Census all right on the night
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Update 11am: Statistics minister Maurice Williamson says 1.7 million census forms completed online
By Stephen Bell | Wellington | Wednesday, 6 March, 2013 | 30 Comments
Update 11am
Statistics minister Maurice Williamson says individual and dwelling census forms completed online reached the 1.7 million mark overnight.
“The Australian census managed to reach 30 per cent of forms completed online in its 2011 Census. The target for the New Zealand census is 35 per cent and we are on track to reach that," he says in a statement.
“The census is like the Rugby World Cup for statisticians, so beating the Australians will certainly be a moment of pride for Statistics New Zealand.”
People can also still complete census forms online. Meanwhile, collectors will be picking up paper forms right through until March 17.
Original article
Statistics New Zealand is pleased with the performance of its online census system yesterday.
Handling of online submissions on census evening ran “really well”, says census development manager Sarah Minson this morning.
The peak traffic was only about 130,000 forms an hour, short of the 150,000 provided for and the computer systems performed with no interruption.
By late in the evening of census day, 1.5 million forms had been submitted online and Statistics NZ is confident of reaching the 2 million online submissions expected – 35 percent of all census returns.
The contact centre handled about 40,000 miscellaneous queries, Minson says – common themes included “how do I handle this situation?” – for example having visitors in the home - and “why are you asking this question?”.
There were no technical queries that required escalation to Datacom, she says.
Comments
Wrong Internet access key
I too had a problem resulting from an incorrect Internet ID, but a phone call and an on-line query produced a new ID that worked correctly.A good effort!
Posted by Anonymous at 20:16:44 on March 8, 2013
Posted by Anonymous at 20:16:44 on March 8, 2013
Congrats Stats NZ
Nice to see a well executed project. A few other Govt departments could learn a thing or two of your guys. That's what happens when keep some good expertise internally and saves stacks of cash in the long run not having to call a third party for everything.
Posted by Anonymous at 11:44:40 on March 7, 2013
Posted by Anonymous at 11:44:40 on March 7, 2013
Successful NZ IT project
Well done Stats on the successful Census night. Hopefully you reach 2 mil forms. I'll also include Datacom for the app development and Revera for the hosting
Posted by Andy B at 23:43:12 on March 6, 2013
Posted by Andy B at 23:43:12 on March 6, 2013
Congrats Datacom....
....for another successful Census run (even if you discriminated against Opera users)!
Posted by Oliver at 16:23:06 on March 6, 2013
Posted by Oliver at 16:23:06 on March 6, 2013
Success
Well done Sarah Minson, time for people to acknowledge success.
Posted by Anonymous at 13:42:47 on March 6, 2013
Posted by Anonymous at 13:42:47 on March 6, 2013
so, who was at fault
I couldn't do mine on line because (as it turned out when I phoned) the Internet access key I was given did not match the internet ID on the forms. Is this the fauly of the system or the person who delivered the forms? I had no option but to use the damned paper forms - how old fashioned!
Posted by Jill at 12:50:10 on March 6, 2013
Posted by Jill at 12:50:10 on March 6, 2013
so, who was at fault
Yeah, time to dump this old fashioned 2oth century tech like pens and paper. For decades now I have heard the hype about paperless office, but there are STILL ppl decades younger than me who resist and insist on hard copies and using pens and paper.
I am at the point that if someone send me a form which needs to be filled in with pen, scanned and mailed/emailed/faxed back to cancel all business with this entity if possible. I want to deal with progressive businesses, not dinosaurs who make life more difficult for me.
Posted by Anonymous at 10:15:16 on March 7, 2013
I am at the point that if someone send me a form which needs to be filled in with pen, scanned and mailed/emailed/faxed back to cancel all business with this entity if possible. I want to deal with progressive businesses, not dinosaurs who make life more difficult for me.
Posted by Anonymous at 10:15:16 on March 7, 2013
so, who was at fault
the person who delivered the forms unfortunately
Posted by Jock at 14:33:20 on March 6, 2013
Posted by Jock at 14:33:20 on March 6, 2013
User Agent Blocking
So we are to take it that Datacom are responsible for whatever incompetence that means I'm told my up-to-date, standards compliant Opera web browser is unsuitable for filling in what is a pretty simple form. It won't even let me use their contact email form with it!
If they can't get even the basics right, I hate to think what WINZ style security debacles are in their future. I suspect the overall good impression people seem to have is more luck than competence.
Posted by Anonymous at 12:04:13 on March 6, 2013
If they can't get even the basics right, I hate to think what WINZ style security debacles are in their future. I suspect the overall good impression people seem to have is more luck than competence.
Posted by Anonymous at 12:04:13 on March 6, 2013
User Agent Blocking
More luck than competence? This shows how little you know about running such a project and what it takes, countless hours of testing, 24 hours monitoring with people from Datacom and Revera doing long shifts away from their families to make this as succesful as it can be, no luck in that, careful planning and hard work, that's what it takes.
Posted by Phantomas at 9:43:17 on March 7, 2013
Posted by Phantomas at 9:43:17 on March 7, 2013
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