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Text Alerts?

Discussion in 'What's Going On' started by buseng, Jun 7, 2010.

  1. admin

    admin Founder Administrator

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    Its a good idea, however the system has to have a fixed code length.
    The code is quite easy to remember really.
    t0619a
    t = tour
    06 = the month (June )
    19 = the day (Saturday )
    a = if more that one tour. (a,b,c,d,e)
     
  2. admin

    admin Founder Administrator

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    I will look into this.

    Cheers
     
  3. admin

    admin Founder Administrator

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    It's early days yet. 2 weeks old today.
    Looking for ideas to combat this.
     
  4. Steve from GWR

    Steve from GWR Well-Known Member

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    Just a quick thanks to whoever sent the message yesterday "t0619d D1015 Theale pass 20:54". As a result I stayed on after 6024 passed Ruscombe at 21.00 and got to see D1015 as well. Great stuff, worth the fiver for the service already.
     
  5. RalphW

    RalphW Nat Pres stalwart Staff Member Administrator Friend

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    Glad to hear that Steve, and just a thank you to all those who contributed with updates over the weekend.
    Now is there going to be anyone on the Tornado trip on Thursday to supply updates?
     
  6. It's not "text speak" but "operations speak". It's quicker to key in to a mobile. I'm quite sure railway-minded folks following that particular train would understand the message. "RT" is "right time"; "MD" is West Somerset Railway shorthand for "Minehead"; and "dep" has been shorthand for "departure" since Bradshaw's days.

    But. Having said all of that, I think texters should be encouraged to use full text whereever possible. Perhaps half a dozen examples in the Q&A showing acceptable abbreviations (eg "dep") might help hone the messages into a kind of standard?

    Steve
     
  7. admin

    admin Founder Administrator

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    Agreed, and also I believe as the system grows, a standard will emerge anyway.
     
  8. kelal

    kelal New Member

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    I will be on this one and will use the system to keep people informed of our progress.
    Patrick
     
  9. RalphW

    RalphW Nat Pres stalwart Staff Member Administrator Friend

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    Thanks Patrick, hope you have a good day, I will be out just north of Crewe hopefully for outward and return so will be glad of updates. Also just got two friends to sign up, they will be somewhere near Shap.
     
  10. admin

    admin Founder Administrator

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    Would anyone be interested in a referral scheme? Earn credits for every person you recommend?
     
  11. Matt35027

    Matt35027 Well-Known Member

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    Good idea
     
  12. Steamage

    Steamage Part of the furniture

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    A few things from my experience "beta testing" the new system this weekend:

    "NATPRES T0619E START" doesn't work because of extra spaces before "START" (my phone introduced them when I edited a previous message). It's a simple parsing problem and should be easy to fix.

    When the system confirms a change to your subscription, the message is quite long but doesn't contain any other information. Could it include the most recent 2 or 3 messages for the tour, or "no updates yet" if no one has posted anything?

    I was following The Red Dragon and The Bath And Bristol. I contributed a couple of updates but received nothing. I think I know why - I was assuming I could use my 8 free texts from the moment I registered, to decide whether the system is useful before committing any cash. It looks as though you have to pay before you can use your "free" messages. Not a problem, but not exactly clear from previous posts nor the help file. This suggests a further refinement to the "welcome" message: it should tell you how many text messages remain in your account, e.g. if your balance is £1.20, you can receive 10 updates, if it's less than 12p, then 0.

    One thing about the way Admin has described the service: he says it is "free" to send updates. Is this really the case? I think my network charged me the standard rate for every text I sent, whether starting/changing/stopping a subscription or giving an update. I think someone should double-check the wording used.

    In the "RailTour Live" web site, the log-in fields are arranged in a funny order. After I entered my phone number, the TAB key took me to the log-in button before I had entered my password. I would expect to be able to key-in phone-no, TAB, password, ENTER. It would also be a good idea if the input-cursor was already positioned in the Mobile Number box, since this is what the vast majority of users will need to start with on this screen. Or, if you want the user to do something first, make it the place the cursor goes to the first time you press TAB - at the moment you need to press TAB 3 or 4 times to get to this field.

    In the Account Invoices page (http://railtours.national-preservation.com/invoices.php) there is this rather odd heading "You have purchased lots of credits". As explained above, I haven't (yet) and the report contains no detail rows.

    I hope this is helpful. The service is a good idea and will be very useful once the bugs are ironed out and enough people are using it.
     
  13. Steamage

    Steamage Part of the furniture

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    Arrh! The bullitin-board software strips out multiple spaces! My example should show three spaces between "T0619E" and "START".
     
  14. admin

    admin Founder Administrator

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    I will try to address every issue in this post, and thank you for taking the time to make the observations.

    Parsing of multiple spaces, ok can sort that, not an issue.

    Subscription changing. Good idea, however currently the reply texts are free, I would have to charge.

    We have to pay for the SMS message credits up front. If we gave out a free trial, and everyone had £1 worth of free text messages, we'd be sunk within weeks. I could however have a single example text sent if requested. from the last message sent to the system?

    As for the sending of texts being free...
    In the FAQ,
    http://railtours.national-preservation.com/faq.php

    I will make this more apparent.

    Log in fields, I know about this, just not had the time to fix it, more annoying than a show stopper, I will try to make time tonight to sort that.

    Account Invoice page. Granted, that's a standard message that should only show if you have purchased credit packs. Need to look at that.

    And thank you for your time.
     
  15. admin

    admin Founder Administrator

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    I will try and implement some of this information and updates later today.
     
  16. admin

    admin Founder Administrator

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    Done,
    Account Invoice page message and multiple spaces.
     
  17. RalphW

    RalphW Nat Pres stalwart Staff Member Administrator Friend

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    Today, 24th, someone on the Border Raider has kept us updated all day, so thanks very much whoever you are.
    Following on from this, it might be an idea for members to add their name or ID to one or more of their updates, so that at the end of the trip we know who to thank.
     
  18. wehaveaproblem

    wehaveaproblem Member

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    I was on the Border raider from Euston and started sending descriptive texts from there. I stopped sending when i realised someone else was on board was sending as well and so were sending duplicate texts so I stopped. No point paying twice for the same info. I am on Thursdays trip with Nunney Castle so expect the same.
     
  19. Steamage

    Steamage Part of the furniture

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    At the risk of appearing a miserly so-and-so (!), I don't fancy committing a whole £10 (about as much as I spend on my pay-as-you-go phone in 3 months) for the first use. Is it possible to specify a smaller amount? If so, how?
     
  20. admin

    admin Founder Administrator

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    I had removed to £5 option right at the beginning. The reasons behind this was 1, to see if it hindered people putting credits onto their accounts. And 2 we get charged 20p + a percentage of all single transactions. Skipping £5 and jumping to £10 halves the costs.
    I do understand that maybe more people may credit their accounts if the minimum was £5.
    I would welcome some debate on this.
     

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