Feedback from Frazer Owen

1) When I was inputting my first source, the tool failed with an exception. The second time with no changes it appeared to work. It is not immediately clear when wants to start a new source group or one types in the source position whether to hit the add or save.

2) Not clear what "Name" means in "VLA Resources" Is it the source name, the name of the Source list or a name of that particular resource list ?

3) When one enters the Receiver, the programs sets the frequencies which are not the ones wanted for my experiment. I tried changing those values but then when I try to give the correlator setup, it changes back to the old, wrong values. The correlator setup gives me the choice of rest frequencies or Spectral transitions. Since this is pseudo-continuum experiment what I want to give is the sky frequency. Even though I changed the frequencies twice, the tool records the wrong frequencies in the resource list. This seems like a major bug.

4) When one is doing multiple configurations the rms noise for an individual session doesn't have any meaning.

5) I selected an old ps file for justification. That file is listed under justification file but without the complete path. Under the file name is "File Preview" but the justification does not show up on the screen. What does "File Preview" mean ?

6) I tried to print out the file so that I could see what the proposal looked like and got "Coming Soon". Thus perhaps I don't understand something about the Science Justification file but I have no way to see what I have prepared.

7) I entered twice the cover sheet info. However, when I return to the Cover sheet page nothing is remembered, i.e. the Title, Type, Science category etc. I could not find any way to save this information. The rest of the info I entered and saved does seem to be remembered.

Probably I am doing some things wrong but I was not very successful at setting up the proposal.


Besides the issues above which really appear to me to be bugs especially 3), I believe some easier access to documentation needs to be available where the proposer can find it quickly. Ideally it would be accessible from the proposal form. I think I would now have a better chance of being able to fill out the form OK the next time but I think the obstacles are too high at present for many users. If you write a short user guide and provide a way to access it by the proposer online that would help. I was probably a good test case since I had not played with the proposal form since the very early days. Many of your testers may be too expert. I can certainly see a lot proposer panicking if they were trying to use this tool one day before the deadline.

A little more on the frequency setting. I went back in and tried to change the frequency on one of my resource files. Just editing that file worked. However, when I changed the frequency the Configuration letter changed back to the default. If I went one step up from there I could change the configuration and then last of all change the frequency again I could get it to stay finally as I intended. This seems pretty bad to me.

-- DanaBalser - 02 Nov 2007
Topic revision: r1 - 2007-11-02, DanaBalser
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