How annoying is it when the Web page or online tool you are working with times out, forcing you to log in again?
Fairly annoying.
Well, the Airlines Reporting Corp. (ARC), the airline-owned settlement and data service for travel agencies, apparently was fielding a number of complaints about its Interactive Agent Reporting (IAR) tool.
IAR apparently was timing out when agents were gathering data about complicated ticket transactions.
So, now, instead of automatically knocking agents off the system without warning, a pop-up is displayed in IAR when there has been no activity for 13 minutes, ARC says.
“The displayed option allows the agent to either reset the time-out clock to keep the session active or close the IAR system, taking the user to the My ARC homepage,” ARC states.
With agents’ frustrated about IAR timing-out, ARC chose to display the reset option despite some misgivings about the security implications of sensitive passenger information being displayed for elongated periods.
It was not “despite misgivings,” Dennis, but in keeping with ARC’s focus on security implications that we instituted functionality that times out the system unless the agent shows system activity. What was added was a two-minute pop up warning to grab the multi-tasking agent’s attention before timing out.
Allan Muten
ARC
I hear you, Allan. So, there is no change in when the system times out, but you’ve merely added the pop-up warning, right?