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May 26, 2007
Knock, knock. Who's there? Auditors. (crud).
So I totally understand why we need them, but that doesn't mean I gotta like 'em.
Student Payroll had this little flaw that was missed in the original design. The calculation algorithms grab the most recent payrate and multiply it with the # of hours to get an amount of $$ to pay them. When you live in the present, this works great. However, for those looking at past data it's all wrong cuz the reports are all dynamically calculated ... you guessed it... with their current payrate. So today I found out an auditor is arriving next week to review payroll and our pre-test failed due to this issue.
After SUPRISingly little time, I was able to reconcile to of the most important reports and make things synchronize. Now I just have to update any and ALL reports that use this algorithm. Easy right? Sure, should only take me another few hours, but here's the REAL fun: Effective Jan 1 (most years) is a federal/state minimum wage increase. Our payperiods run the 12th-11th (for reasons I don't even wanna start on). The short of it is that any report that covers multiple calendar years (Dec 2006-Jan 2007) are wrong. The original design was never intended to pay someone two wages during one payperiod. Bleah. What a mess. So today I also updated the timecard view allowing for 100% accurate (even across years) calculations. That can now be compared to the batch sent to payroll for audit purposes. And they balance. 'Course.
Anyway, so not only do we have these updates to do (getting the report payrates to work) but Payroll requires some security updates, interface upgrades and a bit of retooling. This is all to be finished by July 12. Should be an adventure ;)
Posted by ellism at 12:23 AM | Comments (0)
May 25, 2007
Online Housing Application
So progress continues. I've got all but one portion done of the one form required to gather housing information from applicants. A little info tomorrow will provide me with the setup to finish the relatively complicated DOM/AJAX algo-code (algorithm and code). Once the form is PERFECT (which it really needs to be), I can work with Summer, who has been most gracious, to make all the money stuff and banner stuff work.
Then:
- Integrate applicant data into CBORD
- Provide secondary/modified interface (with LDAP authentication) to housing applicants who have already applied to the university.
- Testing and implementation by 7/1
And I've got two more projects due by 7/12. It'll be a busy month. July should be a bit slower :)
Posted by ellism at 2:28 AM | Comments (0)
May 18, 2007
Helpdesk review...
Today John and I spent some time talking about the Residential Computing Landers Lab Helpdesk app. It's a tool that a student programmer of mine once wrote. We use it daily in the computer lab, tracking calls and keeping in communication with students with computery problems.
After our conversation, we have decided to meet tomorrow to review the Helpdesk. John is rewriting the helpdesk and portalize-ing it for simple use through the WOUPortal. So tomorrow we'll do a full audit, looking at the DB design, moving through each page thinking of ways to improve it's efficiency, flow and features.
One thing in particular we'll be looking for are appropriate opportunities to use DOM and AJAX to improve the speed and accuracy of data and searches from the Helpdesk. The goal is not to bloat it, but to use it when we can significantly improve the experience or accuracy without decreasing performance, etc...
I never took the time to review the code or application (the Helpdesk) so tomorrow will be some much-needed maintenance combined with incorporation of new features that we've recently designed and tested. One of those tools (toys) is a feature similar to that of GoogleSuggest.
Honestly, it's an exciting time. The number of tools we have grows each week. Now if we can just get together and share, learn and implement...
Posted by ellism at 2:05 AM | Comments (0)
May 12, 2007
Vercon ... revisited
StaffDev = success;
Yesterday John and I worked on Vercon. Before, when working on it, we had made quite a bit of progress. The difficult DB and technical portions were basically complete. The primary missing piece was displaying the code in a semi-readable and VERY copiable form. That proved to be an ... interesting task.
The initial idea was a textarea. It shows tabs, carriage returns, etc... Seems like just our boy. But the problem is, when dumping the entire contents of a package into a textarea, the inevitability occurs where you use a textarea. The problem occurs when you print the </textarea> tag from the code it actually close the textarea on the page. Then the rest of the code renders like HTML from there on. What a mess.
So, we tried some HTML tags : <code>, <xmp>, <pre>, combinations of the 3 ... all to no avail. Bleah - life was starting to look grim. We had done the 'hard' parts and now were getting hung up on the 'easy' part. On to research. After looking at other people's suggestions - we finally came across a solution (although I had to read it 5 times to realize it WAS the solution).
