I signed up for AndyMark beta testing a week or so ago, and received this email today.
Daniel D’Souza,
Thank you for signing up to help us Beta Test this years FIRST Choice website. It will be open on November 19th at 12pm EST.
Your login and password will be found at the bottom of this e-mail. And the URL for beta testing will be sent out the morning of Tuesday (November 19th).
A few things about Beta testing:
The Password you are given below is NOT the one you will use after Beta testing
All parts listed are only examples from last years products
Credits for these products do not reflect this years tbd Credits
Qty available and max qty does not reflect this years tbd availability and max
You will not actually get any of these products, this is only a test
Please select COD for payment method during checkout
You can make many orders to fulfill your credits, or one order, it’s up to you
Don’t be afraid to try to mess something up
Explore as much as possible to find errors
Your login may not be your team number, this is fine for Beta testing
Please fill out this survey after/during testing to help us fix bugs that may have been found: http://bit.ly/*******
If you have any questions, feel free to e-mail us at [email protected].
Login: ****
Password: ********
I’ll be posting my experiences here on CD. It looks like I’ll have to wait until Saturday to try this out.
Who else is psyched for AndyMark Beta testing? Please comment with your experiences as well. It’s great to see a great company doing great things to improve their great services for great programs like FIRST.
I got the same e-mail, and I’ll certainly be posting my thoughts as well. Before we get into results though, it’s important to remind everyone that the purpose of this beta test is to find issues with the system so they can be fixed before the real event. So if we happen to find a small problem or two, don’t freak out! Personally, I’ll be a little disappointed if I can’t manage to break something… after all, that is part of my regular day job!
As one of last year’s complainers, I was happy to sign up to help with this testing. As a “beta test” I assume its purpose is to uncover remaining problems in a limited audience so they can be fixed, so I don’t plan to “report” on any of the experience. Anything I experience in the test, good or bad, may or may not be in the final product, so I would see no point in reporting on it and risk sparking rumors that might not be accurate. I just assume that is an obligation I take when I agree to help test.
Looking forward to breaking something or at least trying to. I have had relatively good experience with FIRST choice, despite having been caught in the opening day issues last year and being able to order parts that had already been sold out.
Maybe I am missing something here: If you find a problem, you’re going to say something to someone, right? Otherwise, what’s the value of your efforts? The goal is to find problems and tell them (AndyMark) about them so they can be fixed.
I think Mr. Spatz means publicly call AndyMark out about their errors (IE say something bad about FIRST choice on this particular thread for people to read and assume will be a big problem come ordering time.)
First update from beta testing today is that FIRST Choice is now a unique website. https://www.firstchoicebyandymark.com/en/login?returnurl=%2F T at first glance through the website it appears to be much more user friendly that the last one. Also the credits per part look much better as well.
remember, when looking at this TEST website, the rules are made up and the points don’t matter.
In other words:You should not read anything into what you see on the site. The parts you see here may not be legal and the credits may not reflex their actual value.
Even if you did not sign up for FIRST Choice Beta testing, the intention of sharing the link is to help generate more traffic on the server once the noon testing commences.
Spent the past 15 minutes poking around the site, and I have to say… it’s extremely nice! So far, I can tell everyone:
Browser support:
The site appears to work equally well in IE 6, 7, 8, and 9, Firefox 25, Chrome 31, Safari for iPhone(most recent version), and Chrome for iPhone (most recent version). I do NOT recommend using it on the iPhone, however, as what I’m seeing has not been optimized for mobile displays. I don’t expect this will be an issue for most people, though. Just use a real computer.
In terms of finding issues, I’ve only noted two issues so far, and they are pretty minor, not hindering ordering any parts. Honestly, most people probably wouldn’t even notice/think about them.
