Loading Profile...
Sandy appears to misunderstand commands at random (examples follow) - is there some explanation? This is maddening
Because I don't understand what's going on here, I'm just going to reproduce my email and Sandy's response verbatim. Here's what I sent (yes, it's one long email; the long separator lines mark the beginning and end of my email and of Sandy's response):
--------------------------------------------
r Faculty meeting @meeting @campus 12-1:30pm +
* September 3, 2008
* October 8, 2008
* November 5, 2008
* December 3, 2008
r Faculty meeting in Olin 1-2:30 pm on January 8, 2009 @meeting @campus
r Academic Council meeting 4-5:30 pm @"academic council" @meeting @campus +
* September 17, 2008
* October 22, 2008
* November 12, 2008
r Academic Council meeting PDR 4-5:30 pm @"academic council" @meeting @campus December 10, 2008 5:30-7:30 p.m.
--------------------------------------------
And here was Sandy's response:
--------------------------------------------
#1
Wed, 9/3 Faculty meeting
* email and sms reminders at 8:00am
* tagged with campus and meeting
#2
Wed, 10/8 Faculty meeting
* email and sms reminders at 8:00am
* tagged with campus and meeting
#3
Wed, 11/5 Faculty meeting
* email and sms reminders at 8:00am
* tagged with campus and meeting
#4
Wed, 12/3 Faculty meeting
* email and sms reminders at 8:00am
* tagged with campus and meeting
#5
Thu, 1/8/2009 1:00 - 2:30pm Faculty meeting in Olin
* email and sms reminders at 12:45pm
* tagged with campus and meeting
#6
Wed, 9/17 Academic Council meeting
* email and sms reminders at 8:00am
* tagged with academic council, campus, and meeting
#7
Wed, 10/22 Academic Council meeting
* email and sms reminders at 8:00am
* tagged with academic council, campus, and meeting
#8
Wed, 11/12 Academic Council meeting
* email and sms reminders at 8:00am
* tagged with academic council, campus, and meeting
#9
Wed, 12/10 4:00 - 5:30pm Academic Council meeting PDR 5:30-7:30 p.m.
* email and sms reminders at 3:45pm
* tagged with academic council, campus, and meeting
#10
Wed, 9/17 5:30pm - Tue, 9/16 7:30pm Academic Council meeting PDR
* email and sms reminders at 5:15pm
* tagged with academic council, campus, and meeting
--------------------------------------------
As you can see, there was a mistake in what i sent -- the very last item had two times, which confused Sandy for obvious reasons (see items #9 and #10). But otherwise, what did I do wrong? Let's take a quick look:
I wanted Sandy to add nine items to my calendar.
The first component of my email was a list. It was supposed to add four items titled "Faculty meeting" to my calendar, each one scheduled for 12pm-1:30 pm, tagged with "meeting" and "campus" -- that part was in the line introducing the list -- and then the bulleted list included four dates. Like so:
r Faculty meeting @meeting @campus 12-1:30pm +
* September 3, 2008
* October 8, 2008
* November 5, 2008
* December 3, 2008
As you can see from my copy of Sandy's reply, Sandy got the basic structure right -- four appointments, with correct title, tags, and dates right -- but ignored the time, so I got four all-day appointments on the appropriate dates (#1-#4 above).
In formulating my email, I thought I was following the instructions given here:
http://iwantsandy.com/help/lists#crea...
What did I miss?
The second component of my email was a single-line appointment command, which worked fine.
I wrote:
r Faculty meeting in Olin 1-2:30 pm on January 8, 2009 @meeting @campus
And Sandy gave me:
Thu, 1/8/2009 1:00 - 2:30pm Faculty meeting in Olin
* email and sms reminders at 12:45pm
* tagged with campus and meeting
That's #5 above. No problem there.
The third component of my email was another list, similar to the first. It was supposed to create three appointments, all called "Academic Council meeting and tagged with "academic council," "meeting," and "campus," set for 4 pm to 5:30 pm, on five different dates. Here's what I wrote:
r Academic Council meeting 4-5:30 pm @"academic council" @meeting @campus +
* September 17, 2008
* October 22, 2008
* November 12, 2008
The first line specified a title, a time, and tags, and the following three lines specified dates. Sandy replied, again, by creating three all-day appointments, titling, tagging, and dating them correctly but ignoring the times. That's #6 through #8 above.
And then finally, there was one last line, the one with a mistake on my part:
r Academic Council meeting PDR 4-5:30 pm @"academic council" @meeting @campus December 10, 2008 5:30-7:30 p.m.
(As you can probably guess, I wanted to create an appointment just like the ones on the list above, but at a different time. So I copied it from the list above, and meant to delete the first time reference, but I forgot. Oops.)
Based on this, Sandy created two appointments, as follows:
#9
Wed, 12/10 4:00 - 5:30pm Academic Council meeting PDR 5:30-7:30 p.m.
