biggish data

I'm a computer systems analyst, so I design and develop systems and applications every day. If I had been given the contract to design a more efficient system for GUZ, here's what I would have done instead...

The CGI Stanley website works good except for two things...

1) The visa fee payment procedure should allow payment from non-Chinese sources as well, not just a Chinese issued "Union Pay" debit card or a personal visit to a CITIC bank in China. CGI should implement an intermediate entity to manage payments made from non-Chinese sources. That entity would then forward those payments to CITIC. Yes, this would be additional overhead, so that option would come with an additional fee, which probably every applicant would be willing to pay. Those that did not want to pay that extra fee would have to pay CITIC directly.

2) Interview scheduling does not take into consideration the time that each applicant pays their visa fee, allowing the more fair method of the "first come first served" basis to continue. Here's how: When the applicant pays their visa fee, their case number is placed on an internal list. This list protects their "place in line". Once GUZ releases a batch of available dates to CGI, these dates are entered into the CGI System as they are now, however, each user does not see the same available dates. The dates displayed to any given visa applicant is filtered based on their ?place in line?. When GUZ releases a batch of interview date time slots to CGI, the website would calculate the number of time slots for those released dates and automatically schedule tentative dates for each applicant based on their protected "place in line" (internal to the CGI database only). The calculated number of time slots would determine how many notification emails to send, one to each applicant who has paid their visa fee but have not yet scheduled their appointment, in order of their protected place in line, telling them that GUZ has released new time slots. Not all "fee paid" applicants would receive an email, just the ones that have a "place in line" number lower than or equal to the calculated total number of time slots. Each applicant receiving this email would go to the calendar, but they would potentially not see the same open dates on their calendar as another applicant. Let's say GUZ interviews 100 people each day. If the viewing applicant's "place in line" was 101 or higher, this would block the first available date from that applicant, making it show as "unavailable" to that particular applicant. If he was 201 or higher, this would block the first and second available dates from the user, and so on. These tentative schedules dates for each user would expire after a reasonable amount of time. I'd say give them at least 24 hours. They've received their notification email, so they should proceed to schedule their actual interview date. If they don't do it before the expiration time, they won't lose their place in line, just their tentative scheduled interview time slot. That slot then becomes available to all the other applicants after him (those who received an email) plus one more applicant, all who happen to have a higher "place in line" number, applicants who paid their visa fee after he did. The additional applicant added to the list due to the other applicants expired tentative schedule, will then receive an email. Every other applicant ahead of him would have his ?place in line? bumped up one position. Since the applicant who allowed his tentative scheduled date to expire did not lose his "place in line", he still sees the same available dates, so he can still schedule his actual interview date for the same date as long as someone else does not get to it first. Once he schedules hia actual interview date, the other applicants after him would have their ?place in line? bumped back down. Before his tentative scheduled date does not expire, he is guaranteed to see that date on his calendar as "available" unless someone ahead of him decides they want that slot. This could get very confusing to explain, but the essence of the logic here is that applicants would ?stay in line?. No other applicant would be able to ?cut in line? to schedule their date earlier than someone ahead of them in line. After an applicant schedules his actual interview date, he is taken out of the ?place in line? list altogether, and everyone ?place in line? would move accordingly. I would also program the calendar to hi-light the date on his screen with a different color indicating this is the date of his tentative schedule. He's not limited to that date, but it will show as the first available date. After expiration, the color would change. This would probably occur simulataneously for any applicant who have their tentative schedule on that same date. If 50 applicants neglected to schedule their actual interview date before expiration, then 50 slots would suddenly appear on other applicants screens. After all the remaining 50 time slots were snatched, that date would no longer be available to anyone, as all 100 slots have now been permanently scheduled.

The benefits of the old system and those of the new system would now be accomplished.

