Idiot Clients

by on 20/03/09 at 11:52 am

For those of you who know me, you’d know I work as an Application Development Manager for a software company. We recently released a new update that allowed email functionality from directly within the application. In order for users to take advantage of this functionality, they need to set up their From email address in the Settings > Users List – Permissions section of the application.

I made a message box pretty straight forward in directing them to do this, however it would seem some people are just too stupid to actually read it, as you can see from the email transcript below (in order from first to last – I have removed the name of the application for privacy reasons):

Client: In the new version the schedulers are able to send the orders out by email directly from <application> however at this stage they are unable to as it comes up that they have to have their access level adjusted. At the moment they are on advanced (level 3) and I dont want them to have unlimited access – is there any other way around this?

Me: There is no security placed on the email sending function at all. We are not sure why you would get a message saying they need their access level adjusted as we just tested it here with a level 3 user and it worked fine. Could you please send a screen capture of the error message so we can investigate further.

Client: Sent a screenshot of the error message saying: “No email has been set, go to Settings > Users List – Permissions to set one.”

Me: This message comes up when there is no email set for the user. As the message states, an email address has to be set up in the Settings > Users List – Permissions window in order for the email function to work. This is nothing to do with the permissions required, it is just a setting on the user.

Client: Ok, so where do I go to do this ?

Me: The setting is in the Settings > Users List – Permissions window.

I haven’t got a reply back from that last one yet…