A few bloggers have posted that the webcheck feature on the companies house website is closed on Sundays and only available 7am to midnight Monday to Saturday, but no one found out why. I decided to do just this, I sent an e-mail to companies house on Sunday evening and was surprised to get a comprehensive reply on Monday morning. I’m impressed, I just hope we won’t have a tax increase to pay for their new systems!
Dear Sir/Madam,
Our “Company names Index” Index Mainframe systems require updating and maintenance overnight. Our Web Service runs from 7a.m. To Midnight, which is not, 24/7 but does extend as far as we can beyond “normal office hours”.
Our Web Service is a real time system i.e. it is updated daily with substantial amounts of new and amended company information. To allow this to take place the service is unavailable after midnight. Most Web Services that offer 24/7 access have fixed information.
Our main companies information database is held on a mainframe computer, which allows Online Transaction processing between 7a.m. and 7p.m. each day. Hundreds of staff are entering new information and amending existing information daily. At 7 p.m. our overnight batch work commences, which produces Annual Returns for despatch, information snapshots for customers, reminder and default letters, certificates of incorporation and change of name, plus dozens of other essential (sometimes statutory outputs.
In addition, transfers are made to the Web Service of all amended company information collated during the day, plus images of new documents. These amounts to tens of thousands of transactions, which need to be, updated overnight. This is the reason for the service to be unavailable between Midnight and 7a.m
Companies House is currently in the process of re-developing its computer systems, which will enable us to move away from our legacy mainframe systems. This may offer us more flexibility in the future.
I hope this information satisfies your enquiry and I apologise for any inconvenience caused, if you require any further information do not hesitate to contact us.
Yours faithfully,
Dave Sullivan
E-mail Enquiries
Companies House———- Original Message: ———-
From:
To: enquiries@companies-house.gov.uk
Sent: 12-03-2006 16:47:15
Subject: [Case 2722012] webcheckDear Sir / Madam,
I tried to use your webcheck service today and was presented with a message
saying:Access to the service is closed
Companies House is available from Monday to Saturday 07:00 - 12 Midnight UK TimeI am wondering why this is the case?
Best Regards
Andrew Speakman
Hi Andrew - thanks for the comment. I can see why they might have to take their systems offline for a night or so if they’re updating things.
I think it would be better if they could provide a static snapshot via their public servers, and an alternative ‘live’ snapshot that went offline while the statutory stuff was being generated. As long as you tag the information as being older than tonight then you’d be ok. Look at google maps - those picture were taken months ago, but people are ok with it. It should be the same in these circumstances.
Thanks for the comment Pete. I agree that a snapshot of the data would be a way forward. Being government related probably means they have archaic rules to adhere to that restrict what they can do.
[...] Went to the Companies House website online company search just now. I got a message saying they are only open 7am till midnight. Realising that this had to be a joke I did a bit of searching and fount out that actually it isn’t. Their computer system sucks so much apparently that they have to run batch processes in the evening that stop the website from functioning. Apparently, according to Companies House, “Most Web Services that offer 24/7 access have fixed information”. Really? Google, slashdot, digg, wikipedia, etc etc etc…… all contain fixed information. Maybe not. Maybe they’re more dynamic than Companies House. Companies House tracks 2 million companies. Thats nothing compared to google. [...]