Sensis denies database disaster

By Jacquelyn Holt, ZDNet.com.au
13 November 2009 04:56 PM
Tags: sensis, telstra, system, crikey, deny

Telstra subsidiary Sensis has denied the veracity of an anonymous tip published in Crikey today that claimed its new iGen platform was a complete failure.

The tipster claimed Sensis had combined 19 databases into one, leading to the failure of the iGen system. Reps around the country are taking stress leave and quitting. Sensis can't send out any invoices, contracts, proofs or artwork. "Paper contracts are being faxed to Brisbane where there are about 8000 waiting to be input by hand at the rate of three per day per person," wrote the Crikey tipster.

But Sensis spokesperson Karina Keisler denied the claims, stating: "About the only truth in the Crikey article is the name of our new system." Sensis has undertaken a major upgrade of its system process, including a consolidation of its databases; however, Karina Keisler denied total system failure. She said today: "We have had some success and some teething problems during the process, like any systems implementation would."

These teething issues included moving the Sensis White Pages site back to the old legacy system; though the implementation period from 12 October included a planned system freeze, according to Keisler.

The Sensis Yellow Pages site is continuing to operate on the new system.

Advertisement

Talkback 14 comments

    ha Anonymous -- 13/11/09

    maybe they should rename it the sol system

    sensis mole sensis mole -- 19/11/09 (in reply to #320391558)

    actually around here we call it sigh-gen or lol-gen.

    i work for sensis, and yes lolgen is a big big fail. nobody in the company can do their work effectively, let alone without a myriad of issues appearing in front of their eyes. the people in charge of the project, mainly David McEwan have not taken responsibility for this failure, and insist the bugs are just being hammered out. this is not true, and it is likely the iceberg for sensis. good riddance, if you spend over 300 million, and don't listen to the users when they tell you it is not ready, then you deserve to sink with the ship.

    btw there is not 8000 products outstanding in brisbane, this number is considerably less. however, at the current rate, the book WILL NOT publish, and we are in for HEFTY claims.

    all the users, tried to tell them, iGen wasnt ready, but alas they forced it on us in a very buggy and unready stage... idiots.

    Sensis Program Morph - $400 Million Dollar Failure Anonymous -- 24/11/09 (in reply to #320391558)

    Program Morph at Sensis was a failure from the beginning because of the massive kickbacks Sol & Gerry Sutton (CIO) received from Amdocs.
    Another product was recommend (not Amdocs iGen) but the board were instructed to go with Amdocs anyway and not question why.
    Amdocs received over $200 million for its product (iGen) that they had not even built.
    Looks like Sensis paid for a product they could have built themselves all made in Oz for half the price!
    What's worse is that Amdocs iGen is all made in India - No wonder crappy iGen does not work!

    Not what I hear... Anonymous -- 13/11/09

    ... apparently the performance is abysmal, and they just can't get the throughput they need. White has rolled back, Yellow is thinking hard, and they may need to run both old and new systems in parallel for a couple of *years*. It's what - 2 years overdue? and $200 mil over?

    Shows what happens when you get business folks picking technology against the recommendations - but allegedly they were told what to do from the top of Telstra :-).

    It's a laugh Mel Sommersberg -- 14/11/09

    I have about as much faith in Sensis these days as I do in the left-wing crackpots at Crikey publishing newsworthy articles.

    very very sad Any Gen will do -- 16/11/09

    Sensis holds the richest data available and yet seems totally unable to exploit it the way google might. Sol did the job on Ackhurst. Ackurst refused to back his people.

    Sensis Fail Anonymous -- 18/11/09

    Wouldn't surprise me if it had gone tits up. Worked at that place for 3 years and nearly went insane in the process. Maybe the reason it's so windy at QV is because iGen is trying to open up a vortex and swallow the whole block...

    It was never going to work... Anonymous -- 19/11/09

    Having worked on the testing of this system, I'm not surprised. I was booted out for demanding quality and raising my hand at the poor state of delivery from the vendor. My team was only ever 50% productive as for every fix the vendor delivered, they broke 2 and that was when the "vendor managed testing environment" was available, as more often, it wasn't. I guess that's one of the issues with focus put on hiring CHEAP staff versus GOOD staff.