This probably needed a lot more explanation, but if anyone?s interested, feel free to ask questions.

rawlsca

Male

China

2013-06-24 12:01:00

It appears that is exactly what will happen. As of March 16th, when they changed their procedures to shift the burden of interview scheduling to the people wanting a visa, this has become a race. Whoever hits the calendar the most often to check for dates will be the winners. Let's step back a moment to review the GUZ decision to change the process...

Before March 16th: GUZ staff would 1) pickup a P3 packet received from applicants from the stack on their desk and 2) assign the next available interview date to them, 3) send them their interview packet. Done. Then they'd pickup the next visa application from the stack and do the same thing. They'd keep going until either their stack of P3 packets were gone or the business day was finished. Each day, they'd repeat the process. Interview dates are assigned according to who sends their P3 packet in first.

After March 16th: GUZ staff would send an email to each applicant telling them they have permission to go to the CGI Stanley website and follow instructions. Once a month or so, GUZ staff releases a batch of dates for interview scheduling to CGI Stanley. The GUZ staff member work is finished after just a few seconds per P3 packet. Each applicant receiving this email would 1) go to the CGI Stanley website, 2) pay their visa fee (a potentially terrible experience as I've described before), 3) join the race to secure the next availabe interview date before someone else snatches it away from them. Interview dates are assigned to those who hit the calendar website the most often, regardless of when they sent in their P3 packet.

Conclusion: The system was changed from a simple "first come first serve" method based on P3 packet receipt, to a system where every applicant must hit the website several times every day to grab the next available interview date when it appears. Whatever date they get will depend on how often they hit it. This creates a tremendous amount of work on each applicant's part (spanning several days, even weeks) in exchange for removing the few minutes it took for the GUZ staff member to assign an interview date to the applicant and send them their interview packet. Sounds like progress to me!

First of all, I am sad to see that they contacted you but haven't contacted me about this matter...(sad face)

Secondly, I don't know how to take this news. I am happy that at least they have finally responded about this matter and that there will be time slots available for August. I am sad because I don't know what is going to happen in July...a MAD rush of people trying to schedule an appointment. Then what if there are too many people bc I am too slow and August is booked? Then I have to wait another whole month?!

Sorry...just ranting...gotta love your government

rawlsca

Male

China

2013-06-24 10:25:00

FYI, a few days ago, we used the GUZ website to ask them about this calendar problem...

Our message to them: I have my Receipt number already entered into the website by the CITIC bank when I paid the visa fee of 1488 RMB (https://cgifederal.s.../confirmreceipt) but when I try to schedule my interview appointment, it says "There are currently no appointments available." Is this true! What should I do? Please help me!

Their reply back to us:

> Subject: RE: IV Unit - Peng Hong
> Date: Mon, 24 Jun 2013 14:23:43 +0800
> From: GuangzhouIVReply@state.gov
> To: red_2008@hotmail.com
>
>
>
> Thank you for your inquiry.
>
> As the interview schedule for the month of July is already full, please try later in the first week or second week of July for the August interview appointment slot which will be available then.
>
>
>
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Immigrant Visa Unit
> U.S. Consulate General Guangzhou
> 1 Shamian South Street
> Guangzhou, Guangdong 510133
> PRC
>
> To respond to this email, use only the web form at http://guangzhou.use...t-question.html. E-mails sent via ?reply? will not be received.

rawlsca

Male

China

2013-06-24 08:48:00

I agree with Darnell. The evidence I've seen suggests the same thing.

rawlsca

Male

China

2013-06-24 08:34:00

I would definitely not recommend logging a complaint with any entity in China. Besides, they are fully aware of what they are doing and nothing we can do to speed things up on their end. We are essentially "at their mercy" as it were. It sucks, but they hold all the cards. So, we just need to be patient.

So I called the Department of State to see if someone could talk to the embassy, at least get some kind of answers. Nothing from them...they were useless. They just said contact CGI Stanley...even though I told them I already did and that they were just as helpless.

