my.8ta.com - What were they thinking?!?

R

Reelix

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When a normal user logs into the my.8ta.com site to check their current data usage, they will see:

Wtqg6.png


For +- 5 seconds.

Normally.

On a good day.

I mean honestly - Is it THAT hard to run an optimised SQL Select statement when you LOAD the page?!?
Hell - Give me FTP access, and I'll do it myself!

This annoyance got enhanced this morning when, after about 30 seconds, the following appeared:

eswyo.png


I mean - Crikey! D:

- Edit -

Their Demographic Survey in Chrome:

aN6NH.png


And in IE 9 (Just in case - You know - Chrome wasn't supported yet...)

ZMZNO.png


A game of connect-the-dots, anyone... ?
(Hint: The Manufacturing dot is above, and far right)

- Edit -

Main login
Logged on:<My Name Here>
- In plain black text, on a white background

Profile Page
Logged on:<My Name Here> ([email protected])
- They now add the email address too.

Questonairre
eotp8.png

- New fancy graphics, and my name has now vanished.

...

Honestly... ?
 
Last edited:
Lol.. they've got amateurs designing their web portal. Wouldn't be the first time Telkom has done this. Can anyone spell Tenderpreneur?
 
lol, when i signed up they used an intranet type page. The design was for a fixed width that was more than the monitor the poor lady was working on so she spent most of the time scrolling.
 
I haven't even been able to register. Every time I fill in the form and click submit, it takes me to the confirmation page, but I never receive an sms with the activation code. I've sent them an email over a week ago, but no response.
 
Lol... Your last picture disclose your phone number. :)
 
GarethC said:
I haven't even been able to register. Every time I fill in the form and click submit, it takes me to the confirmation page, but I never receive an sms with the activation code. I've sent them an email over a week ago, but no response.
Click to expand...

Try onnet.8ta.com (when connected to the net using your sim card)
 
I must agree - Telkom have so many different portals intermingled. If you've ever logged in to Telkoms "my account" to pay your bill, you'll go from Telkom branding to 8ta branding to Pay your bill on a really old telkom branding page. Ridiculous. Nobody has heard of standardisation.. tenderpreneurs indeed.
 
blunt said:
I must agree - Telkom have so many different portals intermingled. If you've ever logged in to Telkoms "my account" to pay your bill, you'll go from Telkom branding to 8ta branding to Pay your bill on a really old telkom branding page. Ridiculous. Nobody has heard of standardisation.. tenderpreneurs indeed.
Click to expand...

Agreed. Absolutely terrible. And it's been like that since the so-called "revamp" of the Telkom website, and the launch of 8.ta. The TellkomInternet usage tracker and topup portals are just as terrible, and haven't been revamped in over 5 years.

This sums up the corporate culture that Telkom adheres to, and why the company is in the mess that it is.
 
I'm tried to register on both a PC and my phone by I never got the sms I'm supposed to receive. Maybe their system doesn't recognize my no. as an 8ta no. since it's 074.
 
seanboland said:
I'm tried to register on both a PC and my phone by I never got the sms I'm supposed to receive. Maybe their system doesn't recognize my no. as an 8ta no. since it's 074.
Click to expand...

I was also wondering about that. I have an 076 number, and never got my sms.
 
Please see the response to this thread from our Webmasters:

Response:

• The assumption that a simple stored procedure being used to retrieve data is incorrect.
• We are in the process of integrating all new and existing applications into one portal. Some applications are old and will be phased out and replaced over time. We’ll investigate how we can fix the inconsistent display of the currently logged-in user.
• Positive advances include: Our new on-network authentication functionality. The original poster had been notified of the availability of onnet.8ta.com and appeared to be satisfied. If an active 8ta SIM card is being used, then a username and password is not needed to access basic self-service information.

If there are any issues logging in - please send us the following via PM or email:

8ta Number:
Contact Number:
ID Number:
ICCID Number (20 digit number starting with 8927...):
Problem Experienced:

Regards,
Social Media Team
 
8ta said:
Please see the response to this thread from our Webmasters:

Response:

• The assumption that a simple stored procedure being used to retrieve data is incorrect.
• We are in the process of integrating all new and existing applications into one portal. Some applications are old and will be phased out and replaced over time. We’ll investigate how we can fix the inconsistent display of the currently logged-in user.
• Positive advances include: Our new on-network authentication functionality. The original poster had been notified of the availability of onnet.8ta.com and appeared to be satisfied. If an active 8ta SIM card is being used, then a username and password is not needed to access basic self-service information.

If there are any issues logging in - please send us the following via PM or email:

8ta Number:
Contact Number:
ID Number:
ICCID Number (20 digit number starting with 8927...):
Problem Experienced:

Regards,
Social Media Team
Click to expand...

What about the Telkom website, TITracker, Topup Portal, View Online Bill, etc. All these are terribly inconsistent, and very user-unfriendly.
 
Hi Saajid!

We currently only deal with 8ta queries. Please formulate an email with your issues with these websites and we will gladly send it to the management of these sites and request them to respond to you.

Regards,
Social Media Team

Saajid said:
What about the Telkom website, TITracker, Topup Portal, View Online Bill, etc. All these are terribly inconsistent, and very user-unfriendly.
Click to expand...
 
8ta said:
• The assumption that a simple stored procedure being used to retrieve data is incorrect.
Click to expand...

Any reason why not? If the database is even semi-structured, retrieving all this information using a single SQL query should be relatively trivial... ? Something along the lines of:

SELECT bundleType, bundleExpiry, bundleAvailability FROM bundleTable WHERE bundleNumberID = 8taNumberID AND bundleExpiry > GETDATE() ORDER BY bundleExpiry

Seeing as how the 8taNumberID is stored when the user logs on, that'd eliminate the need for a string search for the users number.

The rest would simply be formatting it in the table client-side, and you're done.

So now, exactly why did the right column on https://home.8ta.com/onnet/public/mobileData take +- 9 seconds to populate, even after the page was loaded? Yes, the onnet site is easier to access - It still doesn't stop the multi-second delay. Seeing as how all the data from this very forum is also being pulled from a database, I don't see any "Loading..." bars / circles on this site, aside from the fractions of a second it takes for my browser to connect, and pull all the page data (Which is my side, not theirs) ... Do you?
 
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hold on, so what if they have a SOA-based architecture? that might necessitate webservice calls to a central data repository rather than silo's of persisted data right?
 
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