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See also

• P12 - ChemGrades FMPro DB

• 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

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For Chemistry Instructional and IT staff

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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).
• All requests (for breakage or new feature requests) are to go to ChemIT, from Instructional staff.
  In 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 Instructional staff want or make 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!
  • An 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 IT provides the FMPro server hosting services.
  • This includes performing and confirming back-ups and restore procedures.
  • Special focus is on addressing 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.

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If students have questions or concerns about the Grades web site, they are to contact Chemistry Instructional staff. Should Chemistry's web page do a better job of refers students to the Instructional staff if they have a problem with the web site?Here is the relevant service FAQ page:

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

N.B. The ChemLab pageactual Grades web site page <https://chemlabs.arts.cornell.edu/grades/

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> 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.

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• • • .

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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