25th January 2011 9:00
By Blue Tutors
I’ve finally finished the programming task I’ve been sweating over for the last few weeks. I had to work out how to have the predictive drop down lists on our website, so that when someone is typing something in, options are suggested to help us categorise what would otherwise be unique pieces of information. At the moment this has largely helped me, since I’m going through all the qualifications that have ever been entered by tutors and students, and grouping those together that should go together. However, soon this function will be all over the website, and the goal is for our system to recognise what has been typed in, rather than Harriet or me having to look at it.
I was also working on something which wasn’t much fun last week; I’m trying to automate the late payment fees, and letters that are sent out to tutors and students who owe us money. I’ve written before that I don’t particularly enjoy programming (at least not the kind where I’m just writing some simple, but long, code, and checking for bugs), and combining that with the most depressing part of running a business - chasing overdue accounts – really doesn’t cheer me up. On the bright side, it’s done now, so I’ll be able to think a lot less about overdue payments in future.