Posts Tagged ‘moodlemoot’

• Bringing down the house

  Date: 2010.02.26 | Category: Uncategorized | Response: 2

  The first batch of 150 MoodleMoot tickets was released to our list of 420 pre-registered delegates, yesterday. We initially planned to release them at 9am, but chose to delay it by 1h. This was due to some technical problems the night before and we wanted to make sure everything works. Better safe than sorry as they say….

  But despite all preparation and testing things still went a bit pear shaped in the end. To sum things up in a nutshell, our booking system struggled to cope with the sheer number of people trying to book and pay for tickets at the same time. We are performing a few back-end checks to identify pending transaction or uncompleted bookings. Once that is done we will get in touch with everyone who’s been affected on Monday or Tuesday, the latest, to make sure you secure your ticket for MoodleMoot over the phone. There are still plenty of tickets left and we don’t want any of the “early birds” to loose out due to a technical glitch.

  For those of you with a few minutes to spare, here’s what went down on the day.

  07.45am:

  In the office early to update the programme page on the MoodleMoot website, sort out final issues with the booking system and double-check everything is in working order. Note to self – never go to work that early again, ever.

  09.10am:

  A few people are getting anxious and our special apology goes to Carol (@caz_h) and her boy who tweeted:

  “just left my boy in the rain in the playground to get to work in time to get #mootuk10 tickets and they not on sale til 10 now!!!”

  I’m happy to say Carol managed to get a ticket in the end, despite our ticket release email turning up 5h late.

  09.30am:

  Final check of the booking system and removing of previous test bookings. Rephrasing of email to delegates and keeping an eye on Tweetdeck to respond to any incoming tweets either to @ulcc or tagged with #mootuk10.

  09.55am:

  Testing email to delegates, double-checking links are working and the online booking system is showing the correct information.

  

  Stats for MoodleMoot tickets email

  10.05am:

  Email has been sent to 417 pre-registered users on our mailing list. Within 10min our opening & click rates are in the double-digits (thanks to Mailchimp for providing great real-time campaign stats) and the first booking confirmations keep flying in.

  10.20am:

  My inbox is lighting up with incoming booking confirmations. A quick check of the online shop shows 50 tickets are already gone. As I shall later find out, these are just bookings being processed (i.e. people filling in forms and entering payment details) and not actual sales.

  10.25am:

  I’m getting the first call from someone being unable to book his ticket as the system timed out. A quick check of the email stats shows opening and click-through rates are approaching 40%, meaning we are having around 100 people on the system at the same time trying to secure their ticket. I’m also picking up a busier than usual atmosphere in our open plan office, with phones ringing off the hook.

  10.35am:

  There’s a queue of colleagues at my desk, dropping of details for people reporting problems with their bookings being timed out or not processed at all. Quick crisis meeting with my boss. We decided to send an email to all staff, explaining the situation and asking them to take callers details and reassure people that tickets are safe.

  11.25am:

  Finally managed to write and send the email to everyone at ULCC. My phone has been ringing of the hook, which makes writing a clear and concise email a bit of challenge. I believe one of the switchboard operators at the University sobbed slightly when she told me she’s drowning in calls. Nothing to worry “put them all through to me darling” I say; and so she does!

  11.55am:

  A stack of notes and call memos is on my desk. In best German fashion I’m typing them all into a nice spreadsheet, for immediate follow up phone calls to reassure people we are working hard to get things back in order. At this point thanks to my colleagues at ULCC who jumped in and helped with the surge in phone calls, great team effort!

  02.45pm:

  All phone calls have been returned, emails have been answered and I just now realised I haven’t had anything to eat since that delicious but slightly overpriced Ham & Cheese croissant at Starbucks on my way to work this morning. A coffee, chocolate bar and a cigarette will have to make do as I’m planning to leave work on time.

  03.45pm:

  Hello dark-roast my old friend; the coffee certainly did the job of seeing my through another hour of MoodleMoot related emails and phone calls. I should really wrap things up now and head home.

  04.30pm:

  Finally calling it a day. Really pleased how everyone pulled together and that we almost sold out the first batch of tickets within a day. Looking forward to a day-off on Friday (well, apart from writing this post) and getting things back on track come Monday next week.