So they recommended me to call the Office of the Inspector General to make a complaint. I made the complaint to the lady on the phone, but when she was telling me the process of what they will do with a complaint, I got a little scared. I don't want a complaint made to the embassy in my name...that will most likely @#$% up my chances of getting an interview, or worse, getting the visa!! Last thing I wanna do is piss off the embassy!!

So the lady was nice and said that she will hold my complaint and we can wait a couple days. If still in a few days nothing from the embassy, I should call back and she can process the complaint.

rawlsca

Male

China

2013-06-24 08:30:00

Last Thursday???!!! Did he say what slots? Were they in July or August?

Wow...I'm stupid. Sorry about that.

I called them and they said that even they don't know what the problem is because its the embassy who makes the appointments, and it looks like CGI Stanley and the embassy don't even have any kind of communication with each other because no one at CGI knows why this is happening (or they know but they don't tell us). He also said that last week Thursday some slots were opened up but were taken really fast.

Is there any way to call the Guangzhou embassy and talk to a representative? I'm getting really sick and tired of this bull@#$%

rawlsca

Male

China

2013-06-24 08:26:00

I'm actually glad to hear that I'm not the only one seeing a blank calendar. I've been seeing it for 3 days now. When I first saw it, I was very frustrated because we have been urgently waiting for our P4 communication, and when we finally got it, we thought the end of our separation would be very soon. Desperate to find out if the blank calendar wasn't just a computer glitch on my end, I searched for a number to call and found one here: http://ustraveldocs....n-contactus.asp

I called the US number and, amazingly, a real person answered. "Jen" was her name. She went to the calendar page on her computer and said she saw the same thing. She was very kind in her speech, but I could tell she was not very knowledgeable about the inside information as to why there were no available dates. I hope there's no political "curtain" being raised in China causing this interview scheduling problem. The news about the stability of China's economy and the ill will between the US and China recently has me somewhat worried that this scheduling delay might be related. Maybe I'm just paranoid, but I can't live without my future wife, so I feel a little panicky about the whole thing. If anyone has any information that can rule out the political "curtain" possibility, please let me know.

Also, before we ever saw the blank calendar, my fiancee had a terrible time paying the visa fee. I don't have a Chinese debit card, so she had to pay it herself (with money I gave her during my fifth and last trip a month and a half ago). She has two Chinese debit cards and neither one of them worked when she tried to pay using their online method. She went to her bank to find out why and they told her there's nothing wrong, that she should be able to do online transactions. She doesn't have a printer, so printing the "advice slip containing CGI Reference Number" as instructed before going to a CITIC bank to pay in person would have been very difficult for her. So I suggested she just go to the CITIC bank around the corner from her home and explain her situation. Fortunately they went ahead and allowed her to pay the visa fee without the document, so she gave them the CGI REFERENCE NUMBER I gave to her and paid the visa fee. When she returned to our video chat , I went to the "Confirm Receipt" page, just before the calendar step, to enter the receipt number and found that the CITIC bank that she paid the visa fee to had already entered the receipt number for us. So I jumped to the calendar page and saw the infamous message "There are currently no appointments available". That started our multi-hour panic session. The worst 5 minutes of that time was when we decided to confirm that I had given her the correct CGI REFERENCE NUMBER. I had, in fact, given her the correct number, but here's what happened next. Since I was already on the calendar page, I decided to go back to the page that showed me this number. It showed no fee was owed and displayed what I thought was the same number it had given me before, 620114496050. But little did I know at the time, the number being displayed was 620014496050. The 4th digit had been changed from "1" to "0", but I did not know this number was different, so I told her the number I saw and the 5 minute horror began! It wasn't the number I had given her before, so she immediately screamed and started crying. We video chat 3 or 4 times a day, so we could also see each other. My heart was broken to see her crying like this. It was the first time I had seen her so unhappy. It was terrible for both of us. The bank had warned her several times that if the number was wrong, they could not give her a refund. In her view 1488 RMB is a lot of money and she had worked so hard to get this paid and, suddenly, we were faced with having given the bank the wrong number. After about 5 minutes of trying to figure out what to do, I decided to look at the screen shot I had saved earlier before she paid. That was when I found that the 4th digit was different. So we realized that she had given the bank the correct number after all and she began to settle down and return to normal, somewhat. She was very tired and stressed out over this whole fiasco of trying the get the visa fee paid. So was I. Being in America, all this was during the nighttime for me, so I was very tired.

