DCP Frequently Asked Questions

System Response

• Occasionally, the response of the system seems very slow.

Reason:

Like any other Internet applications, the response time of the DCP system is affected by the following 3 factors:

1. User's internal network traffic conditions - Some users access the Internet via their internal network (rather than using direct Internet connection from their local PC such as broadband). Under such circumstances, the speed of the Internet connection would very much depend on the number of users sharing and using the same Internet connection at any one time (i.e. the larger the number of users, the slower the speed).
   
   
2. Public or Internet Service Provider's (ISP) Internet traffic conditions - After the data have been sent out from the user's internal environment, they will first flow through the ISP's network and the public Internet, which may also affect the speed of the transmission, before reaching Tradelink's system. The degree of the effect depends on the quality of the ISP's network / service and also the overall traffic at that time (i.e. generally slower during "peak" hours).
   
   
3. Tradelink's system loading - When the data reaches Tradelink, it will be processed by Tradelink's internal system which is currently running on multiple servers. Like any other systems developed by Tradelink, the design of the Tradelink DCP system is based on user requirements for high availability, performance and reliability. The system is constantly being under close monitoring by a team of experienced and well trained operation staff.




Suggestion:

On user's side, if slow response is being experienced, it is suggested that, user to try to access other secure Internet services, such as Internet Banking services and compare the response time from those sites. If the response time is similar, it is most likely caused by the first two factors mentioned above. In that case, you may want to contact your internal network administrator or ISP to see how they can help improve the speed of your Internet connection. Or if you suspect that the system loading is high, you may try to reconnect to the system a while later. Besides, you are as always most welcome to contact our hotline at 2917 8881 for enquiry.

• After a permit application is prepared, the browser seems to have no response and hang up after I pressed the "Preview and Send" button.

Reason:

After a user presses the "Preview and Send" button, some validations would be performed in your local PC which may take a while depending on the processing capacity of your PC and the number of line items of your permit application. For example, the system will check if the DC code is valid or not to avoid later rejection of permit application by the backend systems of Tradelink or Government. As a rule of thumb, the larger the number of line items, the longer the validation time would be required. Here are some measurements for your reference:

For First Duty-Paid permit with 99 items:

PC configuration: Intel Pentium 200 MHz MMX with 96M Ram
Validation time: ~7 minutes.

PC configuration: Intel PIII 550 MHz with 64M Ram
Validation time: ~4 minutes.

PC configuration: Intel P4 1.5GHz with 256M Ram
Validation time: ~1 minutes.

Please note that the above figures should be used as reference information only and there are other factors (e.g. any other applications such as MS Word, Excel being running concurrently on the same PC) which also affect the processing time.

Suggestion:

When preparing the permit application, you may try closing other applications. For users who need to prepare permit applications involving large number of line items all the time, more powerful PC configuration is recommended. The current recommended configuration for high volume user is:

• Recommended set-up requirement:
  
  Pentium III PC with 733 MHz CPU
  256 MB RAM
  10 GB free hard disk space
  Super VGA Monitor
  Mouse or Windows compatible pointing device
  Window 2000
  I.E. 5.0 or above which support Big 5 characters set, i.e. for Chinese application, it should support Big 5 and Chinese Character set which is commonly used in Hong Kong but not found in Big 5.
  Access to Internet with lease line and broadband connection
  Connect to Laser Printer