Octopus Saving Session

Qyburn

I see a full set for yesterday, on both Bright and Octopus.

masonic

Qyburn said:

I see a full set for yesterday, on both Bright and Octopus.

I can see mine for the 14th and 15th via n3rgy, but not Octopus, so it looks like the problem is with Octopus' third party adapter service again, as mentioned here: https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6432416/octopus-data-not-consistently-available-from-smart-meter-is-it-just-me

alleycat`

Mstty said:

This may mean they realise not all is well 

Unless Octopus are blaming "sendgrid", their mass mailer service of choice (which is a bit unclear), then this is the usual nonsense of when marketing people are put in charge of e-mail campaigns and then shifting the blame anywhere else.

Firstly they should be well aware that e-mail is not a guaranteed time / delivery medium. There's nothing in e-mail specification for a guarantee on when e-mail will be delivered at all. There are some basic premises about it telling you when mails are delayed, delivery retries, etc but nothing is said about a guarantee on delivery. It's quite frightening that very large companies believe services like e-mail have some sort of guaranteed time basis on them (and they make business decisions based on it).

This was always going to end badly if they were expecting a reasonable "click through" rate and had any basic knowledge about e-mail as a service.

They've then doubled down by using a "mass mailer" service that is, most likely, rate limited by many ISP / Service providers.

Sendgrid, silverpop, mailgun and the like are known as "spamvertisers" in the industry for a reason. These "mailer" companies ignore many of the basic principles of mail behavior to try ram as much e-mail out as possible. It's a "fire hose" approach to sending e-mails. They're typically heavily restricted as they allow all their clients to run "campaigns" at any time of day or night they feel like. Usually the people involved have all done the same marketing/psychological courses and all want to send their mails at the same time. Thursdays, certainly were, the big day they all liked to target (typically around 11am).

I suspect this means that loads of mails got backed up on their side with delivery retries and many of us at the bottom of the list were left receiving mails after the event had started.

I run my own mail server and the only connection i received from them was at 18:29 and the mail was delivered to my "inbox" 2 seconds later. That's got nothing to do with "me" rate limiting or delaying e-mails and everything to do with their sending service bogging down.

My advice for them is if they want to push "last minute" type events then they need to do it via the App or SMS (i suspect they won't like the costs involved). E-mail, as a protocol, is a terrible way of communicating "instantly" with people.

Anyway - They've sent me some unsolicited "octopoints". I'm not sure if this was done on an average of previous periods or a random number they're assigning to everyone?

bristolleedsfan

alleycat` said:

Anyway - They've sent me some unsolicited "octopoints". I'm not sure if this was done on an average of previous periods or a random number they're assigning to everyone?

£1 is what others have stated to have been given, stated to be average amount for that particular session.

masonic

alleycat` said:

My advice for them is if they want to push "last minute" type events then they need to do it via the App or SMS (i suspect they won't like the costs involved). E-mail, as a protocol, is a terrible way of communicating "instantly" with people.

This is presumably why they also send out push notifications via the app. But if you want to have the most notice about a session, it is best to get the information from the DFS page directly or follow this thread.

bristolleedsfan

alleycat` said:

Anyway - They've sent me some unsolicited "octopoints". I'm not sure if this was done on an average of previous periods or a random number they're assigning to everyone?

Mention has been made by Octo Chief of a general follow up, customers who were given session average £1 now being given individuals own average.

Everyone in the same situation should get individuals own average IMHO

https://twitter.com/g__j/status/1636820782604009492

https://twitter.com/g__j/status/1636815732699742225

Chrysalis

steviebabes said:

Surely the way forward is for all households and businesses to have their own storage batteries. The charging of these could be controlled by the energy suppliers, much like Octopus Agile. The cost would be enormous of course but so is the cost of a nuclear power station. 

I would agree but it probably leaves renters out in the cold as LLs dont tend to invest in things that only benefit their tenants.  So community battery storage facilities might be a better idea.

Although I have found portable camper batteries which might be ok.

Chrysalis

alleycat` said:

Mstty said:

This may mean they realise not all is well 

Unless Octopus are blaming "sendgrid", their mass mailer service of choice (which is a bit unclear), then this is the usual nonsense of when marketing people are put in charge of e-mail campaigns and then shifting the blame anywhere else.

Firstly they should be well aware that e-mail is not a guaranteed time / delivery medium. There's nothing in e-mail specification for a guarantee on when e-mail will be delivered at all. There are some basic premises about it telling you when mails are delayed, delivery retries, etc but nothing is said about a guarantee on delivery. It's quite frightening that very large companies believe services like e-mail have some sort of guaranteed time basis on them (and they make business decisions based on it).

This was always going to end badly if they were expecting a reasonable "click through" rate and had any basic knowledge about e-mail as a service.

They've then doubled down by using a "mass mailer" service that is, most likely, rate limited by many ISP / Service providers.

Sendgrid, silverpop, mailgun and the like are known as "spamvertisers" in the industry for a reason. These "mailer" companies ignore many of the basic principles of mail behavior to try ram as much e-mail out as possible. It's a "fire hose" approach to sending e-mails. They're typically heavily restricted as they allow all their clients to run "campaigns" at any time of day or night they feel like. Usually the people involved have all done the same marketing/psychological courses and all want to send their mails at the same time. Thursdays, certainly were, the big day they all liked to target (typically around 11am).

I suspect this means that loads of mails got backed up on their side with delivery retries and many of us at the bottom of the list were left receiving mails after the event had started.

I run my own mail server and the only connection i received from them was at 18:29 and the mail was delivered to my "inbox" 2 seconds later. That's got nothing to do with "me" rate limiting or delaying e-mails and everything to do with their sending service bogging down.

My advice for them is if they want to push "last minute" type events then they need to do it via the App or SMS (i suspect they won't like the costs involved). E-mail, as a protocol, is a terrible way of communicating "instantly" with people.

Anyway - They've sent me some unsolicited "octopoints". I'm not sure if this was done on an average of previous periods or a random number they're assigning to everyone?

Its a bit worrying they trialling it, I still think anyone registered for saving sessions should be automatically added to each session.

wild666

The last session I got the email late but they credited me with points as the email arrived late for me to opt in.

masonic

For those who weren't aware (I wasn't until just now), Octopus also has a dedicated Twitter account for alerts of Saving Sessions: https://twitter.com/SavingSessions