Parents still face glitches in city’s online recreation signup
Despite Mayor John Tory’s promises of interim improvements, parents trying to log on Sept. 10 received error messages at the beginning of registration.
TheStar.com
Sept. 12, 2016
By Jennifer Pagliaro
Despite improvements to an outdated system for signing up for fall and winter recreation programs, parents still reported headaches online while registering their kids over the weekend.
As registration opened Saturday morning, an unexpected glitch meant some users got an error message when they tried to log in - a problem that affected less than 10 per cent of users, the city’s parks, forestry and recreation division said.
City spokesperson Matthew Cutler said that by 7:30 a.m., a half hour after registration opened, the problem was resolved.
“We are taking it seriously and continue to investigate to ensure it doesn't remain an issue for the next three days of registration,” he told the Star in an email Saturday.
The problems followed a Thursday news conference by Mayor John Tory officially announcing interim improvements to the system, some of them specifically meant to cut down how it would take users to sign on and complete registration.
Though the city did increase server capacity for this round of registration in hopes of speeding up the experience for parents, Cutler explained that some of the websites to which user traffic was directed failed almost immediately.
Those sites were eventually taken offline and users were redirected to working websites, where they were able to sign in.
“These sites remained offline through (Sunday’s) registration (and) are not likely to come online again during this registration period,” Cutler said. “Our team feels that a reliable and stable system is far more important than the potential increase in speed that these sites might provide, especially since we are delivering significant year-over-year speed and access increases through other improvements.”
On Sunday, Tory’s office sent out a statement acknowledging the early morning disruption.
“The city did have an issue with a small portion of our online system. We took it seriously and investigated to make sure this did not remain an issue for today and the next two days of registration,” the email said.
Peter Lewicki, an Etobicoke father of 3-year-old and 5-year-old boys, says he tried to sign on to the website at the opening time of 7 a.m. and was immediately faced with an error message saying “service unavailable.”
“It was 45 minutes of hitting refresh and closing my browser and reopening it,” he said. “I was having a coffee and on Twitter and just refreshing.”
Lewicki has been using the online registration system for three years and said its reliability has been “all over the map.” By the time he logged in, he said, his first priority of getting his kids into swimming lessons became a challenge.
“It’s one of those things that I feel like, as a parent, they need to know as an important skill,” he said. He found classes at the appropriate levels, but had to pick his fourth-choice time slot for one son and sign up at a different community centre for the younger son.
Orchid Jahanshahi had better luck with signup for her 6-year-old using a third-party iPad app developed by local dad Phil Vlach.
After selecting the programs she wanted the night before, Jahanshahi said, she overslept but was still able to sign in right away around 7:40 a.m. and got most of her choices.
“It’s become an annual joke,” she said of the twice-annual recreation signup. “It’s a random process ... I think I just got lucky, to be honest.”
Parents like Lewicki are hoping for better luck next time.
“I’ll try again in the winter,” he said. “We’ll see how that goes.”
Maybe, he said, he’ll try using the phone to register instead.
The city is planning a more permanent solution with an overhaul of the entire online system. Work is currently underway in hopes it will be completed by the end of 2017.
Recreation sign-up by the numbers
10% Increase in online registrations (instead of by phone or in person)
92% Percentage of Scarborough residents who registered using the online system on Sept. 11
31,449 Number of registrations completed in the first hour on Sept. 10
24% Increase in registrations completed in the first hour compared with 2015
tail design and class environmental assessment and there will be opportunities for the public and interested parties to discuss the project with the project team, Sadek said last month in a report to York Regional Council.