* email and sms reminders at 3:45pm
* tagged with academic council, campus, and meeting
and
#10
Wed, 9/17 5:30pm - Tue, 9/16 7:30pm Academic Council meeting PDR
* email and sms reminders at 5:15pm
* tagged with academic council, campus, and meeting
The first of the two (#9) is just what one would expect, similar to #5 above. The second seems like a strange way to interpret my mistake, but whatever.
Anyhow, I've had lots of problems with Sandy over the past few months. I use Sandy almost exclusively for to-do's and appointments, most of which are tied to specific times and dates. About 70% of the time she seems to understand just what I want. But other times she makes unpredictable mistakes, like -- in this example -- simply ignoring the times I requested and making my appointments into all-day appointments. Sometimes I'll supply a date and she'll interpret the date as part of the appointment title, and schedule the appointment for tomorrow.
I sometimes send appointments or other information to Sandy via Twitter (not lists; just one at a time) and have similar problems crop up at more or less the same rate.
I can supply other examples as they come up in the future, but so far I have seen no real response from employees of the company to previous reports of similar problems posted to this forum by myself and others. If someone from the company gets back to me and tells me that my posting additional information would be helpful and that the company would act on it somehow, I would be happy to take the trouble.
In the meanwhile, though, I'm not going to use Sandy for anything too important. Correcting seven appointments one at a time, as indicated above, takes a lot of time. Once Sandy ends up costing me time rather than saving me time, it's not worth it.
Sorry for such a long post, but I wanted to be thorough.
Nathan
--------------------------------------------
r Faculty meeting @meeting @campus 12-1:30pm +
* September 3, 2008
* October 8, 2008
* November 5, 2008
* December 3, 2008
r Faculty meeting in Olin 1-2:30 pm on January 8, 2009 @meeting @campus
r Academic Council meeting 4-5:30 pm @"academic council" @meeting @campus +
* September 17, 2008
* October 22, 2008
* November 12, 2008
r Academic Council meeting PDR 4-5:30 pm @"academic council" @meeting @campus December 10, 2008 5:30-7:30 p.m.
--------------------------------------------
And here was Sandy's response:
--------------------------------------------
#1
Wed, 9/3 Faculty meeting
* email and sms reminders at 8:00am
* tagged with campus and meeting
#2
Wed, 10/8 Faculty meeting
* email and sms reminders at 8:00am
* tagged with campus and meeting
#3
Wed, 11/5 Faculty meeting
* email and sms reminders at 8:00am
* tagged with campus and meeting
#4
Wed, 12/3 Faculty meeting
* email and sms reminders at 8:00am
* tagged with campus and meeting
#5
Thu, 1/8/2009 1:00 - 2:30pm Faculty meeting in Olin
* email and sms reminders at 12:45pm
* tagged with campus and meeting
#6
Wed, 9/17 Academic Council meeting
* email and sms reminders at 8:00am
* tagged with academic council, campus, and meeting
#7
Wed, 10/22 Academic Council meeting
* email and sms reminders at 8:00am
* tagged with academic council, campus, and meeting
#8
Wed, 11/12 Academic Council meeting
* email and sms reminders at 8:00am
* tagged with academic council, campus, and meeting
#9
Wed, 12/10 4:00 - 5:30pm Academic Council meeting PDR 5:30-7:30 p.m.
* email and sms reminders at 3:45pm
* tagged with academic council, campus, and meeting
#10
Wed, 9/17 5:30pm - Tue, 9/16 7:30pm Academic Council meeting PDR
* email and sms reminders at 5:15pm
* tagged with academic council, campus, and meeting
--------------------------------------------
As you can see, there was a mistake in what i sent -- the very last item had two times, which confused Sandy for obvious reasons (see items #9 and #10). But otherwise, what did I do wrong? Let's take a quick look:
I wanted Sandy to add nine items to my calendar.
The first component of my email was a list. It was supposed to add four items titled "Faculty meeting" to my calendar, each one scheduled for 12pm-1:30 pm, tagged with "meeting" and "campus" -- that part was in the line introducing the list -- and then the bulleted list included four dates. Like so:
r Faculty meeting @meeting @campus 12-1:30pm +
* September 3, 2008
* October 8, 2008
* November 5, 2008
* December 3, 2008
As you can see from my copy of Sandy's reply, Sandy got the basic structure right -- four appointments, with correct title, tags, and dates right -- but ignored the time, so I got four all-day appointments on the appropriate dates (#1-#4 above).
In formulating my email, I thought I was following the instructions given here:
http://iwantsandy.com/help/lists#crea...
What did I miss?
The second component of my email was a single-line appointment command, which worked fine.
I wrote:
r Faculty meeting in Olin 1-2:30 pm on January 8, 2009 @meeting @campus
And Sandy gave me:
Thu, 1/8/2009 1:00 - 2:30pm Faculty meeting in Olin
* email and sms reminders at 12:45pm
* tagged with campus and meeting
That's #5 above. No problem there.
