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October 07 Disaster

Page history last edited by PBworks 16 years, 3 months ago


 

The October 2007 LinkedIn update was a disaster that was poorly thought-out with insufficient testing. It removed important features and even introduced errors. It's bad enough that each update targets active networkers to make using LinkedIn more difficult, but this update also makes it more difficult for us to help OTHER members, such as by forwarding their LinkedIn messages. So now it affects them as well.

 

 

Previous WTF reports showed how the recent LinkedIn update changed Forwarding and Sent Introduction display and features. It removed important features. They made it more difficult to forward, withdraw, and reject Introductions, and virtually impossible to manage your Introductions. It used to be a breeze to manage your Introductions, whether you had 5 or 50, as that's all that was in Sent Introductions and you could filter and sort them. Now they're mixed with Intros you forwarded, there is no filtering, and sorting is useless with mixed Introductions.

 

Maybe all this is trivial for the casual LinkedIn user. But if you're an active networker and a business customer like me, you're sending 15-20 Introductions a week and forwarding another 50-75 per week, and these are serious issues.

 

Open

 

Removed SentIntrosFilter

 

 

No more Introduction aging

 

You used to be able to tell the age of an Introduction by the color of the circle in the message detail - green for recent, brown if older than 2 days, red if stalled. Now all circles are green, even in messages a month old! Aging display is critical in determining if old messages should be withdrawn, especially if they go through 2 or 3 connections.

 

Declined Introduction messages are more difficult

 

If you decline a message, you used to be able to specify a standard reason AND add a message. You can no longer do this. This is important as standard reasons may still require an explanation.

 

Missing Introductions.

 

To manage your Introductions you now have to play a game. You have to eyeball Sent Introductions to manually separate the ones that you sent versus ones that you forwarded. You have to look at the date. You have to do this for a few of the most recent pages. Then open each older Intro and withdraw it if needed. Since Introduction aging has been removed you have to take a guess at how long the current recipient has had the message if 2 or more levels away. All of this wastes your time and was formerly automatically provided by LinkedIn. It also is manual and so you must pray you don't miss anything.

 

But even this doesn't work. The LinkedIn Account page told me I had 0 Introductions available today . I scanned Sent Introductions. There were 10 Intros pending. Where were the other 5? ... Did I miss them in Sent Introductions? ... Were they so old that I didn't even se them in Sent Intros? ..... Noooooooooooooo.

 

The answer - believe it or not - they're included in InMails! If you've been paying attention to LinkedIn, you may recall that in their myopic wisdom you must counterintuitively click InMail to send a Group or OpenLink Introduction (if you're a member of a mutual group and the recipient accepts direct Introductions for that group). So in the new release, instead of clarifying this confusing feature, they've propagated it!

 

If it takes an expert user like me to figure this out, what chance does the average LinkedIn user have?

 

Non-recoverable Introductions

 

But wait, we're not done with this comedy of incompetence. It only gets better.

 

Now that we've found the missing Introductions n the InMail page, check them out. You can't withdraw sent group or OpenLink Introductions (at least I can't). LinkedIn is cheating you out of Introductions.

 

Now I am a paying business customer. I pay for those additional Introductions. I do not have access to those Introductions since I can't withdraw and use them. I've requested a credit for this month's paid service fee, and a continuing credit until the problem is resolved. I recommend that you check your InMail folder. If you have the same problem, you should demand a refund as well.

 

Fixed

 

No access to sent or forwarded invitation message text

 

How do you find the copy in an Introduction you just sent??? You can't do that any more.

 

Click on an Introduction from the recipient's page (the Messages tab) or Inbox. It displays the message subject and your forwarding message to your immediate connection. There is no way to see the message you sent to the recipient. Why is this important? Here is just one reason. Your connection doesn't act on the message. You have to withdraw it and resend through another connection. It should be one click to resend and edit the old message through a new connection.

 

At a minimum you should be able to see the old message so you can at least cut and paste it. Which is what you used to be able to do on LinkedIn. Now even that's gone.

 

NOTE - this has been fixed. The original message now displays.

 

Forwarding Introductions now takes an extra click

 

It takes LinkedIn a minute or two to deliver a custom LinkedIn page. So clicks are important. Instead of displaying both the sender and forwarding messages from connections on one page, LinkedIn now splits them up. It now requires two clicks to forward an Introduction, instead of one. If you have several Introductions to process that's several more unnecessary clicks and minutes to help your connections. LinkedIn should make it easier, not HARDER, to forward Introductions.

 

NOTE - this has been fixed. The combined sender/forwarding message is now displayed.

 

Declining Introductions is now awkward and takes 3 clicks instead of 1

 

Both the Category and Decline to Forward button are displayed in the forwarding message but not the sender message. That's precisely the WRONG time to display it. How can a message be evaluated just by looking at the forwarding message? It can't. You have to look at the sender message. It now takes three clicks to decline a message - 1. Click forward Introduction, 2. Read the message. If you want to cancel it click your browser Back, 3. Click Decline to forward.

 

NOTE - this has been fixed. The combined sender/forwarding message is now displayed.

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