Anyway, telling you VJers my story made me feel better. Again, if anyone has any information that can rule out the political "curtain" possibility, please let me know. Thanks all!

rawlsca

Male

China

2013-06-23 17:31:00

How long for Visa to be delivered after interview

Hi Darnell!

We're in the same boat. Here's an email I'm composing...

Dear CGI Stanley,

My fiance's visa application was approved on August 6th and she received her "white slip", saying "Congratulations! Your visa has been approved!".. But, even after 2 weeks, her status is still showing "Administrative Processing", according to this website: https://ceac.state.g...ker/status.aspx. Even the website says this..."If your visa application is approved, it will be processed and mailed or available within two business days. ".I have attached a copy of her "white slip", so you can see it. If you cannot see the following image, I also attached it as a file.

<image>

Her interview and approval was on Tuesday, Aug 6th. But the interview officer did not notice that she had not yet signed the DS-156. She was told not to sign this until she is in the presence of the interview officer. But they both forgot she needed to sign it. I feel this was the officer's oversight, as much as my fiance's oversight. So, she received an email on the 8th to come back to the embassy on the 13th to sign her DS-156. She did this, so her status has returned to "approved" as of Aug 13th. But her status is still showing "Administrative Processing", according to this website: https://ceac.state.g...ker/status.aspx. I fear her visa application package and passport are still in the "221(g)" category or stack. Please check this for us. Her application should now be in the approved category or stack. There is nothing left to process except to issue her visa.

We have met and made many friends in this process who are also K1 fiance visa applicants. All of them (except one other <David> and us) have already had their visa status changed to "Issued".

Hang in there, Davey !

Edited by rawlsca, 18 August 2013 - 09:59 PM.

rawlsca

Male

China

2013-08-18 21:58:00

Thanks Darnell! Is the DoS hotline at this number? .....202-663-1225 (after Sept 6th 2PM eastern: (202) 485-7600)

I found it here: http://travel.state....w/how_1463.html

I think was data error by a human at GUZ IV.

OR the data point mapping between CEAC and some other internal system is mapped incorrectly.

For clarity (sorry) please to contact DoS Hotline and ask for status when they are open. Sure, I know it's infuriating, but they have actual status. When I talk about CEAC with DoS TeleOperators - most of the older staff tell me they loathe that system, as they get lots of phone calls about erroneous status.

-----

of course, if /when it makes it out of GUZ IV, the ustraveldocs website will have more info about passport delivery.

Edited by rawlsca, 01 September 2013 - 03:03 PM.

rawlsca

Male

China

2013-09-01 15:00:00

http://www.visajourn...view=getnewpost

Sure! I'll be happy to. Just as soon as our story has a happy ending. I posted a question I was hoping you had an answer to. Could you please take a look and give a shot at an answer? I'd really appreciate it. I value your oppinion. Thanks Darnell!

If you guys get a chance, please post about where you stayed during the interview, over at

https://plus.google....out?gl=us&hl=en

Sure, it's a google site - but I'm asking for input there.

rawlsca

Male

China

2013-09-01 14:41:00

Darnell, any idea where we US Citizens can take cover from the elements outside while we wait for our fiances to finish their interview? Thanks.

rawlsca

Male

China

2013-07-16 17:26:00

Simple logic that it's gonna be really hot and maybe rain. There should be some indoor location where US Citizens can huddle. It's the human thing to do. Of course, we're talking about China, lol. Is there any indoor location we can wait?

