At about 9PM last night I get an IM from Helmer, telling me that the beta code for 693 is giving the error message “Promotion not found.” Helmer tells me that Freddie in Canada was able to register. So I know that (a) I put the correct registration start date in the notification; and (b) I put the correct beta code in the notification. I experience a short-lived sense of relief that I didn’t screw up the notifications. I promptly send an e-mail to Prometric about the issue.
Relief quickly makes way for panic as I realize that nobody who can sort this out is online at 9PM on a Sunday night. Or at least, nobody from Microsoft Learning and none of our usual contacts at Prometric.
Unfortunately, I don’t have a direct line to wake up anyone from Prometric in the middle of the night. Yet, anyway.
However, help comes from an unexpected source: my SME friends. Bas calls Prometric and informs me of the explanation he received from them: some European countries were mistakenly left off the list for where the beta code could be used. Over the course of the next several hours, many other SMEs send e-mails to mslcd@microsoft.com, and from their reports I piece together what is happening, and then respond to everyone with the status. Helmer starts a discussion on his blog, where folks post updates as they learn more. He also directs folks to report the issue here on Born to Learn.
Unfortunately, Prometric’s customer service in Europe was unable to fix the problem immediately—they had to wait until Prometric’s head offices opened in the morning (morning on the U.S. East Coast,that is). Folks were understandably concerned that nobody from Europe will be able to register before the seats fill up.
This morning I started receiving e-mails from folks in Europe that they were finally able to register. I sent a notification to SMEs in affected countries who had received the beta code legitimately the first time that they should try again.
Speaking of legitimate beta codes: we did have at least one leak I know of this time. The good news is that it was removed pretty quickly by the forum admin—due to the diligent bad post reports of people like you. And I’m not seeing the beta code posted anywhere as I write this post.
It’s a little too early to say whether this story has a happy ending. At the moment, there are still seats available for 71-693, so I’m hoping that the folks in Europe who tried to register when it first opened will all get a seat. We’ll be monitoring this situation to determine if any adjustment is needed. (On a side note, I’ll add a comment to this post after I get confirmation that it has filled.) We really do regret the inconvenience this has caused. We’ll be working with Prometric on a solution to prevent this from happening again.
So some of you are probably wondering, what silver lining could there possibly be in this story? It’s this: we really are a community. We connected and muddled through this situation together. And the one documented leak of the beta code was quickly identified and squashed by the community.
What’s more, we’ve identified the need for a proverbial red telephone between MSL and Prometric to help improve response times for unexpected issues.
2800 SME Profiles and counting One year ago today, we launched a system to help us keep track of potential