Jump Sign-ups – Page 3 – Digital Inclusion Alliance Aotearoa

The short BB number problem solved but not yet resolved

Thanks to thorough testing by Suniti De La Mare from Ranui Library, the problem has been narrowed to the Jump Android App – this has a mind of its own and inserts spaces when entering the shorter broadband numbers, causing the signup process to fail. Everything seems to work fine when using the Jump iPhone App and the computer desktop versions.

The Jump team is onto this and is working to fix this bug.

So the interim solution is to use a computer desktop for new Jump signups (which I know many partners already do anyway). But please make sure your Jump customer also has the App on their phone before they leave with the modem to make life easier for them in monitoring their data usage and managing top-ups.

The Great Jump BB Mystery continues

This story could become a TV series! My original post suspected a BB number error (as modems were shipped this week with only six digits after the 0204). However, after some testing by the Skinny Jump team, it was confirmed that these broadband numbers are legitimate and modems with the shorter numbers have been provisioned for Jump. My update post sent us on a different path of investigation – looking at how the BB number is being entered.

We now have more evidence from partners that there is nothing wrong with the modems nor the shortened BB numbers. The difference seems to be how the BB number is entered. The Jump App makes it clear that the BB number must be entered without any spaces, i.e. 0204xxxxxx (for the shorter numbers) or 0204yyyyyyy (for the longer numbers).

But two partners have reported that the App now appears to have a mind of its own and in some situations automatically adds spaces to the BB number (see example below). Note the ! triangle in the broadband number field, signifying an invalid BB number. So this suggests a new line of inquiry.

We were first alerted to this issue by Carla at Hastings Library and she explained a workaround that her team discovered:

Re: Registering customers for Skinny or Ciena Jump

The issue: The app is automatically putting spaces in the broadband number.

While doing the activation for the modem you may come across an issue where the Jump app won’t let you verify and activate the modem. This means you won’t be able to move forward with the activation. You need to:

Huakina (open) a new incognito window on the rorohiko (PC)
Go to Skinny Jump login and get the customer to uru atu (sign-in)
Click on ‘Activate’ and whiriwhiria (select) ‘Broadband’
Patopatohia (type) the Broadband number and Verification code
Get the customer to restart their Jump app and uru atu.
Continue with usual sign-up.

Kia aro mai (please note) it might take a few seconds to activate but keep clicking on it until the dashboard shows up.

Thank you, Carla, for sharing your solution. This will help keep the Skinny Jump train moving while the investigation continues to try and understand why some partners are facing the ‘auto-fill’ problem while others are not.

Jump BB numbers – the mystery deepens

Further to my previous post, I may have been hasty in assuming the 10-digit broadband numbers were the problem. While they were a problem in the past, the Skinny team has confirmed that these are legitimate Jump provisioned broadband numbers and they have been able to set up one without any problem.

So, we need to figure out what the Skinny Jump team is doing that is different to what partners are doing to get the error message. The sign up documentation (user and partner guides) simple refer to just entering the BB number, but there are variations in how this is entered, e.g. 64204xxxxxx (11 digits), o204xxxxxxx (also 11 digits), but if you enter 0204xxxxxx (only 10 digits),maybe this causes a problem? The instruction in Step 5 of the App signup explicitly states not to add spaces, but of course if you are only entering 10 digits, then you could inadvertently enter a space.

So those of you who are up for a challenge, I would welcome your help in solving this problem. Please feel free to try setting up one or more of the recent modem shipment (those with 0204 xxx xxx numbers), trying different number formats. You can always put them through the Modem returns process to reset them after your tests.

Update on Jump Verification Email delays

Thank you to those partners who have provided feedback on this issue. While this is still not fully resolved, it appears to be an issue in the cloud between a Microsoft ‘send’ server and a Google ‘receive’ server. One partner has tested this by hot spotting through their phone and this didn’t seem to make any difference, so my previous suggestion about using your Jump demo modem is not likely to be a solution.

