WMIRS

[SunDog]

WMIRS. . . what were they thinking?  Why did they do that? Can it be killed? Maybe a stake through its heart, then burned, and buried at a crossroads at midnight?  Is it the unnatural, malevolent get of eServices and a myopic and sinister bureaucrat, one with a severe dermotological condition, and a bitter hatred (not uncommon in CAP) of aviation and aviators?

This had to be intentional; it has all the marks of intelligent (yet perverted) design - no set of IT professionals, no matter how skilled, dedicated, and demented, could have purposely built a worse solution. Not ten monkeys, with ten keyboards, in ten years. . .this is an epic fail, pepetrated by genuis, perhaps honed on eServices.  Rivals the ugliness, if not the scope, of the Fed Obama Care efforts, also mirrored by a few states (Oregon, Maryland?)

Perhaps it's the Chinese, in a cruel, patient, inexorable dismantling of our systems, a way to grind our institutions a stumbling halt?

Or maybe it's just garden variety junk software. Just my opinion, I could be wrong.

[Garibaldi]

WMIRS. . . what were they thinking?  Why did they do that? Can it be killed? Maybe a stake through its heart, then burned, and buried at a crossroads at midnight?  Is it the unnatural, malevolent get of eServices and a myopic and sinister bureaucrat, one with a severe dermotological condition, and a bitter hatred (not uncommon in CAP) of aviation and aviators?

This had to be intentional; it has all the marks of intelligent (yet perverted) design - no set of IT professionals, no matter how skilled, dedicated, and demented, could have purposely built a worse solution. Not ten monkeys, with ten keyboards, in ten years. . .this is an epic fail, pepetrated by genuis, perhaps honed on eServices.  Rivals the ugliness, if not the scope, of the Fed Obama Care efforts, also mirrored by a few states (Oregon, Maryland?)

Perhaps it's the Chinese, in a cruel, patient, inexorable dismantling of our systems, a way to grind our institutions a stumbling halt?

Or maybe it's just garden variety junk software. Just my opinion, I could be wrong.

Tell us how you REALLY feel.

Really, I have never heard such invective regarding WMIRS in my life. I have only used it sporadically in 22 years as a SM (Five times, if I can count right). I've always had an assitant enter all the data for me. Now I don't have one, so I have to do it myself and I think you're right. Put IMU in the mix and you have a cluster farg of epic proportions.

[lordmonar]

That would be the other way around.....WMIRS is the older Neanderthal ancestor to E-service....and no it is not going away anytime soon.

Unless you got a few million dollars in your pocket you would like to throw at the problem.

As for it being a "epic fail".......I think you exaggerate. 

[Eclipse]

As for it being a "epic fail".......I think you exaggerate.

To say the least.

It does what it is intended to do, managing mission funding and approval - nothing more, nothing less.

I lived in it for nearly three years.  It took me a few cycles to understand what it needed and I moved on.

The key is simply providing the data it requests, in the way it requests it, and not "how it should be requested" or
"what I think should be requested".

[SunDog]

Allow me to retort. . .I am expert at few (very few) things, but software design and development is probably one thing I know very well. WMIRS  is junk. Amateurish. Worse than what talented amatuers would produce, actually.  My heart goes out to those who support it - it must be embarrasing to be associated with such a dog. 

If, as one reply stated, it preceded eServices into being, then the doubly sad conclusion is that the state of CAP enterprise software has degenerated as time passed.  Because eServices is a cow pie, too. It's as though the previous 20 years of progress blew through CAP IT and without leaving a trace.

That folks can struggle through it to some sort of effective conclusion misses the point. It's badly, badly done. Heck, with enough money and motors, you can get a locomotive supersonic. But no one is gonna enjoy the ride. . .

[lordmonar]

Allow me to repeat.

Go a million dollars?

Got a few months of time to do free coding?

Want to put together a sample of how it should be done, provide to national...including the rights to it?

NO?

Then you are just howling at the moon. 

We know it is not perfect, we know it is a chore to muddle though.

Unless you got a solution.....all you are doing is making noise.....which BTW has been talked about ad nasium before.

[Luis R. Ramos]

Ya scared me, made me think there has been more changes!



Flyer

[Spaceman3750]

Actually, compared to other enterprise/industry apps I've worked with, WMIRS is decent, especially when you consider the fact that it works more than half the time.

[SunDog]

Actually, compared to other enterprise/industry apps I've worked with, WMIRS is decent, especially when you consider the fact that it works more than half the time.

  Yep, kinda sad, ain't it? But for something with so few business rules it shouldn't have been that hard to produce a useful product.  The level of complexity is moderate.  I t gets a solid grade of "D".

[SunDog]

Allow me to repeat.

Go a million dollars?

Got a few months of time to do free coding?

Want to put together a sample of how it should be done, provide to national...including the rights to it?

NO?

Then you are just howling at the moon. 

We know it is not perfect, we know it is a chore to muddle though.

Unless you got a solution.....all you are doing is making noise.....which BTW has been talked about ad nasium before.

When this was talkied about before, there were creative and practical ideas floated to get 'er done below the multi-million dollar level. Broad stroke, but viable path(s) to a solution were presented. If it any of it had influence on leadership's vision, nothing has been heard outside the star chamber. 

This isn't a crossword puzzle, where it's fun to figure out byzantine clues and then take satisifaction in successful completion.  This is bean-counting software, accounting for business actions.  What should be a fairly butt-simple software app to support business events shouldn't be a rats nest to navigate and use.  Spitting in the wind? Yeah, so what? Deciding NOT to gripe about it would be even less productive.  Feel free to read a uniform post instead.

