why no DVC online booking??

[jfulcer]

You can always check out my online DVC point tracker at www.dvcplanner.net. While it can't tell you what is available, it WILL tell you easily what points costs/etc will be.

 

[Beca]

With the push to sell DVC in Calif. they may need to increase their evening hours to satisfy the west coast owners. If I was a CA owner I would be quite upset that MS hours ended at 2:30pm (PST)

I'm in agreement with lllovell. I would be quite content with the ability to view my account, reservations, and availability of resorts.

Well, I am on CA time half the year, and yes....it does really stink that MS closes so early out here, but then again....DVC does not really have a majority of members on the west coast. I think that will certainly change if/when a west coast DVC opens.

But, even more than MS not staying open late, is the annoyance that when I need to book "day by day" (something I do frequently becuase of my BCV obsession/paranoia), it REALLY stinks to get up so early (but, not as much as it stinks to set my alarm for 3:45 AM for Cindy's meals).

KANSAS....where have you been??!!! I've missed you!!!



Beca

 

[sagwanamu]

Is your millions and millions of $$$ cost estimate based on doing a similar project somewhere? I'd be interested in knowing how you arrived at that figure.

I am a web application developer and database specialist and have been in the business for past a decade.

Think about it. Nowadays, it costs about 80K - 100K to hire a Junior developer (at least in my area) and that's just a salary (and database specialist cost a bit more). PLUS, new hardware, more bandwidth, more database (or more licenses), network specialist, security specialist, project manager, tech support personnels, maintenance, and office spaces and so on to name a few.

The costs add up quickly...

 

[CarolMN]

I have always been frustrated by MS hours. It never fails that I'm on some exchange over a 3-day holiday weekend, something is going wrong and there is no one out there to help me. I wouldn't mind paying a bit more to get some hours on the weekend. Or push the close time during the week to later -- even 8 pm would be helpful. I can't always call from work.

PPF

You do know that MS is open on Thursday evenings, right?

While I understand that many members would prefer to call on weekends or the evenings, I am not willing to pay what I believe would be a significant increase in dues to make it happen.

What if DVC established a "flat rate" of $5 -$10 for a weekend or evening contact with MS? (Under this scenario, calls for an exact 11 month or 7 month booking would not be allowed on Saturday or Sunday - you'd still have to wait for regular hours if you were making a day by day reservation). How many would actually call if they had to pay? IMHO, not very many - I think most would just figure out how to call during the regular hours.

Best wishes -

 

[gppnj]

I think another impediment to an on-line booking system is that Disney doesn't just need to make an on-line booking system. Rather, it needs to make an on-line system that's darn close to idiot proof, which is a completely different thing. I'm sure we here on the DIS boards are relatively sophisticated when it comes to the use of computers. However, we're also only a small fraction of all DVC members.

There are people who don't know what they're doing with computers, and they admit that. Those people aren't a problem because those people will opt to call Member Services even if an on-line application is available. The problem is the people who don't know what they're doing but don't know that they don't know what they're doing. These are the people who will show up at the Beach Club ready to check in, only to find that they never actually booked their rooms on-line as they thought they did. These are the people who find that they have far fewer points in their account than they thought because they actually booked the room they wanted twice by mistake. It's a difficult thing to develop a system that a less-sophisticated DVC user can use successfully.

 

[lisareniff]

But, even more than MS not staying open late, is the annoyance that when I need to book "day by day" (something I do frequently becuase of my BCV obsession/paranoia), it REALLY stinks to get up so early (but, not as much as it stinks to set my alarm for 3:45 AM for Cindy's meals).

I hear ya! I really pity you west coasters on the early morning calls. At least they only open at 9am not 7! The paranoid day-by-day booking that I also do is the reason I really don't want weekend hours! LOL! Then I would have to call absolutely every day. Now I get the weekends off!

 

[jarestel]

I am a web application developer and database specialist and have been in the business for past a decade.

Think about it. Nowadays, it costs about 80K - 100K to hire a Junior developer (at least in my area) and that's just a salary (and database specialist cost a bit more). PLUS, new hardware, more bandwidth, more database (or more licenses), network specialist, security specialist, project manager, tech support personnels, maintenance, and office spaces and so on to name a few.

The costs add up quickly...

I would imagine most of the support people already exist to maintain the current system. That's the part I think most of us are overlooking... there is a system in place already that does exactly what it needs to do. As an experienced developer, are you thinking a whole new system needs to be designed from the ground up? I wouldn't imagine your company designs and implements a completely new code base for every project they decide to tackle, much less when it's just an update to the user interface. Again, I'm looking at this, not as a new system designed from the ground up, but as an enhancement to the current one.

