Nothing is more embarrassing than a company the size of eBay not practicing basic Change Control

[blingfling123]

Seriously eBay.  Change Control is the most BASIC part of the development process. 

Every couple of months someone makes a change to a report or a download.  No one bothers to tell the Users of the actual report. This is not a glitch, it is not something that was changed on the fly. Someone approved this change and then someone else changed the actual code. No one bothered to tell the end User.

This month you changed the Sales Record Number on the Orders Paid and Shipped Download report from a sequential numeric to the the actual Order Number that is 14 characters and contains special characters, and did not bother to tell anyone. 

I have no issues with report changes, I am happy to adjust to them. 

I have issues where you fundamentally change or add a field to a report or a download with no notice or not even bothering to share what changed. 

Every time this happens, anyone that has an automated process, or uses these reports has to first try to figure out what changed, and then make adjustments to the various programs that use the reports. I hate to think about how this affects people that use the big accounting programs.

This is not a minor thing. Someone went in an made a change to a financial report. That someone should be following up with someone else so that notice is given to, you know the people that actually USE the reports.   

You have all of these places from the Announcements section in the Seller hub to this very forum to notify users. Why are they not being utilized to notify the Users of changes like this? 

I would be mortified if I were a company the size of eBay making changes to financial reports without bothering to tell anyone. 

[inhawaii]

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@simply-the-best-for-you wrote:

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@inhawaii wrote:

"Change control"?

I've honestly never heard that phrase before.

Must have been invented by someone who REALLY hates change.

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@inhawaii 

OP didn't make it up.   It's a common phrase & construct in IT Development & especially, in Maintenance.   They are correct that it's one of the first things implemented, as well.   You can't just be applying changes willy-nilly & to live systems.  

The disconnect is that in most organizations, the changes are REQUESTED by the end users, so they know what projects are being worked on & why.  That doesn't apply here.   So while I completely agree with the OP, I don't see it happening.   

Hell, I worked at a huge (multi billion $$$) software company & we, the people who sold & supported the products, would sometimes not find out about changes until we were in front of a potential customer.   Ebay is not the only one with the problem. 

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Yeah I looked it up the other day after posting that.

Who ways you can't learn things on the ebay boards?

[fin7355]

When we start a business sometimes we do not understand the hacks and tricks about these pectic fields. I am also convinced that many of the people responding to this post do not use these download reports other than to download and open them, or do not use them at all. 

I am always looking for a plateform where I collect the fact and figures to start a business and [ finance ]is the best source for me.

And this is true for every seller who goes beyond the "oh look, a report, that's cool" mentality when it comes to these reports.

[stackers_xag]

@blingfling123 , You probably should be having this discussion with an eBay associate rather than posting a rant on the boards. It's not doing you any good here.

[inhawaii]

I can think of several things more embarrassing than that.   

[chapeau-noir]

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@inhawaii wrote:

I can think of several things more embarrassing than that.   

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I've probably done some. 😣

[blingfling123]

@stackers_xag 

I have talked with eBay, on many occasions. Now I am making it public on here.

[jasmen@ebay · Accepted solution]

Thanks for the feedback @blingfling123  I'm happy to get it in the right hands! 

[blingfling123]

jasmen@ebay 

Thank you for passing this up. I am very happy to report that the Orders extract for this month was back to the original value. I have to revert back but happy to do so as it now works in conjunction with the other reports that use the same data value. 

Much appreciated. 

[norwegian_kt]

I actually appreciate this post and am reading it closely. I am a new seller (about 1 year in) and I do use the data, at least some of it at this stage. It did not even occur to me that some of the data types could change, omg. Or, worse, that it could happen unannounced. I will keep this in mind as I build my systems.

I appreciate the note from the OP, and all the other people coming here to vent and let us know what's what--you help me become aware of this new world!

[blingfling123]

@norwegian_kt 

Please do not get me wrong, I love the data eBay provides. They provide so MUCH more data than most platforms and in many formats. It is just frustrating when they make changes and do not tell anyone. 

[kosmosattik]

@blingfling123 

eBay is in perpetual beta testing in live production.   The concept of packaged deliverables is entirely foreign--slam, bam, thank you ma'am changes slammed into production as the spirt moves them.  eBay still operates like a 1995 start-up, hustling for "mind share" (a quaint old term), not a mature business.  I could not agree with you more.

@inhawaii 

"Change control" is a basic concept in software development.  That it is ignored here or elsewhere does not alter that fact.

[mandisattictoyz]

never sell on Amazon then, where this kind of stuff gets changed daily with no notices, these companies know only a small amount of people will complain but what are you going to do about it?  So they don’t care.