I'm not setting the bar at "perfect" - but do set it somewhere above this pitiful level.  Consider it this way, maybe?  There is no way a successul business would present this junk (eServices and WMIRS) to paying customers. Guaranteed fail. Close the doors, turn out the lights.

On the other hand, plenty of organizations absolutley DO present junk like this to their captured users (employees, suppliers, etc.) - people who have no choice but to adapt and figure it out.

CAP is in between - we are captured, but only if we want to play.  But we can also walk away. . .probably not many are bolting just because of this junk, but you'd be naive to think it doesn't factor in, and add to the frustration and annoyance level.  I know it mattered in my decision to call it a day when this year's membership expires. Not the only reason, but a significant one. . .

I see these apps impact operations negatively, up to including guys saying the heck with it, I'm gonna do yard work instead.  In a multi-day, multi-sortie per day, with lots of aircraft, I saw the scheduling and update mess the poor organizer had to deal with, in excrutiating detail. More ominous, I saw decisions being made based on avoiding having to re-visit WMIRS to make changes.

This could be fixed.  People here had solid ideas on how-to. Nothing heard.

[Eclipse]

Point?

Here's the issue, your attitude, coupled with your admission of short-timer status, actually puts people in the
unenviable position of defending WMIRS.

Your posts indicate you are a peripheral player in CAP, you have indicated, if not "disdain", then at best an "apathetic dissension" for the parts you don't feel like participating in, and you have a somewhat flexible attitude toward things accepted as required.

Few people with long-term, full-mission, investments in CAP have much time or interest in the opinions of those who sit
in the back of the room and regularly remind everyone that "fire is hot" and "gravity is a downer", as if they believe no one
else in the room was aware of it.

Yes, WMIRS and eServices leave a lot to be desired.

Thanks for the reminder.  With that off your list for Monday you can go back to trying to break airplanes.

[arajca]

I think some of the problem is National thinks they can do it all themselves. I'm not doubting their abilities or motivations, but there is only so much time in the day. I had Asked the Commander about using volunteers to update the pamphlets and was told the national staff is handling that and they do not need the assistance.

[Eclipse]

...the national staff is handling that and they do not need the assistance."

That quote should be on a t-shirt (note the gray color) and is probably in the top ten of the problems with CAP today.

[a2capt]

That's great, if it's anything like the CP Pamphlet being "prematurely" published, or the CPP regulation that was published with a "this is going to be effective in October" .. and all of a sudden, released "now". Another premature slip?

[Storm Chaser]

NHQ is working hard to improve WMIRS and add more mission management capabilities to it. WMIRS 2.0 is currently in Beta testing and we should see the results of this effort within the next few months. Is it perfect? No. But with the feedback they're getting and will continue to get from members, I'm confident that it will continue to improve.

[SunDog]

Point?

Here's the issue, your attitude, coupled with your admission of short-timer status, actually puts people in the
unenviable position of defending WMIRS.

Your posts indicate you are a peripheral player in CAP, you have indicated, if not "disdain", then at best an "apathetic dissension" for the parts you don't feel like participating in, and you have a somewhat flexible attitude toward things accepted as required.

Few people with long-term, full-mission, investments in CAP have much time or interest in the opinions of those who sit
in the back of the room and regularly remind everyone that "fire is hot" and "gravity is a downer", as if they believe no one
else in the room was aware of it.

Yes, WMIRS and eServices leave a lot to be desired.

Thanks for the reminder.  With that off your list for Monday you can go back to trying to break airplanes.

The point was follow-up; suggestions were offered, assistance proferred, no result.

If 14 years and hundreds of CAP flying hours makes me peripheral, so be it.  You're out of line IRT breaking airplanes. If I got that from another MP, I'd do some introspection, ask for some feed-back. From you, it's noise. 

You might look to your own posts, decide if they are revealing of a fundamental resentment of CAP pilots - the Joe Six pack comments, your condescension, observations about cavalier behaviour by pilots, no consequences from bad acts, etc.

Once again, saying a procedure is stupid is NOT the same as ignoring it. I do the goat rope like a good do-bee.  Honorable thing is, if I don't want to follow the rules, then get out. So I am. Until then, I toe the line, even if it was drawn by a clown.

Quite a few folks are excluesively invetsed in a narrow slice of CAP - GT, CP, etc. You got a problem with them? They contrubute where their time, interest, and trianing allow. 

[Eclipse]

Your own posts are the evidence of my assertions, as to the OP, there's literally no point
to lighting up a rant thread about WMIRS as if it was new information.

AS you also say, CAP won't be your "problem" for much longer, so there you go.

[SunDog]

As are yours Eclipse, as are yours.

[Eclipse]

Yep - the difference being where in the room you stand, and your involvement and knowledge of the
organization.

[SunDog]

There we agree - I am seldom in the room; more often in the airplane.  I imagine my involvement was at least average, probably a good bit above, in terms of hours invested.  You can't fly that many hours in CAP without investing at least triple it in the paper chase.

As to the machinery that was supposed to support the mission, you are correct; I cared not a fig, unless it couldn't get the job done very well. Which was the case.  Line cooks don't need to know the corporate org chart, beyond generalities. They still have value to the company, in their area of expertise. They can serve well without aspirations to management. 

I never turned down a call, didn't break the rules, got some finds, scared myself, stretched a bit, got fed up, and am calling it a day. 

It occurs to me that CAP would be better off without both of us, albeit for very diffrent reasons. . .

[Eclipse]

Good luck in your future endeavors.