Curious – why don’t you participate in clovertech

[Jim Kosloskey]

It seems to me the participation in clovertech for 2020 is down. I really do not have any statistics to prove that but it seems like it.

I am hoping there are more people who monitor clovertech than post.

I think it would be informative to find out why observers do not post.

If you do not typically participate, please complete the Poll and add comments.

email: jim.kosloskey@jim-kosloskey.com 29+ years Cloverleaf, 59 years IT - old fart.

Topic

[James Cobane]

I must admit that my participation on CloverTech has waned much more than I would like.  It seems that making time to respond/review posts has gotten harder and harder to find.

One of my resolutions for 2021 is to participate/respond more like I used to.

Jim Cobane

Henry Ford Health System

[Jim Kosloskey]

Jim – perhaps that is the situation for many people as Hospitals try to do more with less. That means less time for things like clovertech. Maybe I should add a response for that category – what do you think?

email: jim.kosloskey@jim-kosloskey.com 29+ years Cloverleaf, 59 years IT - old fart.

[Peter Heggie]

I read about 90% of posts; it is rare that any post describes something exactly the same as something I’ve already encountered. For some reason I don’t answer questions on core, ‘vanilla’ mechanics of Cloverleaf, like how to navigate/rebuild segment indexes in translates, etc. But I am interested in “fringe” topics, like how to handle errors and recovery of database calls in translators.. 🙂

I have noticed the same drop off in both questions and responses. And I am asking less questions also, maybe because we are not breaking new ground in interfaces as often as we used to. One area that is beyond my reach is web services and FHIR – we do not have the add-on component and cannot follow the questions and answers because I do not have any interfaces in that area to play with. I think a significant percentage of questions in the past year relate to these topics. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could remotely logon to a sandbox Cloverleaf environment where we could try those things out.

Peter Heggie

[DS Hunt]

My job has me spend relatively little time in CL that I really don’t feel I have much mastery in the subject to be of help to others.

As far as overall posts, this site will be down at least one contributor since my former employer went off CL and moved to Intersystems Iris for Health.

[Vince Angulo]

I try to answer when I can.  Of the four of us in our org that work with Cloverleaf (1 SysAdmin, 3 Developers), I think only two of us read the new posts.

Organizationally, even beyond the interface team, there’s not a lot of participation in collaboration sites.  Beside Cloverleaf we have Epic AND Cerner and it’s quite rare that someone posts a query and even less likely that anyone offers answers.

I think most of the people that work here find it easier to open a service request with their vendors than rely on the user community.

[David Barr]

My main reason: WordPress is horrible compared to the old forum.

[Peter Heggie]

I know the old forum software had limitations but somehow it was easier to use and more inviting, and just easier to browse through.

Peter Heggie

[Jay Hammond]

I agree with David that WordPress leaves a lot to be desired, but that doesn’t really keep me from posting.  My main reason for not posting much is mostly due to diffidence.  I also fear sending someone on a wild goose chase or, worse, causing issues to arise from my suggestion(s).  I do love these forums though.  They’ve helped me learn more than just about anything else I can think of when it comes to Cloverleaf/AIX. 🙂

[Matthew Brophy]

the best part of Clovertech (or any knowledgebase) would be community.  The more you participate, regardless of how basic the question would be, the more you will get out of it. I know it would be intimidating to ask a question on “how do I get X to do Y on this ADT msg?” when you see all these other questions about APIs and FHIR going on (which are great).

Timeliness of responses would be another thing I could see people not bothering to participate.  Though, i’ve never had a question ever go unanswered for more than a day and never been left wanting…..so the resource is here, it just may not seem like it.

[Paul Johnston]

Hi Jim and All

Happy 2021

I concur with the responses so far. The older forum was much easier to navigate and find specific  answers to your needs. It was ” easier to use and more inviting, and just easier to browse through. ”

Our site is very far behind on the Cloverleaf version so answers are not relevant anymore and refer back to  my first response about locating answers.

I also agree with that Hospitals including ours, are trying to do more with less and less time for Clovertech.

I checked #3 also but only when it was the older forum format.

 

[Carson Nguyen]

Another vote for ease of use/feel of new forum platform vs the old…

 

Kind regards,

Carson Nguyen

[Tipu Razaq]

I’m not as active so much because the new site lags a lot, harder to search, and I wonder why it’s not HTTPS secure?

The old forum was much, much better in my opinion and it was easier to read because of the contrast of the darker colors. There’s too much white with the new site which fatigues the eyes after a while.

I don’t receive email replies either so I don’t that works. Trying to format messages is also a nightmare when replying, I just stopped doing that altogether.

I don’t like WordPress sites in general. There are dedicated forum software suites out there that are much better.

 

Can we just go back to the old site? What was the need for the “upgrade”?

[Charlie Bursell]

So, you are going to shoot yourself in the foot and not use a valuable resource because of the looks of the site?  That would be akin to not searching Google because you don’t like something about the site 🙂

I agree the older site was more user friendly but, for now, we got what we got.  Make use of it!  Meanwhile you can voice your opinions to the admin.

If I check the box at the end of a post that says “NOTIFY ME OF FOLLOW-UP REPLIES VIA EMAIL”  I always get the emails.

[Tipu Razaq]

Sorry Charlie, I guess I was just ticked off due to the frustrations experienced so far with the new site.

Looks wasn’t the only issue, it’s just something I noticed. Staring a screen 8+ hours a day takes a toll after all. Staring at a lot of white is even worse after a while. Dark themes are thing nowadays which some folks prefer for less eye strain.

What I meant was the new site is just worse than the old one, plain and simple. I genuinely cannot come up with something I like about the new one over the old one. Slower, lags, responding, quoting, is worse, etc. Great user experience/site usability is a must if you expect participation on a forum. If you don’t prioritize this point then we agree to disagree. We can’t expect a WordPress site to replace a forum. :/

No offense intended of course, just my take on it. I do participate when I can.

Why was the switch made anyway? Did someone leave who knew how to maintain the old forum and knowledge wasn’t handed off or something and decided to start over? 😀

 

[Charlie Bursell]

Tipu and others:

Send your comments to: clovertech@infor.com.
I am sure they would be willing to listen.

[Ab Lugtenburg]

Hi All,

 

Most of the time i just have not the time answer.

There by i try to work with the cloverleaf tools as much as possible , because our clover is running on windows. On this forum there are mainly linux/unix systems . At this point is see that ie. web services en HTTP request are mostly run with scripts at the server and not with the clover http client .

So the solutions i can deliver are mostly not compatible with the original setup.

[Paul Stein]

I am a new user in the last few years and can say, that for the most part I have been able to answer a lot of my own questions by searching the forum.

I can usually find someone else who has commented or shared their work, allowing me to refactor as needed.

For that reason alone – I am thankful for those who share.

For situations I needed extra help on, reaching out to Charlie or Jim has been valuable for my learning. Which again  – is possible due to this forum.

[Rob Lindsey]

With 2020, yes my amount of replies was down and also my reading.  Very busy, as I am sure was everyone else on here.  I just forget about it.  It was nice having a reminder email send either daily or weekly that told you have new posts and allowed for me to review things more regularly.  I am trying to play catch up.

[Robert Kersemakers]

Have been working from home since March 2020 and somehow never made time again for Clovertech. Not sure if I will be able to in the near future.

Zuyderland Medisch Centrum; Heerlen/Sittard; The Netherlands

[Author]

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