Major bug in Book My Vaccine Web Bookings

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allan

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#301906 14-Oct-2022 15:52

Anyone know who the best person is to contact regarding a fairly significant bug I have discovered in the web booking form at https://app.bookmyvaccine.covid19.health.nz/ while attempting to book an appointment for my second Covid booster shot? I've reported it via the standard "contact us" email address for Book My Vaccine, but I'm not thinking it's very likely that my email will end up in the right place.

It transpires that if you state your first booster was in 2021 (as mine genuinely was in Dec 2021, then we got Covid just after the 6 month mark, so just getting to have the second one now), it will advise you that no provider has any appointments available at all. If you change the first booster date to 2022, then provider and available bookings in your region all appear. I've tested with Chrome, Edge and Firefox - all with the same result, so I'm assuming it's some sort of date validation issue going on, but with no error messages appearing.

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#2982661 14-Oct-2022 16:08

Looks like there is an email at the bottom. If you don't hear back, send it to the CE's office. This typically generates a swift response.

wellygary

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#2982666 14-Oct-2022 16:26

hmm, I just did it with 25/12/2021 as the first booster date and it populated multiple booking locations and future dates for me... (Chrome)

timmmay

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#2982667 14-Oct-2022 16:32

Just put in whatever date lets you make a booking, then tell them when you roll up for your vaccination.

allan

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#2982693 14-Oct-2022 16:38

wellygary:

hmm, I just did it with 25/12/2021 as the first booster date and it populated multiple booking locations and future dates for me... (Chrome)

I tested it with my actual date of 14/12/2021 and a few random earlier dates. Having just tried again now, anything prior to 19/12/2021 appears to fail.

allan

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#2982695 14-Oct-2022 16:40

timmmay:

Just put in whatever date lets you make a booking, then tell them when you roll up for your vaccination.

Already done that and now have my second booster, but have to say the person I spoke to about it while getting it was not at all interested. They are after all the end provider, not the MoH.

I figured someone on here will know who the developers were for MoH.

mentalinc

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#2982696 14-Oct-2022 16:44

Sounds very much like an edge case, and not really all that major.

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allan

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#2982697 14-Oct-2022 16:46

mentalinc:

Sounds very much like an edge case, and not really all that major.

That's a fairly dismissive stance. There will still be people from 2021 attempting to book.

antoniosk

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#2982700 14-Oct-2022 17:12

allan:

mentalinc:

Sounds very much like an edge case, and not really all that major.

That's a fairly dismissive stance. There will still be people from 2021 attempting to book.

I have let the owner of the service inside HNZ know.

________

Antoniosk

allan

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#2982701 14-Oct-2022 17:17

antoniosk:

I have let the owner of the service inside HNZ know.

@antoniosk Thanks. I was sure someone here would know someone etc...

stick

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#2982743 14-Oct-2022 21:27

mentalinc:
Sounds very much like an edge case, and not really all that major.

@allan did you misclick and mark this post as the answer?

allan

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#2982744 14-Oct-2022 21:30

St1ick:
mentalinc:

Sounds very much like an edge case, and not really all that major.

@allan did you misclick and mark this post as the answer?

No, I did not...

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mentalinc

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#2982745 14-Oct-2022 21:52

allan:

mentalinc:

Sounds very much like an edge case, and not really all that major.

That's a fairly dismissive stance. There will still be people from 2021 attempting to book.

As you noted there is a very simple work around, choose a different date to make a booking. The actual checks to validate you're entitled and its the correct time to have the vaccination is done when you arrive to have it.

sure its probably two lines of code that need to be changes as the range isn't right.

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allan

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#2982746 14-Oct-2022 22:38

Yes it probably is just a couple of lines of code and playing about with the dates is something that a lot of us here would think to do, because seeing no bookings available anywhere "just doesn't look right".

However, I'd venture to suggest that's not something your average person would do. They are much more likely to go "no appointments available, I won't bother then".

MickeyD

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#2982753 14-Oct-2022 23:05

allan: Yes it probably is just a couple of lines of code and playing about with the dates is something that a lot of us here would think to do, because seeing no bookings available anywhere "just doesn't look right".

However, I'd venture to suggest that's not something your average person would do. They are much more likely to go "no appointments available, I won't bother then".

I ran into this exact issue today, and no I didn't have time to play around and see if it was a bug despite having the ability. I'd assumed people weren't offering many bookings any more due to a lack of interest.

Many thanks @Allan for taking the time to do something about it.

RunningMan

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#2982769 15-Oct-2022 07:37

mentalinc: [snip]

As you noted there is a very simple work around, choose a different date to make a booking.

The problem with a workaround is that it doesn't easily cater for non technical users of a site, and in this case there will be lots. It's a site targeting almost every demographic of the population. Additionally there will be a correlation between elderly users and those having had a booster very early in the cycle. Combine this with an observation that a good portion of elderly have increased difficulty with technology at the best of times and it increases the likely exposure to this bug.

For the OP a workaround is fine - obviously figured out it's an error and experimented to get around it, but with the way the error presents (i.e. no free time slots to book) it's not obvious something is actually going wrong so affected people might just keep on trying and trying to book - especially if they think (erroneously) that it's like the lottery system for returning to NZ that was in place for a while, with very limited spots, and you have to keep trying at odd hours of the night.

It's most likely an incorrect assumption made with the date validation code but it really does need to be sorted out.

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