Now, do I think DVC will be in any great hurry to create such a system. Probably ( or should I say obviously ) not. I think a previous poster hit the nail on the head when he said there's no financial incentive for DVD/DVC to implement such a system, since it won't save or make them a single penny. It's strictly a feature that would benefit the members. The members bear the total cost of the current system and would foot the bill for any new system down the line. In fact, one could make the argument that implementing an on-line system would not be looked upon favorably by DVC since that may require the reduction in the number of telephone CMs that would be needed. Since DVC doesn't pay the salaries of those CMs, they have little incentive to see their empire slashed.

So as I said before, whether we get an on-line system or not probably has very little to do with cost or difficulty, since it really isn't all that much of either, but more to do with the fact that it doesn't gain DVD/DVC anything by doing so. You can bet if they were going to make money on the deal, we'd already be doing stuff on-line.

 

[jarestel]

Based on work I do in the IT field I would not expect a $1-3 million investment over several years to be out of line for a system such as this. I find it interesting to read threads like these and see the wide variety of opinions on IT development topics. People try to equate a spreadsheet tracking program with an online, dynamic, secure real time inventory management system. There is no comparison.

Are you basing your estimate on creating a brand new system? We don't need to reinvent the wheel in the case of DVC reservations systems, because they already have a system that does most of what we want it do.

P.S.
I'm a software engineer with many years of software design and coding experience. I wasn't envisioning or proposing a "spreadsheet" program when I made my earlier comments, so you are wrong about the suppositions of this "people".

 

[sagwanamu]

I would imagine most of the support people already exist to maintain the current system. That's the part I think most of us are overlooking... there is a system in place already that does exactly what it needs to do. As an experienced developer, are you thinking a whole new system needs to be designed from the ground up? I wouldn't imagine your company designs and implements a completely new code base for every project they decide to tackle, much less when it's just an update to the user interface. Again, I'm looking at this, not as a new system designed from the ground up, but as an enhancement to the current one.

I totally agree with you... There is no incentive for DVC by putting up on-line reservation system, yet... But when DVC gets more owner and expands, it will worth to have such system as a new feature for members and as a cost saving reasons...

As far as the systems, although Disney has network infrastructure to support the new on-line system, they need to buy new hardware and etc. Moreover, as far as calculating costs goes, any man power hours used to support the online reservation (regardless if they hire new employees or not) adds to the cost.

Online reservation system requires high-end performance hardware and software; therefore, it needs a new system unless they have one (or few) sitting around on their office. Remember that DVC does not have on-line reservation system yet; therefore, they don't have anything to make enhancement on. If you are referring to the system that MS uses, if MS uses non-web-based system, you know they need to re-code them, which is the same as developing new system using existing logics.

The bottom line is, on-line reservation is somthing good to have; however, I don't think current level of ownership does not justify the cost without increasing dues which I don't think many people would like to see...

 

[rkdahl]

Orginally posted by jarestel
I'm a software engineer with many years of software design and coding experience. I wasn't envisioning or proposing a "spreadsheet" program when I made my earlier comments, so you are wrong about the suppositions of this "people".

HA! I definitely wasn't talking about your post jarestel so sorry about that. I was just making a general comment on how non-IT people can sometimes equate a spreadsheet tracker with a fully functional online secure redundant reservation system. So you are hereby offically removed from the "people' category! lol

And regarding your 'new' comment, sometimes hooking a web interface to a legacy system can be more complicated than cleaning the slate and starting over as you well know. It might be new, might be an add on, in any case I wish them well and look forward to the deployment in 2007!

 

[dizfanz]

Two things come to mind when I read all these posts. Sad to say, but how much money could be saved from cutting back jobs once the system is up and running. CMs will always be needed to answer phones, but how many of those calls can be saved by being able to find availability online and booking your reservation that way. Also, it seems to me that DVC is making a move towards online reservations and account specific access when they issued unique usernames and passwords. That was the first step IMO. I am all for online access.

 

[jarestel]

sagwanamu, you make some very good points. I guess I would just say that hardware is pretty cheap these days. Look at our own beloved DIS. They probably get way more traffic in a single day than any DVC on-line reservation system would, and they don't charge us anything for access to this wonderful site. Agreed, they have developed ways to mitigate costs in other ways, but still... if having a bunch of servers was all that expensive, I would imagine we would be paying for posting our opinions here.

Which reminds me... I need to sign up for a DIS sponsership, because this board is definitely worth it!

Have a great day!

 

[DizWacko]

Couple of points to ponder:

1) Recent layoffs at Disney IT group - I read that they layed off a SIGNIFICANT portion of their IT staff, only a couple of months back. Not sure if it was outright downsizing or outsourcing, either way, Im sure the project plate had to be thinned out a bit due to this.

2) Where do you all think a DVC online ressy tracking stacks up in priority over other Disney IT projects? Heck, the current online ressie system for cash customers is a pretty crapola system, and that project is supposed to actually add money to Disney coffers from customers who havent already committed their dollars (non-DVC folks). I would think they would fix this system before they offer us anything.

