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

[Owen DeLong]

Only for the simplest of templates.

For the larger, more complex transactions (namely resource requests), where
templates would provide the greatest utility (as I documented earlier), they
are utterly unsupported and the ONLY available process is a non-automated
non-RESTful multi-form multi-step uni-directional trudge through ARIN online
with no ability to save and continue later, a relatively short fuse timeout, and
no easy way to coordinate the effort among multiple people contributing data
to the resource request.

With the templates, I could fill out what I knew, send it off to my client with
instructions for filling in some additional blanks, then they send it back
to me. I review it, finalize it, and submit it to ARIN.

With the AOL process, I have to remember what to ask my client for, try
to make sure I have everything ready, log in and play beat-the-clock
translating what my client gave me into ARIN's on-line forms.

The AOL workflow for this task is, well, worthy of the AOL name.

Owen

On Apr 4, 2012, at 8:27 AM, John Curran wrote:

> Gary - 
> 
>  To be clear, we do already support email templates, including the
>  secure transmission of them via PGP (read: <https://www.arin.net/CA/>)
> 
>  If we provided the ability to cut/paste them into ARIN Online, that 
>  would also be secure, but would not address the issue that Owen raised
>  which is that he would like some of the email template types that are
>  no longer present (e.g. requesting new resources) to be developed and
>  make available.  
> 
>  Doing this development and maintenance would require similar effort to
>  simply accepting them via email.  Providing an alternative method to 
>  submit may indeed be worth considering, but it is an orthogonal issue
>  to Owen's request.
> 
> Thanks!
> /John
> 
> John Curran
> President and CEO
> ARIN
> 
> On Apr 4, 2012, at 11:15 AM, Gary T. Giesen wrote:
> 
>> To address some of the security and email parsing concerns, what about the possibility of having a giant text box in ARIN Online where multiple email templates can be pasted in at once (and of course saved for later editing before submission).  This would ensure users are properly authenticated, allow bulk submission of requests, allow easy editing/copy/paste, and no format changes for people who are already used to the email templates (other than the transport method).
>> 
>> I would imagine that would go a long way towards addressing some of Owen's concerns while not having to deal most of the issues of receiving and parsing email. I would imagine the maintenance headache would be greatly reduced as well.
>> 
>> GTG
>> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: arin-discuss-bounces at arin.net [mailto:arin-discuss-bounces at arin.net] On Behalf Of Owen DeLong
>> Sent: April 4, 2012 1:17 AM
>> To: David Farmer
>> Cc: arin-discuss List; John Curran
>> Subject: Re: [arin-discuss] Template-based email as a third registry access method
>> 
>> 
>> 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
>> 
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