Re: EDI without education = risky -- BPCS-L

In a message dated 6/17/99 11:57:28 AM Central Daylight Time, 
jcannon@antigua.com writes:

> Yeah, I got all day to spend on the phone talking to voicemails of all 
these 
>  various places and services. And God help you if you don't have an 
Incident 
>  number! As an example...what is the deal with waiting for 'no more' than 5 
>  days to get a software key? Last time I got one, it took the girl 10 
minutes 
> 
>  to get it to me, once she got around to doing it.
>  
>  If I were king of SSA Support...I would try to implement something similar 
>  to what hospitals do in mass emergencies. Triage the calls. Of course this 
>  would require someone answering the phone to know how to say 
>  something other than "Your incident number?". Getting a software key 
>  should not take 2 - 5 days!!! 
>  
Cutting and verifying you have paid for your software in order to issue a 
Software key is not the responsibility of the SSA Helpline. This function has 
to do with whether or not you have paid for BPCS yet , etc., or are paying 
partially and getting extended temporary keys or what have you. This is 
handled, then by the Financials department at SSA. The SSA Helpline itself is 
directed to give out keys only in 'emergencies' such as a live system being 
down because a key expired or if someone is installing BPCS and for whatever 
reason the key won't apply or such.

Proper installation/upgrade planning dictates that you know ahead of time 
when you are going to do an install -- so request your keys ahead of time and 
save yourself the trouble. OGS also now has a key request form that lets you 
generate 3 temporary keys yourself using a web form. The limit is 3 keys and 
they are date sensitive -- so use it wisely! Obviously, to use this you have 
to be registered to use OGS.

If you have a temporary key, don't wait until 11pm on the night it is going 
to expire before you call SSA - you know when it will expire (if you can't 
remember, enter BPCS and CALL SYS670 to see), so call ahead to get the new 
key! 

All new software clearly states the key request procedures in the 
installation instructions (6.1.00 or eBPCS as they are marketing it) -- 
unfortunately, this was not the case on older releases, thus the confusion.

Yes, you do need to call ahead of time, as you can be sure you are not the 
only person in the world who requires a key to run the software. The key 
cutting program is not the issue causing the slow response, it is the number 
of other people also wanting the same thing and the research to make sure 
your account is paid up and all the rest of the paperwork that takes time. 
 
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