We needed to replace all the <'s with & lt; and the >'s with & gt;
So we make this function (which only half works ... still) and throw each line through it before throwing it in the textarea. Now it's starting to come together. So being the semi-perfectionist I want it to be perfect. I'm only asking for the world ... how hard is that?
Some links above the textarea allow VERCON users to switch between the spec and body with a simple click of the mouse (only for packages). It's actually cool logic. Then we found some code inconsistencies which we used a clever algorithm to solve. Suddenly we're feeling all kinds of smart and after copying and pasting our output on top of the code, it's found to be identical.
All of this to say that if VERCON makes a backup of your code (which doesn't work yet cuz it's still in test), then you could click the backup date, select all, copy and paste over your code. Instant backup. It's cool, but we still have some work to do. Soon we'll flip on the switch so it'll be doing some real work. Then the real testing begins.
The final, pan ultimate step for VERCON is the hopeful possibility of being able to click a button to overwrite your existing code with the currently viewed backup. This would allow users to instantly switch between code with a mouse click. How's that for backup and recovery? But that's still a ways off. Not to mention that I have 4 StaffDev topics, so VERCON doesn't get as much love as it should. But one day...it'll work too good. And it'll save someone's life (code) - as it did mine already...
Posted by ellism at 12:03 AM | Comments (0)
May 4, 2007
Developer Meetings ... needed
So MikeR and I had a good conversation today.
Status quo is something that I lack interest in. I always like pushing forward, discovering, finding new technologies, playing with fun toys and making things work. Lately, I think as a department, we (UCS) have developed some good technology. But I think we all suffer from:
- Feeling too busy
- Doing two peoples' work
- Fighting distraction from clockin to clockout
- Having breathing room to stop and think, daydream, innovate, be creative or think real big
- Pressure to complete current projects quickly without giving them 100% so we can get to the next project(s)
Mike and I talked about having more developer meetings. Are you cringing inside? I'm sure some of you are. We've had them before and I know some people saw no benefit from them. So I'm challenging those of you who didn't find any value in what we DID - What can we do NOW to improve our communication.
How can we stop re-inventing the 'wheel' to save ourselves and each other time?
What technologies or improvements have been made that others can/should use?
Are there some directions we'd like to take things to better serve our students?
Can we agree on those directions and communicate these successes to campus?
Perhaps I'm becoming somewhat of a Technology Evangelist, but it seems like every organization needs a few. I'm not some crazed techno-freak who believes in technology for technology's sake. But by stopping here and there and working together, I think we can make better progress in the long run. I don't always wanna be working so hard, nose to the grindstone, that I forget where I'm going ... or why. What's wrong with stopping and evaluating and refocusing?
I totally believe that it's better to take 4 hours now and learn/develop/build something that will save me 3 minutes each day from now on. Eventually it'll be worth it. Take DOM for example. Nice technology, but with near-infinite application. I can now write code to do things in one procedure that used to take me 3. I can improve the end-user experience. Sure it took some time to learn, but it's saving me time now (not overusing new procedures, testing cross-browser JS, etc...). And I think we serve the students and WOU campus community better as a whole.
I'd like to begin again and have the programmers meet on some kind of regular schedule. Let's talk about what we've done, how it works, do demos and make some decisions. As a team, we can move forward faster. Let's face it, without more money and staff all we can do it work more efficiently - not harder. I wanna stop working hard and start working smart.
Nerds of the world untie. You have nothing to lose but your...
Posted by ellism at 11:12 PM | Comments (0)
May 2, 2007
Oracle and Computrition
Among the other projects I'm spinnin', I've been working with Computrition support to get some end-user issues resolved. I won't go into the issues, but yesterday I made a breakthrough.
After some playing my laptop starting working correctly (at least on the one issue I'm pursuing). OK, so on to the desktop. Not so much. After hours of installing and uninstalling the Oracle 10g client and the Computrition app ... and hacking my registry ... still nothing.
So more fighting, moving some files, renaming directories - spoofing the registry. Ah, success.
So I figure - easy (yeah, right). But doable. So I headed downstairs to duplicate the 'solution' - aka trashing everything and starting again. I think it's related to having an oracle 8i client AND an oracle 10g client, but I'm really not sure yet. But things downstairs on that machine didn't work. Weird. So back to square/circle one. I thought I was super close, now I'm not so sure. Maybe my computers just work cuz they fear me. Wouldn't be the first time....
Anyway so thursday I'll call support and have them talk me through a full purge and reinstall. Then we can try again. Here's hoping!
Posted by ellism at 2:03 AM | Comments (0)