[arin-discuss] Template-based email as a third registry access method

[Owen DeLong]

On Apr 3, 2012, at 5:50 PM, David Farmer wrote:

> On 4/3/12 19:29 CDT, Kevin Blumberg wrote:
> 
>> I would also suggest that the ability to save a draft of a submission be supported.
> 
> As I was reading this thread I was thinking much the same thing.  I was thinking about why people might want Email Templates back vs. a Web Form.  Other than not wanting to change, I thought about how the work flow has changed.  With a email template you had a form you could work on offline and collect all the information you needed and fill it in as you go. Then submit the form, via email when you had it complete.
> 

You also had:

	1.	A single consolidated document you could review as a cohesive unit.
	2.	Easy navigation back and forth checking the document for internal consistency
	3.	A set of pre-defined well documented fields.
	4.	The ability to easily attach files ad-hoc and reference them within justification fields
		(ARIN On-Line pretends to have this, but, the file checking rarely accepts my files
		in spite of them conforming to the rules specified. These problems have proven
		intermittent and nearly impossible to track down so far.)
	5.	Full-text email updates and the ability to easily transfer the template in progress
		back and forth between myself and my clients for review, update, etc. prior to
		submission to ARIN.

The work flow has changed substantially and is costing my clients on average $500-$750 more per request just in my
time alone.

> With the Web Form, I believe as implemented, you essentially need all the info for a request all at once, then you do the data entry and submit it.  If you could save partially completed web forms and create your own partially complete templates, maybe we can keep the kind of workflow we had with email templates but keep moving forward with the other improvements ARIN Online has brought.
> 

It's much worse than that. You have to navigate several disconnected pages in sequence with no useful ability to navigate back and forth in the process. It's not entirely clear from the first page what will be requested on the subsequent pages, etc.

> I have to say I like ARIN Online and the many improvements, but the web form based workflow can be frustrating at times.  So is workflow the real issue here?
> 

Most definitely, but, in so many ways, it's hard to imagine making the web-based workflow as useful as the email-based one was.

Owen