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See also

• P12 - ChemGrades FMPro DB

Support and maintenance expectations (DRAFT)

For staff

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• Filemaker Server Admin of A&S IT's instance

Terms

• DB = database. As in FMPro DB.

Note

• Please send corrections or changes suggested regarding this page to Oliver at <ChemIT>. Especially if this page can instead refer to A&S IT's directions, as the service provider. Or to instructional staff documentation, as the service user. Thank you!

Support and maintenance expectations

Roles and responsibilities: Chemistry Instruction, ChemIT, and A&S IT

All requests for service from Instructional staff are to go to Chemistry IT <ChemIT> if they have been vetted with Pat Hine.

• Please distinguish between a request to fix something broken ("It worked yesterday!"), or something new needed or wanted (consultation/ design/ implementation).
• For now, keep communications flowing directly between PatH, Dani, and Tu.
  • De-bugging, tweaking, etc.
• After project is "completed" (~mid-Sept?), all requests (for breakage or new feature requests) are to go to ChemITIn an emergency (time-sensitive situation), in addition to contacting ChemIT, PatH Pat Hine may contact Dani or Tu.

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• A&S IT support staff (Dani or Tu) directly, too.

Instruction staff who if making structural changes to their DBs. And if Instruction staff make structural changes to any of their DBs , at the very least must inform A&S staff (Dani or Tu) as an FYI. Making changes may break things or processes.

• Instructional staff are encouraged to involve A&S IT staff (Dani or Tu) if Instructional staff before making structural changes to their DBs.
• Debugging a problem is easier if changes to the source DB is known up-front by those helping with the debugging.
• Backups and restores may not work correctly if structural changes are made.
• There are many, many moving parts to this complex and interdependent system!
  • One example: Uploads to the ChemGrades web site may not work correctly or otherwise need to be tested if structural changes are made.

A&S IT's services and role

• A&S is providing IT provides the FMPro server hosting services.
  • This includes performing and confirming back-ups and restore procedures, especially .
  • Special focus is on addressing an any infrastructure problem at their end.
• A&S IT staff can do Consulting/ Design/ Creation work on a case-by-case basis
  • This will usually require Frank's approval, with negotiated timelines.

For students

Who do If students contact if they have questions or concerns about the web site?

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Grades web site, they are to contact Chemistry Instructional staff. Here is the relevant service FAQ page:

• http://chemistry.cornell.edu/courses/grade-faq.cfm

N.B. The actual Grades web site page <https://chemlabs.arts.cornell.edu/grades/> contains a link at its "FAQ" tab pointing directly to the above FAQ page.

This is similar to what is done for the Waiting List web application, FWIW:

• http://chemistry.cornell.edu/courses/add-drop.cfm
• http://chemlabs.arts.cornell.edu/waitlist.cfm? Do same thing?Would it not be PatH's office? If so, how communicate on the page?

Procedures and processes

Semester-start procedures and processes.

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This In the fall, PatHPat Hine's first pull is no sooner than... (example: 8/29/13 (Thur)). Later for lecture-only courses.

• Initially populating the DB with PeopleSoft data via a PeopleSoft import.This is a one-time event each semester for each course. (Courses The wide range of courses are done at different times, depending on each course.)
  • Do imports in productions course DBs.
    • Can zero out or revert to prior DB if mistake made. If major problem, Pat can also contact Dani or Tu to revert to prior DB during normal business hours.
• At the beginning of the semester (add/ drop period), PatH Pat Hine will periodically grab copies of the back-ups so she can created statistics re: rate of enrollment changes.

Semester-end procedures and processes.

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• PatH Pat Hine pulls the final data from the backups.
  • NOTE: If an edit is done, must wait until that edit shows up in a backup (~ half a work day) and then that backup becomes the "final data" for that course.
• PatH zeroed Pat Hine zeroes out each of the ChemGrades DBs before the start of their next use.
  • PatH Pat Hine does this within FMPro, when she needs it done (varies by course).
• Cut off TA's access to FMPro.
  • PatH Pat Hine does this within FMPro, when she needs it done (varies by course?).
• Some courses must not show the grade of the final exam, per faculty member's requirement.
  • In those cases, PatH Pat Hine will simply not "push" her final data to the web (varies by course).
    • For these courses, grade changes for a student done after the last push (right before final exam grades entered into FMPro, ideally) will thus not show up on the web.
      • These are edge/ rare cases and PatH Pat Hine will inform the student of this fact if a student asks.

DB revert procedure. Initiating request and subsequent restoration from back-up.

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PatH Pat Hine has access to last 7 calendar days of backups, 2 times per day. So, 14 backup files per course at steady-state, whether changes were made or not.

• Backups are made for each course.
• Backups are made around noon (morning data changes) and in the evening (afternoon data changes).
• Each backup's name contains a date and time-stamp.
• Files are located on Instruction's file share (R:\ drive).

PatH Pat Hine can do any restore herself using FMPro, ensuring "low friction" access to the backup files (nobody to contact, not hoops to jump through).

• Zero out course data on the A&S FMPro server.
• Importing Import data from the correct course backup file.
  • Latest version would be from ~half a work day before.
• If PatH Pat Hine needs backup data older than what she has access to herself (> 7 days, so rare), she must contact A&S IT (Dani or Tu) for them to get via back-ups of the SQL server data (or from EZ-Backup).
  • Note that A&S IT's EZ-Backup would itself only have the 3 prior versions. If course DB was changed each day, that's just three backups. If course DB rarely changed, then that can be a long time.

Outstanding actions

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to consider

Make appropriate changes to source FMPro data

• Change all TA access to be by NetID (and FMPro p/w), instead of their name.
  • This keeps the access process the same as it was, but:
    • Enables the correct access restrictions via the web application.
    • Facilitates transition to trueNetIDtrue NetID-based access, as a future project.

Establish procedure for PatH to update web-hosted data. "Push the button".

As of 8/16/13, function doesn't exist for PatH.

• Requires ODBC connection. Not possible at FMPro server; must be set up at FMPro client's computer.
  • Do for PatH's computer. As backup, do on Sam's computer
    • .
  • Current plan: For each computer, set ODBC up as system's Admin (vs. user) so ODBC accessible/ configured for any computer account.

Enable Pat's view of DB data from home.

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• Although the web version may be OK for view-only of some data, it's obviously not as flexible for searching. And there is no way for PatH to make changes through the web version.
• On accasions occasions when PatH needs full access, we will enable Remote Desktop on PatH's main work computer. This way she can do everything she can do when she's at work.
  • She can and does access her computer from off-campus via VPN.

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• Confirm FMPro server access is correct: Functional and secure.
  • Confirm that only permitted staff can access Grades (and other CCB) DBs.
  • Confirm Becky can see what she needs to see.
    • Add a read-only account for Becky.
    • Becky will still be able to exports her data, but no longer using PatH'/ the Admin account.
  • Confirm TAs can see/ edit what they need to edit for the TA room's computers.

See also

• P12 - ChemGrades FMPro DB

Keywords, for searching results

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