One thing we did learn today is that the timeout for the Verification Code is around 5 minutes. So if the email with the verification code doesn’t arrive within 5 minutes, then there is no point in waiting, as the code will have expired. The best strategy is to try again (after 5 minutes). Certainly get your customer to check their spam box while you are waiting; one partner mentioned all three sign ups today went to spam.

The partly good news is that this problem is intermittent and partners have successfully signed up 917 new customers this month, including 53 today (so far).

Verification email delays continuing to plague Jump signups

It is now over three weeks since this problem was first reported and despite the best efforts of the Skinny Jump team, there is no immediate resolution in sight. Indications so far is that it is affecting customers with gmail.com addresses, but this could simply be because this is what most Jump customers use. Another suggestion is that some corporate networks (such as local authorities) could have tightened the scrutiny on incoming email to Gmail addresses. This would affect Jump customers signing up using library computers or wifi, for example. Any mail considered to be somewhat suspicious is usually directed into spam folders or in the case of corporate enterprises to a centralised filter that delays the mail until it is manually released or processed and deemed to be safe.

We don’t know for sure if this is the case, but we do know that most of the problems are being reported by our larger library partners.

Our team was in Nelson last week and together with Nelson Library staff signed up 15 new Jump connections at Franklyn Village, a social housing complex. And the good news was that the verification emails all arrived as expected, i.e. within seconds. One difference was that we were using a Jump connection for the sign ups – so that got us thinking!

Partners experiencing these verification email delays when signing up customers might like to try using a Jump connection. Many Jump partners are already using a Jump modem for demo purposes, so it would be just a matter of ensuring it is active when signing up new customers.

We would really like to know how this works out, so please email us (jump@diaa.nz) if it doesn’t make any difference, then we will know it has nothing to do with your local network and will need to reach further into the email cloud. To help the Skinny team with their investigations, they have asked if you could capture email header information and send River (river.burich@spark.co.nz) and me (jump@diaa.nz) a copy if you a notice a delay of more than a few minutes. You can find instructions for doing this here.

Thanks for your help. We do need to get to the bottom of this.

Ciena Signups – Which Name?

Some Ciena Jump partners have asked about which name to use in the Jump Profile form – the student’s name or the parent/caregiver?

The general principle is that Jump account holders (whether modems are provisioned for special plans like Ciena or not) should be the people who have responsibility for the account. In the case of standard Jump, this is the person who is responsible for topping up the account. This is normally an adult.

For special plans like Ciena, the person identified on the Jump Profile form should be the parent or caregiver. So while, there is no need to top up the account, any communications about the programme should go to a responsible adult.

The first communication is an email notification when the account has been provisioned for Ciena (generally a couple of days after signing up) and further emails will be sent towards the end of the year explaining options when the current programme ends.

Possible problem receiving verification emails when using the App to sign up to Jump

A number of partners have been in touch about a problem they are experiencing in receiving the verification email when signing up new Jump customers. One has reported a delay of around 20 minutes.

The Skinny Jump team has been able to replicate this problem for sign ups using the App – with a 15 minute delay. However a desktop signup appears to get the confirmation email within 60 seconds.

We are interested in hearing from anyone who is experiencing this problem to help us understand if it just App signups or whether anyone is experiencing this with desktop signups as well.

Be assured the Jump development team is on the case and hopefully this will be resolved quickly.

It would help in diagnosing this problem if partners could provide the following details if this problem is encountered and email the information to: jump@diaa.nz

Customer name:

Broadband number:

Email address used for Jump sign-up:

Approximate Time/date of email registration:

Approximate Time/date of Verification Code email being received:

Jump and Gmails with “+” or “.”

Now here’s a very interesting solution to one of the more challenging issues for some Jump customers.

Over the years, many partners have encountered the rather difficult situation when a customer turns up wanting a Jump modem and they already have a Skinny mobile phone account. The problem is that they cannot use the same email for both their Skinny phone account and their Skinny Jump account.

