Apple Store for Education Chaos

A few days ago, I discovered that the Apple store for education had changed and that I couldn't build proposals to order stuff. The directions were unclear: it said I needed an "Apple ID for Business", which I figured was yet some other Apple account: I've had problems for years because at some point I created two accounts with Apple (one as my regular account and one as my developer account) and Apple invalidated my regular email addresses for developer accounts and, well, let's just say that Apple's never been a database company.

So, I try to build a new account and it says, "Oh! You already have an Apple ID" and puts me into a screen where I need to enter a "Customer number" for my institution to continue. It says I can put in the institution name, but no lookup seems to work. It says I can find the number on a recent invoice, but none of my invoices seem recent enough. When I do put in a number from one of them, the system hangs. So I contact my Apple rep and he forwards my email to someone who replies, but by then the person I was trying to help has left.

It appears that the number is unique ID for our institution in Apple's new SAP database system. I finally get the number and look up my institution and get signed up. But then I'm left at the screen where I can create "Applications" or "Locations" -- with no guidance. I'm stumped for a bit. Eventually, I figure out that I have to create an Application of the type to "get access to a store" and then indicate the store. OK -- just 48 hours in and we're finally getting somewhere. It says to expect an email and here's the email I get:

Date: Thu, 24 May 2012 17:01:35 +0000 (GMT)  
From: My Access 
Subject: Access Request Notification
To: sbrewer@bio.umass.edu
    
[Notification]
[Apple Online Store]
[Your request has been submitted and is being processed. 
We'll get back to you shortly.]
    
[Request Information]
[Request ID:] 100000016422
[Request Date:] 05/24/2012
[Name:] $firstName $secondName
[Company / Institution:] UNIV OF MASSACHUSETTS 
[Customer Account Number:] 39390  
[Corporate Customer Number:] 4603 
[Contract Name:] UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS

Wow. Pretty craptastic. This is an email from Apple -- FROM APPLE -- from the company that supposedly prides itself on customer experience and beautiful interfaces. Blech.

I forwarded the message back and suggested that where it says "$firstName $secondName" they probably had some problem with their code. I get a reply indicating they're aware of the issue and it has already been escalated.

Now I can see why my Institution lookup failed. I was searching for "University of Massachusetts" and "University of Massachusetts Amherst" and "UMass Amherst", but not "UNIV OF MASSACHUSETTS". :-/

I check periodically for hours and find that I still can't get into the store. Finally, around the time I'm leaving work, I see that my account has been approved.

The next day, I finally log into the store and am able to poke around a bit. The store is confusing too. You can't select something and then configure it. Now you're supposed to look at the basic entry, see that there's something you need to change, configure it, and then select it for your cart.

It's not clear why they deployed this system now, when its obviously not ready for prime time. And especially now when this must be when a huge number of educational clients want to order stuff. When I saw the Apple reps on Friday, I asked them about and they admitted this is not "their finest hour". It would be interesting to know what led to this debacle. But more about the Apple reps next.