Minnesota Reservation System is Down Hard

Click the "Minnesota's challenge" link at top left
to see the referenced article in The Free Press

Minnesota's challenge (ongoing since March 1) is an unfortunate example of why it's so important to be able to scale for the kind of demand the state experienced when they opened reservations 20 days ago. They have been down since the system was brought to a crawl that first day (actually in the first couple of hours as I understand it) by campers trying to book sites in state campgrounds.

Unusually high peak demand is why we designed Hercules™, the Leisure Interactive online reservation and property management system, to be able to scale elastically (up and down based on supply and demand, 24/7), and also by adding planned resources (for scheduled periods of pent up demand, such as the first day of reservation season). With over 800 commercial and public agency clients, Hercules is the #1 online reservation and property management system for commercial campgrounds and marinas in North America.

I wish we had seen the Minnesota RFP when it came out. Apparently they only had two companies bid, and the one they selected promised call center jobs in-state. Our call center system allows us to connect remote operators anywhere in the world if need be. Looks like they are going to try to slowly bring the system back up starting Thursday.

BTW, the article refers to an "electronic double whammy." I'm not so sure that's the case. You really do want to be working out of a centralized database to avoid the possibility of double-booking a site (or the need to allocate inventory between online reservations and the call center, which is a management headache). I don't know how the Minnesota system is configured, but I find it difficult to believe they are using the exact same application in the call center as campers use to book online. Same database, sure, but same app? Maybe. I mean if it were a different app, they should have been able to accept reservations through the call center while they worked out the issues with the online reservation piece. Of course, the call center would be swamped in that case with three to four times normal demand.

The way Hercules works, state parks staff could fill in the gaps, and accept reservations from any location for any location. Or, you can temporarily scale your call center to meet demand. What a nightmare. I feel for the Minnesota State Parks team and for their campers. It will be three weeks tomorrow. Sincerely, best of luck, guys.