PSSA Honours Applications
The large number of PSSA Honours applications necessitated the automation of the Honours application process. During the first round of online entries certain areas were identified and enhancements have now been put in place to help the honours applicants ensure that their entry is correct. Enhancements have also been made which will help in the automation of the process.
Sort My Panel
The most important user interface enhancement is the introduction of a sorting feature to ensure that the panel is going to be displayed in the intended order (originally, the sort order was determined by your photo entry number, but once entered, the only visual confirmation was via the download of the proof sheet).
From Revision 1.6 of Photovaultonline.com onwards, you no longer type the photo entry number. The photo entry number is automatically generated using your Panel reference number and the position (sort order) of the photo in your entered panel. If you want to change the position of a specific photo in the panel, simply click on the "Sort" link and change the order. The photo entry number will be regenerated automatically to reflect the changed sort order.
Visual confirmation
Panel Entry Screen
- The photo title as originally assigned in "My Photo Vault"
- The generated photo reference number, based on
- The panel reference number
- The position in the list of entered photos relative to the other photos
- A checkbox that is used to indicate a previously awarded credit. To mark a photo as a previously awarded credit, tick this checkbox.
- A checkbox to identify a manipulated photo in a mixed panel. To mark a photo as a manipulated photo, tick this checkbox.
My Entry Overview Screen
At the bottom of the overview screen you will see a summary of your entry. Each photo will be preceded with its panel photo reference number, followed by the letter "M" for manipulated photos, and then followed with the word "credit" in brackets for previously credited photos.
The original title of the photo (as named in your personal vault) will also be displayed as a visual confirmation of the order of your entry.
Preview My Panel
Panel Reference Number
In order to automate the honours panel submission it was necessary to change the panel reference number format. In the past the numbers consisted of 2 number pairs linked together by a slash (example 10/60).
The first very important change is to replace the slash with a hyphen, thus the number 10/60 must now be written as 10-60. This was necessary as the slash character is not allowed in filenames, and we use the panel reference number to generate the filenames for your photos.
The second change is to the panel reference number itself, but this will only have an influence on new applications (new applications from 2011 onwards). All panels previously entered will keep their current reference number for all resubmissions.
For all new applications the panel reference number will consist of 3 sections. For example: 11-1-60
We've added an extra character between the previous 2 number groups. This new character is an indication of the application session when the number was assigned to your application (a 1 indicates a new application in January while a 2 will indicate a new application in June).
The first 2 digits still refers to the year in which you received your application number while the last 2 digits are a sequence number for internal use.
Finalise My Entry
The last major change for honours applications is in the behaviour for the "Finalise my Entry" button. The first change you will notice is that the button is not available until you've entered all the photos for your panel. Secondly, you must take note that once you've clicked the finalise button, your panel is submitted and you will not be able to make any more changes to the panel.
Both these changes are necessary to streamline and speed up the honours application process. Firstly, during the first online entry in 2010 some applicants finalised their entries without all the photos assigned, resulting in an incomplete application. Secondly, in order to handle the large number of applications for one session it is necessary to start downloading the application images as soon as an application has been finalised - to download all the photos only after the closing date just takes too long. (The total number of photos that were downloaded for the June 2010 honours session exceeded 1 Gigabyte!)