Tavares, FL Oct. 27, 2014
The Lake County Government uses a convoluted, badly designed online software for posting agendas, meeting packets and after the fact meeting agendas.
It is a constant mess.
I also use the well working agenda system at the Lake County School District, and even the City of Tavares provides simple dropdown lists to download agendas or meeting packets, and they always seem to work.
The only major difference is the County software, provided by a company called SuiteOne Media, has the capability to post and stream real time and archived videos of meetings. The video system also can allow entries with links to specific segments of the meeting video so you don't have to watch the entire meeting video to find what you want.
So, today, I once again tried using the website, and found these problems which I sent to the County manager and Board in the message below.
If you have problems using their agenda and packet system, email County manager David Heath [email protected] plus your Board member, since there is no FAQ or links to contacts for resolving their website problems.
Vance
===================================================================
Sent: Monday, October 27, 2014 10:51 AM
To: 'Lafollette, Kelly'; 'Booth, Niki'; 'Jimmy Conner'; David Heath ([email protected])
Cc: 'tim'; 'Leslie Campione'; Welton Cadwell ([email protected]); Sean Parks ([email protected])
Subject: BCC packet for tomorrow fails to open in browser (chrome) AND there are no online links to jump to sections from Agenda
Importance: High
This is the main agenda page:
http://lakecountyfl.suiteonemedia.com/web/home.aspx
If you open the item for tomorrow’s meeting, you get this page:
http://lakecountyfl.suiteonemedia.com/web/Player.aspx?id=504&key=-1&mod=-1&mk=-1&nov=0
On this page, you can scroll down and see links to attachments for agenda sections, but there is no tab numbering, so it does not match the numbering for the tabs in the pdf agenda found under the “Agenda” tab.
If you click the “Agenda” tab you can see and print the agenda, but there are no active hyperlinks to the individual sections and attachments. And the tab numbering in the pdf agenda is missing from the internet agenda that has links.
It takes an advance power user to figure out how to use this since there IS NO FAQ OR NARRATIVE EXPLAINING HOW TO USE THE AGENDA SYSTEM.
THERE ALSO IS NO LINK WITH EMAIL OR PHONE FOR THE USER TO CALL TO GET HELP.
If you click the “DownLoad Packet” link at the top, it does download 600 pages but the screen is blank for all the pages – see this link
http://lakecountyfl.suiteonemedia.com/Web/UserControls/DocPreview.aspx?p=1&aoid=126
If you go to print in Chrome (most users won’t try that or don’t use Chrome, – they will give up, AND THERE IS NO LINK TO REPORT PROBLEMS WITH THE AGENDA SYSTEM), in Chrome, you can click save and can see, save and open the entire pdf, but most won’t know that.
If you do use Chrome and use the “save” button in the print page, you can open the full pdf file after saved, but there are no indexes with bookmarks or links in the pdf reader. Why provide a 600 page document without any indexes with bookmark links to sections?
RECOMMENDATIONS
- Create a FAQ that explains this convoluted system.
- Provide an email and phone contact for getting help with using this badly designed online system.
- FIX the problem with downloaded packets not being visible uplon download.
- Once again, no one is checking the usability of agendas or packets. Please assign someone outside of Administration with technical knowledge to ensure the downloads are visible and working.
- In the packet, provide an index or Insert hyperlinks in the agenda section in the meeting packets to the included attachments and sections.
Vance
