[software] Software specialist questions why Government launched vaccine app hours before scheme went live

[King_of_lion]

A leading software specialist has questioned why the Scottish Government launched an app just hours before the covid vaccine certification scheme was set to go live.

Mike Rhodes, CEO and founder of ConsultMyApp, explained to the Record about why the launch of the application on the Apple App Story and the Google Play Store went so badly wrong.

Users of the NHS Scotland Covid Status app were greeted with 'sorry, no match' or 'please try again' matches after it launched at around 5pm on Thursday, however Scots are still experiencing problems today.

From 5am today people attending large events and nightclubs will need to show proof they have had two doses of vaccine using the app before they are allowed in.

Rhodes, an app optimisation expert who has worked with firms such as Deliveroo, Pure Gym and O2, said: “Fundamentally, the primary issue wasn't actually with the app per-se (surprisingly) - the issue was actually on the servers the app communicated with simply becoming overloaded.

The NHS Scotland Covid Status App has been hit by problems since it launched (Image: Daily Record)

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"This meant that when the app was trying to get some response from them, it was left waiting until it eventually gave up and said 'sorry, no match' or 'please try again'.

"This message could of course have been more useful in telling the users that the service was too busy and to try again later on, but the app couldn't really progress any further at that point."

Rhodes added that the failure of the app was not an "unforeseen event".

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He added: "Does this mean the app developers are off the hook? Absolutely not!

"Firstly, it is highly likely that those developers that built the app shell also built the interface to the back-end servers that ended up failing.

"Secondly, this wasn't an unforeseen event - the developers absolutely knew this would be downloaded incredibly quickly and was likely to get hundreds of thousands of people attempting to register at the same time.

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"With that in mind, even a junior developer would know they need to undertake "load testing" - a software testing approach that has been around for decades to ensure that systems under stress don't collapse and simply throw errors back to the user.

"The lack of this testing shows the significant inexperience of the development team, not just in the principles of building an app, but also in the fundamentals behind software development in general.

"It can be fixed, thankfully, by doing nothing.

"As the issue appears to be due to an overloaded server/interface the app itself, it should start to function normally once that load has normalised.

"People should find that throughout the next day or so they will be able to finally register successfully.

"However, it does beg the question as to why on earth would you launch an app with so little time between it being on the app stores and it becoming essential for everyday life!?

"Once again, this shows that governments should look for consultation first with specialist app consultancies in order to ensure these problems simply don't arise, and to guide them through the process from start to finish.

"Simply put, building an app is quite different to building a website and all governments, not just the Scottish Executive, need to learn from this debacle as there has yet to be a COVID-related app release without fundamental problems that could and should have been avoided."

A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “More than 70,000 downloaded the App yesterday.

"This huge demand did mean that some people experienced delays and we are sorry that happened.

"We have now increased the capacity of the NHS systems that sit behind the app – where most of the issues causing delays have occurred – in order to deal with demand and, as a result, we are seeing increasing numbers of people now able to access their records."