Campus Connection is pissing me off

[Sal Atticum]

What's the purpose of a piece of software that gives you an error message but gives no explanation on how to fix it?  I'm at about my last straw with PeopleSoft or whatever the heck it's called.  I was admitted as a student, my advisor hold got taken off, and I still can't register for classes.  I get a message saying "You do not have access to enrollment at this time."  NO, REALLY?  How about telling me what the hell is wrong?  How about saying "the graduate school is a bunch of idiots" or "the registrar is out having a drink and decided to screw you over" or "this software sucks, and never does what it's supposed to do"?  ANY of those would be infinitely more helpful than telling me I don't have access.

What is wrong with people?  Why can't even programmers get with the program?  Are they all second-rate?  You don't just tell people there is a problem, you SUGGEST HOW TO FIX IT.  Teach the programmers, and then teach the administration, because they suffer fom the same problems.  You know what?  I think they're afraid to make software that does everything and is ACTUALLY USABLE because then the school might realize that 50% of the staff in Twamley (at UND anyway) is absolutely worthless 95% of the time.  You know how much money we could save by firing these people?

I'm in a right old good mood right now.  Hooray for being the last day to sign up for classes.

[pmp6nl]

Well its a good thing I happen to know the North Dakota Student Association Campus Connection Rep.  So you would like to see a reason displayed why you cant register right on that page?  I can share that with the people that would be able to get it to work, if anyone can.

What other suggestions do you have?

Of course we all know that the actual software itself is... well full of problems/bugs.

[Sal Atticum]

Well, I tracked down that it was the grad school holding me up, and apparently it was good that I did because an email from geology got lost on its way over, which meant that who knows when someone would have noticed I wasn't a student...

Yes, I think that having reasons for things would be good to have.  For example, every time someone (administration, grad school, registrar, you, etc.) changes something, I think that should be reflected.  Something like "You cannot access enrollment at this time.  Reason: You are not a currently approved student." Would have been helpful.  I also had to really dig to find out I had an advisor hold for some reason, which is brand new for grad students here but we were never told about it.  I know that a lot of things are automated, which is fine, but even the automation ahs to have some reasoning behind it (if I try to sign up for classes and I can't because I've only just applied for school, the message would be "Your application has not been processed, go here for a status report" etc.

[pmp6nl]

Alright, thanks for the suggestions.  I will be sure to share them

[Plantains]

Beek... I feel your pain man. I feel your pain. When I finally FINALLY after a year and a half got things as close to being resolved with this univ that I was going to get them, I got held up by campus connection and ended up with classes at weirdo times. My mom is a computer programmer and she was sitting there whilst I was screaming at the computer for being stupid and she said oh, it's peoplesoft... shocker.

The problem with people soft is in its title. "People" its overly beureaucratic. They have 10,000 people trying to all do very slightly different things for different reasons instead of having one person oversee it. (imo anyways).

But between UND's complete NONSENSE and peoplesoft having 2 million people checking passwords phrases or whatever they do, its pretty much impossible to attend school here without making some form of critical registration error.

Not to mention that out of state tuition is far FAR too high for me to willingly put up with it. Too bad my next choice school was $50,000+/yr.