The third component of my email was another list, similar to the first. It was supposed to create three appointments, all called "Academic Council meeting and tagged with "academic council," "meeting," and "campus," set for 4 pm to 5:30 pm, on five different dates. Here's what I wrote:
r Academic Council meeting 4-5:30 pm @"academic council" @meeting @campus +
* September 17, 2008
* October 22, 2008
* November 12, 2008
The first line specified a title, a time, and tags, and the following three lines specified dates. Sandy replied, again, by creating three all-day appointments, titling, tagging, and dating them correctly but ignoring the times. That's #6 through #8 above.
And then finally, there was one last line, the one with a mistake on my part:
r Academic Council meeting PDR 4-5:30 pm @"academic council" @meeting @campus December 10, 2008 5:30-7:30 p.m.
(As you can probably guess, I wanted to create an appointment just like the ones on the list above, but at a different time. So I copied it from the list above, and meant to delete the first time reference, but I forgot. Oops.)
Based on this, Sandy created two appointments, as follows:
#9
Wed, 12/10 4:00 - 5:30pm Academic Council meeting PDR 5:30-7:30 p.m.
* email and sms reminders at 3:45pm
* tagged with academic council, campus, and meeting
and
#10
Wed, 9/17 5:30pm - Tue, 9/16 7:30pm Academic Council meeting PDR
* email and sms reminders at 5:15pm
* tagged with academic council, campus, and meeting
The first of the two (#9) is just what one would expect, similar to #5 above. The second seems like a strange way to interpret my mistake, but whatever.
Anyhow, I've had lots of problems with Sandy over the past few months. I use Sandy almost exclusively for to-do's and appointments, most of which are tied to specific times and dates. About 70% of the time she seems to understand just what I want. But other times she makes unpredictable mistakes, like -- in this example -- simply ignoring the times I requested and making my appointments into all-day appointments. Sometimes I'll supply a date and she'll interpret the date as part of the appointment title, and schedule the appointment for tomorrow.
I sometimes send appointments or other information to Sandy via Twitter (not lists; just one at a time) and have similar problems crop up at more or less the same rate.
I can supply other examples as they come up in the future, but so far I have seen no real response from employees of the company to previous reports of similar problems posted to this forum by myself and others. If someone from the company gets back to me and tells me that my posting additional information would be helpful and that the company would act on it somehow, I would be happy to take the trouble.
In the meanwhile, though, I'm not going to use Sandy for anything too important. Correcting seven appointments one at a time, as indicated above, takes a lot of time. Once Sandy ends up costing me time rather than saving me time, it's not worth it.
Sorry for such a long post, but I wanted to be thorough.
Nathan
I’m very frustrated
1
person has this problem
I have this problem, too!
Tell me when someone solves it.
The more people who report this problem, the more it gets noticed.
The more people who report this problem, the more it gets noticed.
-
Inappropriate?Unfortunately, you currently can't split any one part of the message across the +/*, or one part will get dropped. In your case you're splitting the scheduled time (Date & Time) across the + so one part of it (the hour) gets dropped. You'll need to put the 1pm-2:30pm beside each date.
1 person says
this solves the problem
-
Inappropriate?Well that's a simple explanation to a long problem. That makes sense. Thanks for the quick response.
Should I continue to post other issues like this as they come up? Looks like you're watching this GetSatisfaction account pretty closely now.
And also, I beg you, add that information you just told me to the documentation on the webpage. Some of Sandy's syntactical rules are pretty complicated, and I'm not sure I would have guessed that one via trial and error.
I’m relieved that it's not just random
-
Inappropriate?Feel free to report any issues here :) Only Rael holds the awesome power to effect changes by poking Sandy, but there are others of us that can help with workarounds and answer questions :)
-
Inappropriate?I wish there was a way for us (the users) to create a large FAQ here in Get Satisfaction. I've tried a couple times, but the results are less than satisfactory.
See the Search FAQ and the List FAQ. (Which is incorrectly named "How to use Lists") I wish I could edit these things.
http://getsatisfaction.com/iwantsandy...
http://getsatisfaction.com/iwantsandy...
That being said, the current documentation on the "remember +" power move is actually correct. (Although it could be better explained with more examples.)
Any a) text and b) dates in the first line are REPLACED by corresponding text and dates in subsequent lines. Any c) tags in the first line are ADDED to subsequent lines.
If you had added any TEXT in subsequent lines, you likely would have had an additional surprise.
r Faculty meeting @meeting @campus 12-1:30pm +
* September 3, 2008
* October 8, 2008 (professor Tang will be there)
Is interpreted as:
r Faculty meeting @meeting @campus September 3, 2008
r (professor Tang will be there) @meeting @campus October 8, 2008 -
-
Inappropriate?nbr,
Feel free to start a wiki at any time. It would be much appreciated.
I really would like to be able to create a FAQ on Get Satisfaction. It would actually end up saving me time. So I made a suggestion. Maybe they'll implement it at some time in the future.
http://getsatisfaction.com/getsatisfa...
EMPLOYEE
