One of the things that can ruin our days is waking up to find out that we have an error message (or two or three) from Millie as she couldn't run the process we are waiting for.
To be fair this does happen regularly as we have so many processes, but our key process is our annual review process and we have pretty tight timelines to get these done. Millie runs the annual review process to produce the annual review document 14 days prior to our meeting with our client. We have an internal goal for the client to have that document 5 working days prior to the meeting, so that they can review it.
We get sent an email saying that the annual review is ready to 'human logic check' - this means we have to check that everything is correct in document and then - all working well, we tick a box and Millie finalises the document and prints it the next day. That document then gets bound and put on a courier to our clients.
But when it breaks - well - we have to work out why it breaks.
The most common reasons are (in no particular order):
Millies machine has gone to sleep or had an upgrade. Millie lives on a Microsoft Azure machine and every now and then it gets an upgrade, or just stops working and needs an upgrade.
Microsoft Word or Excel or PDF stops working. We have had extended periods of time where excel has crashed, which causes too. many problems.
Human error in inputting information into our CRM (which is what Millie works off). There is a lot of information in our CRM and it has to be set out in exactly the right way. For example, if there is no member number for KiwiSaver (or it isn't in exactly the right format) Millie will miss that step. If the company name that she has to go and find information from is not exactly correct, she won't do that step.
Changes in formatting of input documentation. This is most particularly with our Model Portfolio Templates and our Mindful Money research. The names at the top of the columns and the layout of the columns have to be very precise. This has generated a lot of extra work for us matching the new Codes for investments on the new WRAP platform as they are different to the old platform.
One of the most difficult ones is where a supplier has 'tweaked' their website. This doesn't even have to be something that a human can see. It could be a little bit of code on the home page (we have two suppliers - who both start with M - where this happens all the time.)
The password to get into a supplier website is wrong - fortunately since we have been using LastPass password manager this is a rare occurrence, but we have two suppliers who use exactly the same underlying software and we haven't ben able to teach Millie that they are different companies. The second company only has four clients, so it is easier to update the information manually.
But we will always need Saravanan around because our suppliers are continually changing their portals.
We think that we have come to the end of suppliers adding 2FA/MFA. Fortunately most of this can be dealt with by Millie accessing MFA through email or authenticator apps, but we have one key supplier where they can only send a SMS. And, of course, Millie doesn't have hands and can't hold a phone. So, Carey has an old iphone on her desk to get the SMS's and has finally worked out how to get these forwarded to Millies email, so that she can carry on working.
We know that at least three of our suppliers are doing major portal upgrades this year - one has been doing it for 7 months so far and the two portals were supposed to be merged by now (but not yet), and every one requires new scoping and programming to get Millie to work.
Yet other portals are just pretty rubbish and keep breaking regularly and have to be reprogrammed at least each month as they are offline - but the main culprit is a legacy insurance provider and we have to keep using it. Sometimes we give up and do the work manually.
But despite all the times when Millie breaks, we have our amazing processes of 'rerun' or 'stop' or 'go ahead' which means that we can get our work done without too much delay!
