I have spent the last week working on our portal upgrade. I'm completely fed up with the product and I've decided that they couldn't pay me to mess with it any more.
This isn't my fault but the fault of the makers. I have no exposure to the database or a way of batch updating. We have 7 customers who use it, all with their own 'instance' which is basically their own sandbox.
The upgrade was waiting for me because I wanted to get all instances on the same content. I knew that if I took the time to do this after the upgrade that I would constantly tweak it and nothing would be uniform. So I spent the past couple of days updating xml files, transforming the html files and then uploading 20 or so files each instance. That's roughly 140 html files give or take 20-30 to upload. Is there a batch upload utility? No. I get to upload them all one at a time.
Here's the process:
- Go into a channel editor
- Click Browse button to find the file on my PC
- Change the initial directory to the directory where the files are located
- Double click the file to select it
- Click upload
- A window pops up giving you the progress. Once complete click close
- Repeat all steps except changing the directory, it knows where to look
Do this roughly 140 to 160 times. This is just to update the content of the pages. Luckily each page is rebuilt when you click on it so I don't have to do any extra steps. What if a file has problems? I usually have to change the xml, transform it using a free program (I didn't bother making one that would transform the entire directory because it'd take too much time) and then move the file to the html directory and upload the file again. I could try these out in IE but that can be annoying at times.
This is just to update content. If I want to make a new channel or category I have to point and click my way through. I have no access to the backend or any batch items. The portal was originally designed to handle one instance. I'm handling 7. I've given feedback to the company but most of my ideas weren't good enough for some reason and it's next to impossible to continue at this pace.
Imagine this process with say 20 instances. I decided today at only 7 instances that I can't work like this any more. I decided that I had enough and I was going to throw in the towel. Me and my dad tend to be a little hostile towards one another in high stress incidents like this. Today we were having pretty heated discussions just about how to announce the upgrade and why it took so long. After all this stress created today and me coming to the end of my rope, my dad coming home changed all of it.
We discussed some things about the company in general and then the reality begins to open up. We start talking about customers and how they seem to have everything while our company is struggling to maintain. I learn that he feels trapped like I do except we have different responsibilities. He handles a lot of the back end work of the company that no one seems to notice. He should be out selling to generate revenue but often he's too busy keeping our infrastructure in tact. All of the stress and anger about the portal melt away and I realize why I work for my father, to help him out. If he left our company I would follow suit simply because I believe in him more than I believe in the money I'm making. Sure I might make less if anything but the reason I'm there is to help him so when that no longer is necessary, I'll move on.
Do I still hate the portal? You bet. I'm doing a lot of work, slaving, stressing and generally getting pissed for nothing. 2 out of 7 companies are actively using it and I can only tell that by them emailing me asking me to add or remove users. I like my work when it seems to have substance or meaning. The portal has no substance or meaning yet it's the most important aspect of my job now. I want to just say “Good luck in finding someone else who can do this. I know they would come to my same conclusion, that this sucks, is tedious and you couldn't pay anyone to want to do it”. I came very close to sending out an email saying that I'll finish what I started but I'll no longer start a portal but just discussing it seemed to make the problem go away. The sad part is the problem is still there and it'll only get worse as more instances are made. Thus the sad while loop continues. There doesn't seem to be anything that'll get me out of it either so I'll continue to get frustrated then find the reason why I do what I do and it all goes away.
I guess what I'll do tomorrow is ask for direct access to the database and web server. If there is no way that I can do things in batch then I'll have to make ways around it by uploading files directly and generating sql statements by hand if need be. Working from one place to change 20 things is much easier than working from 20 places to change 1 thing in each place. I can always cut and paste sql statements any way. I can't cut and paste a point and click, though I wish I could. Macros would be wonderful here but why should I even have to set them up? I'm tired of doing other peoples work. If you can't think of this in your product why write it in the first place?