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Referrals by Force 9 customers

Penny
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Registered: ‎05-04-2007

Referrals by Force 9 customers

This may have been asked before (?) but I would value some clarification.
Quote from e-mail sent by PN on 5th September:
Quote
You will not be able to access the Force9 website after September 13th.
We suggest that you start using the PlusNet site now to give yourself time to get familiar with it.
Remember, if you're telling your friends about Force9, you should now tell them about PlusNet to get your My Referrals discount.

Quote from Comms Team Blog about "One Portal" (referenced in issue 11 of Plus Newsletter today:
Quote
9. I have referral banners pointing to Force9/Free-Online, do I have to change these?
No, these will continue to work as normal, but any people you refer will need to signup for a PlusNet account.

(thus far I understand)
but then (from same Comms Team Blog)
Quote
13. When will the changes be made?
You can log in to both your usual portal and the PlusNet portal now.
From September 13th you will need to log in to the PlusNet portal only.

If the Force9 portal (and, presumably, website) will not work from 13th September, how are the referral banner URLs that include a Force9 address going to divert to the correct referral account?
If someone at the F9/PN end (Mark, I assume this is your territory!) could explain this in words-of-one-syllable, I would appreciate this Smiley
Regards,
Penny.
Penny Rollo * * * joined Force9 on 17/02/98 * * * with PlusNet from 2000 onwards * * * personal website at pennymidasrollo.plus.com
Project HappyChild website (free educational resources for kids and schools, plus directory of charities helping children) 1998 onwards
Superusers are not PlusNet staff but do have a direct line of communication into the business to raise issues, concerns and feedback from the Community.
8 REPLIES 8
James
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Re: Referrals by Force 9 customers

Hi Penny,
These will continue to work.  There'll be a redirect to ensure that your referrals continue to be accrued.
Penny
Superuser
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Posts: 1,309
Thanks: 809
Fixes: 8
Registered: ‎05-04-2007

Re: Referrals by Force 9 customers

Quote from: James
These will continue to work.  There'll be a redirect to ensure that your referrals continue to be accrued.

Appreciate the reassurance but I don't understand *how* such a redirect would work.
I understand how (say) an .htaccess (404) diverts any wrong page address site-wide to a specified page (so on my site - which is the only major place I have used this - any "wrong" addresses would all be diverted to the welcome page).
But how does a redirect from (say)
http://www.f9.net.uk/myreferrals/new.html?WRKUh%2Fz%2FuZ5dXmEjImm%2BIL9nTnJuh0Iz5hWicxRLQNM%3D
(which is the link from one of the site referral banners) get to the PN equivalent, and not just some default page?
Some explanation of the mechanics would be appreciated as I haven't - yet - fathomed how it would be possible to achieve this.
Regards,
Penny.
Penny Rollo * * * joined Force9 on 17/02/98 * * * with PlusNet from 2000 onwards * * * personal website at pennymidasrollo.plus.com
Project HappyChild website (free educational resources for kids and schools, plus directory of charities helping children) 1998 onwards
Superusers are not PlusNet staff but do have a direct line of communication into the business to raise issues, concerns and feedback from the Community.
James
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Posts: 21,036
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Re: Referrals by Force 9 customers

You could just accept that I'm telling you the truth Smiley
I've had reassurance from Mark that it will work, so that's good enough to me.
Penny
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Posts: 1,309
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Registered: ‎05-04-2007

Re: Referrals by Force 9 customers

Quote from: James
I've had reassurance from Mark that it will work, so that's good enough to me.

Well he's right Smiley  Just occurred to me to go and test it by opening up the "My Referrals" page for the Force 9 a/c on the PN portal (in Firefox) then opening up a separate browser window in IE and clicking the link.
On refreshing "My Referrals" there was, indeed, "one more referral banner click" registered.
Impressed.  Still have absolutely no idea how it's been engineered but so long as it works I guess I don't need to worry about that Cheesy
Regards,
Penny.
Penny Rollo * * * joined Force9 on 17/02/98 * * * with PlusNet from 2000 onwards * * * personal website at pennymidasrollo.plus.com
Project HappyChild website (free educational resources for kids and schools, plus directory of charities helping children) 1998 onwards
Superusers are not PlusNet staff but do have a direct line of communication into the business to raise issues, concerns and feedback from the Community.
James
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Posts: 21,036
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Registered: ‎04-04-2007

Re: Referrals by Force 9 customers

Good stuff Smiley
Mark
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Registered: ‎04-04-2007

Re: Referrals by Force 9 customers

Quote
Impressed.  Still have absolutely no idea how it's been engineered but so long as it works I guess I don't need to worry about that

Hi Penny. Glad it works. I was in the meeting when we addressed this in the early days of the project. I wont pretend to know how it works but I saw it working during testing and that has carried forward to live.
Glad of the additional confirmation. I'll ask Kelly perhaps for a better technical understanding 'cause for now, thats about all you're getting from me Smiley
Colin
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Posts: 1,264
Registered: ‎04-04-2007

Re: Referrals by Force 9 customers

Hi Penny
All that happens is when you go to the Force9 URL, the web server tells your browser to go to the PlusNet equivalent instead. The way this works is that the redirect is specifically targetted to the myreferrals folder, and is just set to pass the rest of the URL on when redirecting - all this is hidden 'behind the scenes'.
Penny
Superuser
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Posts: 1,309
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Registered: ‎05-04-2007

Re: Referrals by Force 9 customers

Quote from: Colin
... the redirect is specifically targetted to the myreferrals folder, and is just set to pass the rest of the URL on when redirecting - all this is hidden 'behind the scenes'.

Thank you Colin Smiley  appreciate the insights.  I am just beginning to understand what may be possible with websites when there's a knowledge of "how" to do things;  however coming at the whole process without having learned any of it in any "logical sequence" renders a lot of it initially-incomprehensible, at times, particularly as regards how any given aspect inter-relates with all the others.
Very gradually filling-in-the-blanks but some way to go as yet Wink
Regards,
Penny.
Penny Rollo * * * joined Force9 on 17/02/98 * * * with PlusNet from 2000 onwards * * * personal website at pennymidasrollo.plus.com
Project HappyChild website (free educational resources for kids and schools, plus directory of charities helping children) 1998 onwards
Superusers are not PlusNet staff but do have a direct line of communication into the business to raise issues, concerns and feedback from the Community.