How laptop delivery works

{{draft]} From Kim's email to support-gang - ok for public consumption. Nikki is making a flowchart of the process to make it easier to digest.

1) orders come in from three sources: Credit cards, paypal orders, phone orders; via two companies: Paypal and Patriot.

2) All orders go through some manipulation and get consolidated at the Patriot database. Patriot has the list of orders, shipping/billing addresses, emails (whenever possible).

3) Then the data goes through a second level of manipulation as they are sent to the Brightstar database.

4) Brightstar gets laptops from our manufacturing partner, Quanta (China).

5) They have to open them, upgrade them, basic test (which includes using the keyboard and mouse and ensuring the correct version is on the laptop), repackage them, print labels from the data, and ship them.

6) If the laptop is returned as unable to deliver or RMA (replacement request) it goes to Brightstar. Brightstart doesn't have email addresses or the ability to send out messages to donor base. Notifications about shipping have to go back to Patriot to get sent out to donors.

We have direct access to the Brightstar (shipping) database. If an order doesn't show up there, it means it hasn't made it to shipping. I don't currently have access to the Patriot database, but I will ask for that as part of my plea to help Patriot answer questions more quickly.

One of the delays that held up orders was PO boxes. Brightstar's contract with fedex didn't allow shipping to PO Boxes. When it was first discovered that the paypal orders did not restrict shipping addresses to PO Boxes, the first response was that the overworked people at Patriot (who don't have enough time/people to answer all the calls) were asked to call or write to everyone to get a deliverable address. Needless to say, there were many people they couldn't get a hold of.

So the second solution was for Brightstar to open a special account with UPS who will deliver to PO Boxes. I believe they expected to have that completed a week ago, which is how they came up with yesterday's date when everything would be delivered. I believe I read that it was delayed a little bit, but ready to go as of Monday -- I will confirmation on this and send out any news I can get.

But let's not kid ourselves that this is going to be the only reasons why people have not received their laptops. Everyone needs to be treated as a special case and we will help them. Someone in the office had their laptop shipped to OLPC and never got it. It says on the fedex delivery that it was returned, not deliverable.