Our advice to date has been to simply set up a second email for the customer. But while this solves the problem for Skinny, we understand that it can make life more difficult for Jump customers. Having to manage two different email accounts, especially if you only have a smartphone, requires a degree of digital proficiency that many Jump customers don’t have.

The Jump App makes this a bit easier; once you have the App set up, you don’t really need to worry too much about the email that has been used. If you do forget it, you can always check your Account profile to find the email and change the password. But there will be times when your customer needs to access their Jump email account.

Tāwera Akehurst, who has recently taken over from Alan Bucheler as the Partnership Delivery Lead for Skinny Jump, pointed us in the direction of an interesting Gmail solution for situations that need different email addresses but where customers want the emails to appear in a single email account.

It is simply a matter of using the “+” or “.” symbols as part of the username. Gmail does not recognise these symbols and directs all mail to a single account.

For example: johnsmith@gmail.com is exactly the same as john.smith@gmail.com and johnsmith+jump@gmail.com

Yet for online applications like Skinny Mobile and Skinny Jump, these are recognised as three different emails. Check out the link above for some other interesting things you can do with these variants on your regular email.

Jump Customers changing address

I had a question today from one of our partners about the process when Jump customers move to a new address. I thought this might be a good opportunity to remind all partners.

Here it is in a nutshell:

Use the address checker to confirm that the customer is moving to an address with Jump coverage.
If so, ask your customer to contact the Skinny Care Team on 0800 475 4669 and inform them of the new address.
The customer can then unplug their modem and take it to their new address.
If customers move their modems to a new address without notifying the Skinny Care Team, they could find their modem gets blocked, as this is a breach of the conditions of use.
If their new address does not have Skinny Jump coverage, then the modem should be returned to the nearest Jump partner for resetting and assigning to a new Jump family, or the customer is welcome to contact the Skinny Care Team and request a pre-paid return courier bag.
What they should not do, is just walk out the door and leave their Jump modem behind for the next tenant.
Transferring to another family member can also be problematic, as the modem is linked to the original user’s email and any new user would require access to this email and the password in order to top up the account and purchase new data plans. So it is much better for the modem to be returned and reset (or if it is unsuitable for reuse, it will be responsibly recycled). The family member is welcome to apply for a new modem using their own email and password (assuming of course that they meet the eligibility criteria).

Another important update for Ciena Partners

It is good to see that nearly half of the Jump Partners who are participating in the Ciena Pilot have now signed up one or more students in their area. Over 80 families with school-aged children are already benefitting.

But as partners sign up their first customers, they are discovering little challenges in remembering exactly what to do in terms of our back-end processes.

Yesterday a partner signed up their first customer and issued a new modem but then discovered the family already had a Jump modem. The family said “thank you very much for the new modem; we’ll bring the old one back”.

Unfortunately, issuing a new modem to family that already has a Jump connection creates a number of problems:

(1) Ciena modems are exactly the same as standard Jump modems; the only difference is the Jump plan (the Ciena Plan) that is applied to the customer’s account linked to the modem.

(2) We have an ongoing national shortage of modems; we do not issue replacement modems when the current one is working perfectly well and in the case of Ciena customers, this is a back-end process in terms of provisioning a new plan on the customer’s account (nothing to do with the hardware).

(3) Customers are unable to activate a replacement modem using the same email address until their old modem goes through our Modem Returns process (where the customer’s account is de-linked from the modem), and this generally takes up to 24 hours.

(4) Customers could use a different email for the replacement modem but then they would not be able to transfer any residual funds from their existing account to their new one.

So, any partner traversing this path is creating a lot of problems for their customer, when all that is needed is a new Profile Form (where the details of the existing modem are recorded) and the Ciena Referral Form. The Skinny Team then works their magic to reprovision the customer’s existing modem for the Ciena Plan. No new accounts to be set up. No new WiFi passwords needed. No modems to be returned. Simple as!