 

[lllovell]

I suspect that Disney just laid off a good bit of its programming department because it has completed the job it was hired to do (specifically the new AP online booking system). I always think of Disney and DVC operations as being seperate and I suspect they do as well since we are not connected to CRO in any form.

 

[tjkraz]

1) Recent layoffs at Disney IT group - I read that they layed off a SIGNIFICANT portion of their IT staff, only a couple of months back. Not sure if it was outright downsizing or outsourcing...

The IT tasks were contracted out to IBM and ACS. Most of the workers were offered positions with IBM / ACS.

 

[crisi]

Yeah, but having been with companies that outsource their IT (I used to do IT contract/consulting and participated in several partial or total IT oursources), maintenance gets cheaper, new development becomes more expensive. Disney isn't doing this to do a lot of specialized implementation or customized development. They also follow a pattern. Morale goes way downhill for the IT employees that remain - they still have jobs but they are mad about it. The good ones find employment elsewhere. This attrition is counted on in the layoffs, they might lay off 20%, but they know it a year they'll have 30-40% less people and they don't intend to replace them. The outsource firm will bring in more staff for specialized development projects, but it will come at a cost.

I've always understood that the DVC reservations system is a little antiquated - I get the feeling its eleven years old with only some minor enhancements during that time. Which means it probably isn't a good candidate to slap a web front end on with low development costs. 'Course, we don't know too much, but I think the $1-3 million number probably isn't unreasonable. (In the company I work for, if we pull 20 people into a room for an hour, we figure it costs us $1700. I did a small project where the documentation cost $30,000 worth of time to write).

It amazes me large corporations make money.

 

[jarestel]

I've always understood that the DVC reservations system is a little antiquated - I get the feeling its eleven years old with only some minor enhancements during that time. Which means it probably isn't a good candidate to slap a web front end on with low development costs.

11 year old code isn't necessarily ready for the scrap heap. Assuming the original design and coding was done by professionals ( and not by a DVC/DVD manager's unemployed brother in law ) and they followed standard practices and coding conventions, it may actually be in rather good shape. Especially if not much has been done to it since. Generally, the enhancements and code maintenance are done by people who weren't involved in the original project, so the potential for "hacking" just to make it work increases. Which makes it more difficult ( and expensive ) for the next person who has to work on the code.

The code might indeed be a piece of a crap, though. Who really knows, right? In which case development costs would tend to be high. Of course the current 800 number probably costs the members easily 1 - 3 million a year also, not to mention the salaries and benefits of the CMs needed to answer the phones. So the current system is not exactly cheap. DVC doesn't care what it costs because they don't pay for it, but I would think the members would be extremely interested in an alternate system with the potential to save a few million a year in dues by being able to scale back the volume of calls to the 800 number.

 

[vascubaguy]

11 year old code isn't necessarily ready for the scrap heap. Assuming the original design and coding was done by professionals ( and not by a DVC/DVD manager's unemployed brother in law ) and they followed standard practices and coding conventions, it may actually be in rather good shape. Especially if not much has been done to it since. Generally, the enhancements and code maintenance are done by people who weren't involved in the original project, so the potential for "hacking" just to make it work increases. Which makes it more difficult ( and expensive ) for the next person who has to work on the code.

The code might indeed be a piece of a crap, though. Who really knows, right? In which case development costs would tend to be high. Of course the current 800 number probably costs the members easily 1 - 3 million a year also, not to mention the salaries and benefits of the CMs needed to answer the phones. So the current system is not exactly cheap. DVC doesn't care what it costs because they don't pay for it, but I would think the members would be extremely interested in an alternate system with the potential to save a few million a year in dues by being able to scale back the volume of calls to the 800 number.

Just wanted to chime in and say I totally agree with your posts!

One note about the toll-free numbers... don't forget about the international members as they can dial toll-free too.

Overall maintenance of the software would not be that significant. The rules for how points are handled are not likely to change over the next 50 years.... so the guts of the logic would remain the same and you wouldn't really need additional functionality.

Oh, and I noticed many folks mentioned profitability. The system wouldn't be about how they can turn a profit on the system, it would be based on saving on expenses over-time. I imagine that as DVC continues to grow in the western US and overseas, the interest in online booking will continue to increase. In the west you have to get up early, overseas to the east you have to wait until mid-day/evening. But when you cut back on the number of calls for simple things, or daily calls to book ressies, the savings will add up quick. I know I have called MS every day for the past week booking, checking availability, and asking general questions.

 

[crisi]

I wasn't saying that the code was crap (though it could be). More that the code probably was never written with requirements for web enabled customer access which will make web enabling the application more difficult.

 

[jarestel]

I wasn't saying that the code was crap (though it could be). More that the code probably was never written with requirements for web enabled customer access which will make web enabling the application more difficult.

Good points!