Since I find it hard to believe you got everything fixed, how about telling us how your companies did it, without revealing the company name of course? Please indicate if you are a small, medium or large business.

For example did you?

Turn the clocks back or forward on both non-critical and critical systems?

Turn the clocks back or forward on the non-critical systems and fix the critical ones?

Employ windowing on non-critical systems and critical systems?

Employ windowing on non-critical systems and change to 4 digit dates on critical systems?

Changing to 4 digit dates on both non-critical and critical systems?

Turn everything off for the rollover and hook up the prayer wheel to a 1/2 hp motor?

etc.

Please let us in on your secrets.

-- John (jh@NotReal.ca), January 02, 2000

Answers

Turned off the SCADA systems and ran unmetered? Should be some interesting "estimated usage bills" being drawn up right now. :)

-- Servant (public_service@yahoo.com), January 02, 2000.

Easy.

We employed "Journalists" and you plebs bought it hook, line and sinker.

Especially the feathered plebs.

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), January 02, 2000.

Since I find it hard to believe you got everything fixed, how about telling us how your companies did it, without revealing the company name of course? Please indicate if you are a small, medium or large business.

For example did you?

Turn the clocks back or forward on both non-critical and critical systems?

Turn the clocks back or forward on the non-critical systems and fix the critical ones?

Employ windowing on non-critical systems and critical systems?

Employ windowing on non-critical systems and change to 4 digit dates on critical systems?

Changing to 4 digit dates on both non-critical and critical systems?

Turn everything off for the rollover and hook up the prayer wheel to a 1/2 hp motor?

etc.

Please let us in on your secrets.

###

I work for a consulting firm, so the size of my company isn't really important. Suffice it to say that I've worked with some small companies (<100 employees) and some absolutely HUGE ones (international banking and pharmaceutical corporations), and even on a couple of federal contracts. We did Y2K work as a sideline to our regular consulting work.

Did we turn the clocks back and forth? Sure did, but only for testing. But when in a testing mode, I pushed for only rolling the clocks FORWARD in increments until the testing cycle was done. Bouncing back and forth haphazardly isn't the way to go, and I don't write test scripts that way. When the testing was done, we rolled the clocks back to real time.

Did we fix only the critical systems? Depends on what the client wanted. Some wanted everything addressed, while others only wanted a specific list of things fixed, and the heck with everything else. As a consultant, I can't force a client to do something they don't want to do, so if I uncovered other problems while I was working for them, I pointed it out, wrote a report on the problem, gave them the report and got written acknowledgement of the report. That way, any future legal and/or liability belongs to the client, not my company. After all, I refuse to be held responsible for something I wasn't allowed to touch.

I did not EVER use windowing, and I discourage the practice. Windowing your VCR is one thing. Windowing a utility company's billing system is another.

I encouraged the installation of software that recognizes four-digit years. There are lots of companies out there that manufacture such business-oriented software, like SAP and PeopleSoft.

I don't know if any of my past clients turned things off for the rollover, but I encouraged them all to execute tape backups of significant data EVERY DAY during the week prior to the rollover. Some clients, like banks, already did just that. I also encouraged my clients to run paper records for the two months prior, too. Perhaps a little overzealous, but it is important to me to cover all my clients' bases, so far as possible.

Tink

-- Tink R. Bell (witness.protection@program.gov), January 02, 2000.

Tink:

PEOPLESOFT ::: ROFL Come on down to Cleveland State and tell THEM about PEOPLESOFT.

Or toddle over to TI and tell THEM about SAP.

ROFL

-- tickle me again (ROFL@leghurts.com), January 02, 2000.

:PEOPLESOFT ::: ROFL Come on down to Cleveland State and tell THEM about PEOPLESOFT. Or toddle over to TI and tell THEM about SAP. ROFL

Hey, Tickle, I'm familiar with both the botched installations you speak of. All I can say is that I wasn't involved with either of them, and companies who skimp on the consulting help get what they pay for. Both those software packages are complex and fidgety, and anyone trying to install them needs expert help. That usually doesn't come from the lowest bidder.

There are quite a few satisfied customers of both PeopleSoft and SAP in the US and abroad, and there are quite a few satisfied customers of software groups like JD Edwards, Baan and Oracle (which does much more than just make software). By and large, those companies all make good products, but if you get some cut-rate no-name consulting outfit to do your integration for you, then you deserve what you get.

If you want good help, then you do your homework before you pick an integrator to help you. Find a house with happy customers, one that has a reputation for doing good work on deadline, and get in contact with their former customers before you sign on the dotted line.

And if you decide to go it alone, hire ho help, and blow the installation completely, don't call me to pick up your pieces.

Tink

-- Tink R. Bell (witness.protection@program.gov), January 02, 2000.

Tink ... Thanks very much for the serious answer.

Wish a few more could have been posted.

-- John (jh@NotReal.ca), January 02, 2000.