the problems.

 

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I've had to deal with this situation in the past. Another aspect of the problem of band-aids being programmed into the software is the Programmers themselves leaving the company, and taking their particular knowledge of the "band-aids" with them. At some point, it makes sense to get a new software that meets all of the companies/customers needs. Expensive, but at least you'll have a system that works....

[Paulette3028]

The difference, and it is not at all trivial, is that your DH's company is using one of two or three commercially available third-party software applications, so his job of keeping up the SQL database is relatively straightforward. Unfortunately, RCL more than likely is using a home grown software system (built and maintained by their IT department), or a mix of disparate systems that have been coddled together over time as the requirements for more sophisticated queries and display complexity coupled with all of the Itineraries/ships/inventory/pricing data (also loaded into the system and maintained by IT) is breaking faster than the IT folks can fix it. And, since no good programmer ever documents or annotates their code, the result is a mess (we used to call it spaghetti code in the early days of relational database development). Either IT is responsible for fixing it, or IT is responsible for raising he&& with the COO to get it fixed. Either way, IT owns the problems.

 

 

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First, you don't know how my DH's company designs its systems, so don't make that statement. MY DH has been in IT over 40 years and seen tremendous change, both good and bad, and most of the bad is 'people related' not software related. Outside vendors can create problems for a company just like internally designed systems. Yes, the IT professionals do raise he&& with the powers above them, I am sure those IT professionals don't like to be redoing things or not having their design suggestions taken. but that doesn't mean it gets fixed either, effectively. The CIO who an IT department reports to has their own hands in dealing with the COO and the people under them.

 

And maybe the good programmers that you worked with did not document or annotate their codes, but the excellent programmers like my DH do...don't make such a broad based statement and trash those you don't know.