A Venezuelan wacky guy living his Australian dream

A year ago I wrote a post saying how cool the DIAC web site was providing a tool enabling any aspirant / applicant to check their case requirements and some additional information... The truth is (and I started notice this fault later on) almost 6 months later my case didn’t had any update; even when I sent every requirement requested on the web page months ago, the case didn’t had an update and I was worried because I didn't wanted to fail to complain any docs.

Took me an email (I know, an email haven’t killed anyone, but...) to get information related to my medicals. So I started to wonder... Doesn’t the DIAC know how to link up different data sources? Why does my information needs to be in the case officer hands to get some update? Why haven’t they thought in a tracing workflow of some documents giving even more information to the case and reducing dramatically silly inquiries?

As computer scientist and program manager I know these things are quite possible and easy to implement and even though, DIAC doesn’t have it one year later (or more) from the tool's release date; somehow disappointing. From my point of view, someone at http://www.immi.gov.au development team said “lets create a web page so people can check their statuses regarding to their stuff... but how the information will be filled in with different departments data (as the Health Operation Centre) or institutions isn’t really our biz... They will find another way to deal with it!”; creating a very limited tool (maybe that's the intention).

Hopefully someone from the Department of Immigration And Citizenship will read this post and do something about it (please do not deny my visa application because of this constructive critic =P... Seriously, don’t) creating a better experience for those waiting to have any request from our case officers or just to determine if our requirements are fulfilled. Please don’t get me wrong, is a great thing to have at least a small piece of information from our cases, but it might work much more for DIAC as well to determine what’s left without having the officer scanning and searching the folder for pieces of paper or notes.

Those applicants looking for more information... The Query Application Status could be very tricky and out of date at times unless you have a case officer already working on your case or you being very annoying.