Wednesday, October 29, 2008

ID Card - amazingly quick update.

I thought it might be days, but here I am less than four hours later updating The ID Card Saga.

The speed and efficiency of the internet. Dubai style.

I tell you what. It's a struggle.

I got into the Emirates Identity Authority website and less than four hours later I've registered, have my application number and a bar code. I'm told to present myself, my documents and the barcode printout at one of the EIDA offices.

There may be a small problem though. My application is based on a form which ignored what I entered and instead put answers it came up with by itself, several being totally different from my entries.

For example, it decided I work for the Dubai International Financial Centre. I do not. I did not enter that on the form. But it wouldn't change to what I wanted to enter.

When I go in person to the office I guess I'll find out whether the incorrect information will invalidate the application.

I've been told other people have had the same problem. Female being changed to Male was one example.

I'll let you know what happens at the next stage.



Apart from that you may like to know how interfacing with the EIDA through the magic of the e-world is.

As I said, it's a struggle. Apart from ignoring what you type in it takes half an hour or more to move to the next page, and things don't appear as they should.

For example, it asks which Emirate you live in, you click Dubai on the dropdown menu. Next is City, then Zone but neither will move from the Abu Dhabi dropdown default menu. So you're registered as living in the emirate of Dubai but in an area of Abu Dhabi.

I pressed on regardless and after two and a half hours I got to the end, clicked to Print. The form came up for final checking and approval and it contained too much information different from that which I'd entered.

I thought I'd better cancel and start again.

Second time was a bit quicker, both for pages to load and because I knew my way around it a bit better.

There's some mysterious stuff. Mandatory is Middle Name. I don't have one, but it won't let you past if you leave it blank. There's a dropdown demanding "Please type the father name'. I typed my father's name...and now on my application confirmation I am known by my first name and my father's, but with no family name.

Apparently optional, strange information is asked for. For example after First Name, Middle Name, Family Name it asks for Other Names. And Famous Name.

Something lost in the translation or a basic lack of communicating what they want maybe?

For the delivery address you can put in Dubai for emirate...but again the dropdown menu for City and Zone defaults to Abu Dhabi, they won't move to Dubai.

There were location inaccuracies and some fictitious answers entered by the website but I'd lost patience by then and just printed it.

I'll attempt to get to an office to finalise it next week.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

I guess, welcome to the national ID hell!! I've been trying to get my application filled like this for days now, and I haven't taken the print due the wrong values coming in the final page.

I'd rather not click the 'I certify....' when I know there are wrong values in the form!

Anonymous said...

You are indeed brave people delving into the e-world of a Dubai based Govt Authority....

Seabee said...

Saurabh, I just don't have the patience to keep on cancelling and starting again time after time.
Four hours to complete a few questions on a simple form is more than long enough for me!

Anonymous said...

If you're fed up with 4 hours, then try waiting 5 hours at one of the registration centres... that's what our PRO had to endure yesterday morning... as did hundreds of others who apparently had fixed "appointments". I'm not going to register just yet - let's see what next month brings. After 10 years in boom-town, my nerves are far too fragile to be, once again, screamed at by some incompetent government employee.

Anonymous said...

Well - I got up at 6am this morning to fill in the form - it is much more manageable and the pages actually load up in a speedy 20 seconds or so. Why can't these people get their website launches right?! I remember the Salik website fiasco...

Anyway, selecting your Emirate now does bring up the correct towns in that Emirate, but it still takes 10 seconds for those to appear.

My only problem is that the barcodes didn't appear on my printer. Arrrgh. I had to save every barcode image separately, copy them into Word and print them out that way. Very painful.

i*maginate said...

I was looking at the thang out of curiousity ... famous name part made me laugh. Sorry, no explanation for that, no matter how much u try and dig down into the "mentality" of what inspired the poor lingo on this form, and what is expected!

(How is this info interpreted, I wonder?! lol)

Another funny story in the chapter of you know where...

german guy: Ordnung macht den Meister...

CG said...

We did ours in April or May this year, and the Arabic was just as bad, so don't blame the translation! I thought it would have been sorted out once more people used the service, obviously not. Also, all of our bar codes worked except one of them...grrrrr, they said we had used the wrong kind of printer, but how come the others were fine? Bash your head.

Elle said...

I have had exactly the same experience as you CB. I did a short blog entry on my side. My bar code didn't even print. How can they expect one to use a certain type of printer. What if you don't have that type???? Do they actually tell you what printer to use?

I also couldn't get the application to save properly. It seemed to want to save in Html. It also wanted me to save each page individually otherwise it didn't keep the info.

They would be so much more effective if they went to each company (they would have a captive audience)and did their employees en mass. I'm not rushing to any registration center just yet. There is no way I'm standing in a queue for 5 hours! As it is I'm ready to get the hell out of here. 10 years has been more than enough for me.

Anonymous said...

pointless waste of time...Oct 28 edition of Gulf News annouced we could pick up registration forms at Emirates Post Office. Went to Rashidiya and was met with thousand yard stares all round...no one knew anything about it. Tries website again...still no better...besides the name fields dont match whats on my passport (ie no field for "family" name"). I'll give it a miss..I do my banking on line and visa doesn't need renewing for 18mths...by then I will have had enough of the incompetent people that try to organise things like this here..bah humbug...I"m over it!! JUST SAY NO!!

Unknown said...

Why is the updated website worse than the previous one? Is theren't any one in UAE who can speak english in a way the language is being spoken???????????

Unknown said...

It is sad to see such a pathetic website for such an important documentation! Even a child in a primary school will have more common sense than the person who has created it!

Seabee said...

Balachandran, I'm afraid that's the case with many - maybe even most - websites here. They are incredibly badly designed, hard to use and very, very rarely updated.