    Too many people must have taken hand outs over building this system as the priority was NEVER to get a WORKING system out it was just to deliver something to get paid, however bad.

    Working for SENSIS was an experience. I now know to run away fast whenever a development vendor is put in charge of quality. It's a conflict of interest and will never work.

    SENSIS Management are only to blame as they allowed this to happen.

    Just like all roll outs... Anonymous -- 20/11/09

    Sometimes I think people make this out to be worse than it actually is. In fact, it went from 156 systems to one and 80 databases to two. This the largest IT project in the southern hemisphere, its very normal for this kind of stuff to happen. I worked on a project with Google and we had similiar problems for months. The only difference is, obviously, Google staff were more classy and loyal to their employer. I mean, really... who SNITCHES on the company that is paying their check? Idiots - stuff like this causes shares to fall, and when shares fall, Directors get worried, then they put pressure on the CEO to keep profits by cutting costs - guess who will be first on the list? Yes, you. If I were you, I would be doing the complete opposite and building customer confidence that why you will keep your jobs. As for me, I am no longer working at Sensis but alas I think these teething problems are the same as any other company migrating that amount of data. Looks like the media people were right though, the only thing they got right in this article was the name of the system. bwahahahaha.................

    no, really Anonymous -- 20/11/09 (in reply to #320392238)

    hmmm...have you ever had to put up with a quality assurance manager reporting to the company you work for but whose pay came from the vendors developing the code, bragging that they bought a St Kilda beach cabin outright with a bonus they got because they "delivered"?

    There is a big difference between teething problems and delivering crap to get a bonus.

    seriously Anonymous -- 22/11/09 (in reply to #320392247)

    wait a minute this is not a crap system the system is fantastic and is used by huge companies around the world including AT&T. it is not the system that is crap. what makesit appear as crap is that sensis had so many systems to merge and it is impossible to get this kind of thing seemles with that amount of data. the system has delivered what it needs to and lets remember, the system has only been out since the middle of october just a little over a month. i worked on a system that took years to get ironed out and they didnt have half the number of systems or data migration that sensis needed to perform.just put it into perspective. its a good system. every single it project is going to have this problem. Sensis employees are just not looking at the big picture.

    Forgot to add... Anonymous -- 20/11/09

    ahhh by the way ALL contracts a put in by hand you numb skull tipster hello how else does something get put into a system does it just magically jump from paper or peoples minds into a computer? idiots. seriously.

    ahhhmmmmmm..... Anonymous -- 20/11/09 (in reply to #320392240)

    ....the contracts were supposed to be fully electronic, including recording of signature via a electronic pen pad.

    Yes... Anonymous -- 22/11/09 (in reply to #320392249)

    Incorrect. I worked on the project team and they were never suppose to be FULLY digital. In fact, it was only offered as an option and that functionality was not new, it was also available in the legacy system but only used by a select few. The business new that the majority of Consultants, after GoLive, would not start using that functionality. This is why there is the option of paper signature when you go to close the order. the point I was making was regardless of whether you get a digital signature or not the contract still has to be KEYED by a human being. the article implied that there was some kind of automated process in the background but that was never how it was going to happen.

Add your opinion

Latest Videos

Sponsored content

Power Centre - Content from our premier sponsors

Blogs

  • Chris Duckett Get extensions going in Firefox, redux
    Previously on Null Pointer we looked at getting extensions working in Firefox betas, and that was great until the fine folks at Firefox changed their minds.
  • Array How reliable is IP telephony?
    Have you ever heard a weird kind of hissing, crackling or popping noise when calling someone on an IP telephony line? How rare is the phenomenon these days?
  • Array Forget the NBN, 100Mbps is already here
    Telstra and TransACT will shortly begin offering 100Mbps broadband to many customers. By moving early, the companies have not only raised the bar for Australia's broadband services, but thrown down a challenge to a government that now faces increased pressure to deliver the NBN as promised.
  • More blogs »

Tags

Back to top

Featured