Shark Tank: Yep, that would explain it
A client/server application lets this organization's inside salespeople place customer orders at the prices quoted by the sales reps on the street. But something's not quite right, reports a pilot fish in the know.
"Back in November, we started having problems with a particular division," fish says. "Every morning, every order in the division's order log would delete."
And there's no obvious reason why. Various fixes don't solve the problem. The programmers say the code is fine. New application management settings don't clear it up. Adjusting how long orders are saved has no effect.
Then in April, the problem spontaneously clears up. Orders stop disappearing, and everything is OK.
For a week -- and then, without warning, the problem starts up again.
The tech who has spent months investigating the problem notices that one particular user always seems to be logged in just before the orders disappear. Maybe he knows something, tech thinks.
So he calls him. When you logged on this morning, did you notice if the order log was empty? tech asks.
"No, it was full," user replies. "That's why I delete all those orders."
What? asks tech.
"I clear out the order log on my computer as soon as I log on," says user. "It's really hard to see today's orders if yesterday's orders are in there, too."
You're deleting everyone's orders, stunned tech says.
"No, just on my computer."
No, that's shared data, sputters tech. When you delete them, everyone loses those orders. And if you do this every day, why did you stop for a week in April?
"Oh, I was on vacation."
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