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Inconsistent Treatment of Phone Numbers-ClubRunner Web and ClubRunner App

Discussion in 'General' started by Richard Blakeman on Aug 12, 2020.

  1. Richard Blakeman

    By:Richard Blakeman-  Aug 12, 2020
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    We are having issues arising out of the way ClubRunner displays phone numbers on the website and the way it uses them in the ClubRunner App.
    In the Member Profile ClubRunner requests the number in international format eg. for a mobile phone in Australia the number in international format is expressed thus: +61 408 123 456

    When displaying this number in the list of executives, or in the Member Directory, or on Volunteer Lists, ClubRunner leaves out the prefix +61. That is fine, however it also leaves out the leading zero that is required when dialling that number locally. When displaying the number for local dialling, the display should be thus: 0408 123 456. However ClubRunner displays the number as: 408 123 456

    I tried overcoming this by inserting the zero in the member profile: +61 0418 123 456. The number then displays correctly on the website and Volunteer lists etc. i.e as 0418 123 456

    However the ClubRunner App for mobile phones accesses the full number as it is shown in the Member Profile and tries to dial with the leading zero: +61 0408 123 456 - and the caller gets an 'invalid' number response.

    Can we please have this inconsistency addressed? Ideally the ClubRunner Mobile app, if it must use the international format, would simply ignore the leading zero when actually dialling. I notice that Google Contacts works that way.
     
    Les Walsh likes this.
  2. Zach

    By:Zach-  Aug 19, 2020
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    Hi Richard,

    During early version of the ClubRunner mobile app, we actually passed just the local phone number, without a country code. For most customers this worked fine, however we did start to run into issues for clubs that had members with phone numbers different than the home country of the club, and clubs in Australia as well reported issues like you did. That some numbers would work, and some wouldn.t You can see some of the discussion we had about this in the past here: https://www.clubrunnercommunity.com/threads/clubrunner-phone-app.193/. The end result of these discussions led us to ensure that for the mobile app, it should always have the phone number that someone would dial from another country. This ensures that the phone will always dial the number correctly.

    Right now the best practice is to enter the phone number in the international format to ensure the mobile app always dials correctly. I will pass your suggestion for additional localization support for Australian phone numbers to see if we can handle both cases to our Product team for their consideration in future updates.
     
  3. Richard Blakeman

    By:Richard Blakeman-  Aug 19, 2020
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    Hi Zach. I'm not sure whether I communicated clearly what the issue is. The phone numbers displaying in the international format in the ClubRunner app is fine. The problem is that in order for the ClubRunner app to work so that we can dial people via that App. we must drop the lead zero after the country code from the number when inserting into the Member Record on the website . The problem is that the lead zero is then also dropped from the various numbers listings on our website, where ClubRunner does not use the international format. It would be very helpful if you could either fix this, either by (1) Allowing the zero to be added to the contacts record on the website, but amend the ClubRunner app so that this zero is ignored when applying the international format or (2) Amending the website to use the international format. Option 1 is preferred. This is not just an Australian issue. Most countries require the lead zero unless the international format number is dialled in my experience.
     
  4. Zach

    By:Zach-  Aug 31, 2020
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    Hi Richard,

    I understood that you want ClubRunner to handle phone numbers as your members are used to writing them with the front facing 0. Then would also prefer to have the system understand when and where to include or not include that information. This would all fall under localization support!

    I will note that the leading 0 causing issues has only been reported from our Australian customer base. We've not run into issues so far in other regions.
     
  5. Richard Blakeman

    By:Richard Blakeman-  Aug 31, 2020
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    Hi Zach,

    It is not just club members that expect that zero, it is the norm. So external contacts are in the same boat. I can't comment on other countries but ClubRunner's inconsistent treatment of phone numbers is unique in my experience with web applications.

    The impact is this. Members input their phone numbers with the leading zero because this is the norm. When people try to phone them using the ClubRunner app, the dialing fails because the app tries to dial the zero. Members then give up on the ClubRunner App. And that's a pity because the ClubRunner app is a key benefit of adopting CR in the first place.

    It would be good if ClubRunner could resolve this issue and treat numbers consistently, or compensate by ignoring the zero when dialling from the mobile app.
     
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