Online system for swimming lesson registration flops again

The City of Ottawa's registration system for recreation programs crashed Monday night, leaving many parents and hopeful swimmers frustrated once again.

The system was introduced less than a year ago, replacing one thatcould only support 450 online users at a time and regularly malfunctioned on registration nights.

Shortly after registration for city aquatic programs opened Monday at 9 p.m., many users reported they were unable to complete transactions or access the website at all.

In a statement, a city official said the crashes were the result of a "technical issue" from the new host of the registration software, ActiveNet.

Dan Chenier, the city's general manager ofrecreation, cultural and facility services,said technical teams responded to the situation as quickly as possible and were able to "restore functionality about 40 minutes after it occurred."

Rachel Dcoste said she made it through 45 minutes of "refresh hell" and finally "got something,"but two of her friends were not so lucky.

WATCH |Ottawa councillor says error from provider caused online registration woes

Ottawa councillor says error from provider caused online registration woes

1 year ago

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Somerset Coun. Ariel Troster says she'll bring forward a motion to a committee about the city's plagued online registration system, after parents ran into more issues registering their children for swimming programs.

Somerset Coun. Ariel Troster was also "kicked out" of the system while waiting to register her daughter for swimming lessons. Troster said she heard from many residents in her wardthat were not successful or only able to register one child and not another.

She shares in her constituents' frustrations, and hopes the city's technical team has fully resolved the issue.

"This is not great for our city and our reputations," said Troster. "We need that contractor to fix [the system] as soon as possible."

Troster said problems brought on by the crash are indicative of a broader equity issue, given registrants who are not able to access the system at the earliest opportunity for any reason may be unfairly excluded from recreation programs.

Valrie Emond took all the right steps to register her daughter for lifeguard qualifications in Kanata, but she was still disappointed. She had done her "homework," and had thelesson and location selected and ready at 9 p.m., but it made no difference.

"I was expecting it to be smoother than the past four or five yearsbecause the winter session registration, with the new system, went very well," Emond said.

"But [Monday]night, obviously, we were back at the same old system-crashing and frustration."

Dcostesuggested one possible solution would be for the city to allow parentsto access the service one region at a time, further relieving online crowding.

"Staff have been in ongoing communications with the vendor to understand what happened and will continue working with them to prevent this situation from reoccurring,"Chenier said.

Troster said she hasfaith in the system functioning properly.

"There's no excuse for it not working."