| Address: Office of the Controller of Examinations Old Highways Building Sardar Patel Road, Guindy Anna University, Chennai Pincode : 600 025 |
| Website: onlineservices.annauniv.edu |
Created a transcript request at https://onlineservices.annauniv.edu/
I would like to begin with a note that THIS IS THE WORST USER INTERFACE and WEBSITE ANYONE IN THE WORLD COULD COME UP WITH.
Login
Your username is your college id appended with your registration number. Why ? who remembers a bunch of random 20 digits. Who in the hell came up with such an astoundingly stupid idea for username
Now you need to enter your username and captcha for the password field to show up. Then you enter the password and new captcha to get an OTP via email. After that you enter the OTP and a new captcha to login. Brilliantly unnecessary steps for apparently nothing. If you think this is how you secure a website, you are monumentally wrong.
After logging in i tried to understand the website flow for how to request a transcript for a good 15 mins. This is a 4 step process ( 1 page for each step )
1. Online application - this is where you select the type of application (transcripts or degree certificate or name change and so on)
1a. Checklist - list of verification docs
2. No of copy and shipping - select now many copies you need and shipping details
3. Amount - fee details for the application
4. Payment - pay using card or bank account
The highlight here is there are no validations from one page to another. you can proceed without selecting anything and end up with nothing to pay for on step 4
In Checklist page, you need to upload the documents that are required to confirm your identity. But the key here is just uploading a document does not suffice. You need to upload the document in a pop up. The click on confirm on the main page in order for the document to be confirmed. This is a whole new user flow that I have not seen in any website. And if you upload a document and continue to step 2 without confirming, the page will let you proceed and submit the application. At this point I guess even god (if exists) would know if the document is just uploaded and unconfirmed and hence will not be processed or the document does not get uploaded at all. In either case, what happens to the application now. Because once you submit the application there is no way for you to upload the documents and link to the application.
I submitted my application and it showed up in my dashboard. Clicking it, just reloads the same page and not the submitted application details or anything of that sort (!) . Another section showed up with verification doc list but said documents are not verified (after 2 weeks). So i was trying to click on the view button to view the docs i uploaded. This opened a pop up and said "there are no docs to view. Kindly upload document". Guess what... there is no upload option anywhere on the page or in the pop up. It has previous, next, view. close. (A view button on the page where you are already supposedly viewing the document, yet another display of peak intelligence after 14 billion years of evolution)
After a week of constant emailing with screenshots and details of the application, some bright mind in the university who is an absolute dimwit and has no idea how a light bulb works, responded with just 2 simple words. The golden words are "check below". He must be an expert in coded languages or some sort of encrypted communication and i could not grasp the meaning of those two words and what he was trying to communicate. What the heck does "Check below" mean. Check where ? in the email... in the website... check below to what ?
I, who still have not realized that this is not going to work, responded asking what does check below mean. are you talking about this email coz below this email is just my original email to you, you genius !
Got a response again that had more than 2 words. This time it was "Choose another category if the same will be documented. if showing blank try tomorrow". Fourteen words ! improvement right ? But what does it mean by choose another category. I have to create whole another application and pay for it ? again ? then what happens to my first application that i paid for? try tomorrow ? try what tomorrow... your freaking mind numbing stupidity is causing so much pain to so many students.
Just shut down your website and jump off the building and save some breath for the rest of humanity
