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Our time card data system is manged by a company whose tech support can be best described as incompetent. They like playing the game of "do this and get back to us" with long, tedious tasks that will at least get the customer out of their hair for a day.
Today, another database export sent to their FTP server, this time with detailed instructions, in MS Word. I've done this many times. The FTP server account and password hasn't changed in five years. The destination directory isn't browsable anymore, at least. Did I mention their schema owner password is the same as the login name and unchangeable? Yeah, it's that kind of brilliance that inspires confidence.
Part of the instructions involve running a cover your ass script to clean out sensitive employee data. I'd love to know the back story on that additional step. Another new step was creating an encrypted archive of the data. This greatly amused me since I've always sent encrypted files to this outfit. Seeing other customer data for the taking on their FTP server is enough to make that a no brainer.
Of course, they recommend using a trail version of WinZip for the encryption. To stupid company in question: Don't push commercial software with an expiration date as a solution to customer! It's a trail for a reason. You're being dishonorable to the commercial provider and also screwing the customer if they should need to do the steps again after the trail is over.
I made a self extracting archive from 7-zip and told them why. I wonder if that will show up in the next version of their docs.
Today, another database export sent to their FTP server, this time with detailed instructions, in MS Word. I've done this many times. The FTP server account and password hasn't changed in five years. The destination directory isn't browsable anymore, at least. Did I mention their schema owner password is the same as the login name and unchangeable? Yeah, it's that kind of brilliance that inspires confidence.
Part of the instructions involve running a cover your ass script to clean out sensitive employee data. I'd love to know the back story on that additional step. Another new step was creating an encrypted archive of the data. This greatly amused me since I've always sent encrypted files to this outfit. Seeing other customer data for the taking on their FTP server is enough to make that a no brainer.
Of course, they recommend using a trail version of WinZip for the encryption. To stupid company in question: Don't push commercial software with an expiration date as a solution to customer! It's a trail for a reason. You're being dishonorable to the commercial provider and also screwing the customer if they should need to do the steps again after the trail is over.
I made a self extracting archive from 7-zip and told them why. I wonder if that will show up in the next version of their docs.