Query - what has lead you to believe that a USCitizen will be allowed through the gate entrance to the IV Unit?

rawlsca

Male

China

2013-07-16 17:07:00

Are you saying there's no indoor refuge from the heat nearby!

rawlsca

Male

China

2013-07-16 17:05:00

Wow, it's gonna be really hot outside and I don't do heat very well. I suffered a near heat stroke many years ago and ever since then, heat has not been my friend. I hope we can find somewhere to store our "gear", otherwise we may just have to leave our cell phones at the hotel a mile and a half away. I hate being without a way to make phone calls, but I hate heat even more! lol

Thanks!

rawlsca

Male

China

2013-07-16 16:46:00

Hey Gregory, is your fiance by chance one of the original "Gang of 6" girls that created one of the QQ groups we've all been using to get our interview dates? If so, way to go!

rawlsca

Male

China

2013-07-16 16:40:00

Darnell, I don't remember where I read it but somewhere it says that we cannot bring any electronic devices into the embassy and they have no storage locker services anywhere nearby to out our cellphones in. Is this true? I also heard that the old location had storage services nearby. Thanks.

rawlsca

Male

China

2013-07-16 16:35:00

Darnell would be the best person to answer that question. But we are also one those who have not received that email notification about the move. My guess is that it's an automated email scheduled to be sent to us a certain number of days before the actual interview date. Since your date is 8/1, you should be receiving your email notification soon. Ours is 8/6

rawlsca

Male

China

2013-07-16 16:31:00

Hey, are you still trying to get an interview date? If so, I have a way that guarantees you will get one quick. I've already told several other members here and they all got theirs this way, very fast.

I think it's pretty much certain that the move WILL occur - aside from the lack of an official announcement, the problem is that people are being left in the dark as to when new appointment dates will be available.

The only way to know (for now) is to keep checking the ustraveldocs web site. Under the old system, these same people would simply sit back and wait for the official P4 appointment letter to arrive.

Not much of a change, really, but a MAJOR headache for those who need to get an appointment date.

rawlsca

Male

China

2013-07-10 11:13:00

Hey where did you get the quote about "Important Notices"? The website does not use the verbiage you quoted. Thanks.

Yay! They're (the visa units) FINALLY owning up to the move (I don't think his was there yesterday

http://guangzhou.use...n/consular.html

rawlsca

Male

China

2013-07-10 09:18:00

Darnell, what do you make of this? http://guangzhou.use...cn/service.html

Thanks! --Clint

rawlsca

Male

China

2013-06-14 15:32:00

I found an satellite image of the new Consulate by searching Google maps (https://maps.google....ps?hl=en&tab=wl) using the search phrase "The New Consulate General in Guangzhou, Guangdong, China". The map is not well aligned with the actual satellite image, so the satellite image of the actual build complex appears about 1500 ft northeast of the mapped location. If you zoom in enough to see the words "The New Consulate General in Guangzhou of the United States" and position that location to the bottom right corner of your screen, and hide the left panel so that the map fills your entire screen, and then switch to the satellite view, you will see the new building complex in the upper left corner of your screen. Here are 9 pictures of the new complex: http://photos.state....ou/47024/GZNCC/ The first picture shows you what the complex looks like from above. Use that to identify the actual complex in the aerial view of the map. The address of the new complex is Huajiu Rd, Tianhe, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China.

I've attached the two views and the building complex drawing to this post so you can see it. Good luck!

The New Consulate General in Guangzhou (map).JPG 128.19KB 0 downloads The New Consulate General in Guangzhou (satelite view).jpg 162.47KB 0 downloads The New Consulate General in Guangzhou (drawing).jpg 27.72KB 0 downloads

Edited by rawlsca, 12 June 2013 - 06:41 PM.

rawlsca

Male

China

2013-06-12 18:35:00