Recently in Programming Category

Within the Course and Program Request application, we were getting long descriptions with formatting by white space (returns, etc.), but of course, when printed back out, the browser renders all white space as one space. I needed a way to preserve the white space when rendering without changing the font type and came across some style code that will work across all browsers:
{
white-space: -moz-pre-wrap; /* Mozilla, supported since 1999 */
white-space: -pre-wrap; /* Opera 4 - 6 */
white-space: -o-pre-wrap; /* Opera 7 */
white-space: pre-wrap; /* CSS3 - Text module (Candidate Recommendation) http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-text/#white-space */
word-wrap: break-word; /* IE 5.5+ */
}

I've added the code to wou_util.css as .preserve_whitespace class. The way I've used it in my program is such:

<span class=".preserve_whitespace"> '||db_object||' </span >

wou_util.css is called in wou_util.pawprint.header, so anything using this template will have the class included.

Last week seemed to be taken up with a lot of error fixes with CPR. First, the archives pages does not take into account if a change requester leaves/retires from WOU and is no longer in the directory. When it would attempt to list that request, it would crash the page. I believe this was also causing the Job that runs the ucs.email program every night to fail as well. I've decided to list the request and requester, without attempting to go out and find the department and division associated with the requester. This will still keep the information on the request, without crashing the program.

I then received an email from Ross yesterday that the email job is crashing again for a different reason. I couldn't duplicate the error in testing, so I changed a couple lines of code and am hoping for the best. I've asked Ross to keep an eye on the job and see if that fixed it.

I've also started on the Scholarship application. The application part is fairly straight forward, but verifying that the student has already applied before filling out the application can be tricky if they did not apply for admissions on line, or their paper application has not been loaded into Banner yet.

I was also wondering how we would reconcile the admin/review part for the app with online _and_ paper applications to review together.

Next week I'll be finishing the new archive page for CPR, as well as getting the scholarship app ready for first round of testing.

Last week I was sick for most of it, so I was not able to get a lot done. I did drive down last Tuesday for my meeting for the new online scholarship application, and then drove back home. I did work on the Application initiation document and on CPR issues that are still popping up:

"...
Notice on the form it (correctly) says:

1. Give a summary of the proposed revisions with rationale/evidence for each.*
Attach a cover letter (1 - 2 pages, maximum 500 words) explaining the big picture, reasons for the proposed changes and the students and programs affected.
2. Give the current catalog description (specify catalog date and page numbers).
Give the proposed catalog description:

Notice on the version that moves forward, it (incorrectly) says:
1. Describe the proposed degree program change(s) in terms of how the changes differ from the program as currently approved and published in the latest WOU catalog (specify the latest catalog date).
2. Describe the reasons for making this change:

The submitted form shows the old version.
...
Other Portal Errors
...
**Notice on P00601 it says that Shaun Huston is the Library Dean in the approver list, so that is not functioning correctly."

I was able to fix most of these issues and then noticed some other issues that were not listing dealing with the New Program option that I fixed as well. The only issue I have left is why some requests for step 3.5 are the same as step 3, instead of having the library dean approve that step. I found the code that does this, but have no idea why, so I'm working on that before I make any changes.

Next week I'll finish the application initiation document for the scholarship app and get started on that.

Issues: I've noticed a number of undergraduate applications that have gotten "lost", that I found to have the graduate app indicator marked, so they no longer show up in the pending list. I have no idea how this is happening, so I'm going to have to figure out what's going on with this.

Back to work in the new year. Though it's been a chilly couple weeks, I have to admit, I like this better than rain, but that's soon to be back.

After time off, there's always a list of issues or problems that have occurred that need to be addressed. So far, here's my list:

- Classroom services request form was throwing errors on submit. Come to find out, it was still using cougar as the mail server. I changed that to outgoing, and then the utl_smtp.helo server to ora.wou.edu. That fixed it, so I did a search on all the code for cougar and changed any place it was used for the mail server, I changed it to outgoing and recompiled.

- The International admissions application is now complete and live. I've changed all the links from the old online application to the new one and also went through and changed the links for the pdf version to the newest one wherever I could find it.

- The graduate admin application to view admissions apps was the same as the one for the undergraduate admin, so I made some modifications to it to more reflect the different process the grad office uses for applications.

- I've gotten two reports that graduate applicants are having a problem inputting their address information. One was second hand email, and I couldn't duplicate it, but the second called and I logged in as her and put in the exact information she was trying and it worked fine. She was using the same browser (Firefox) as well, so I'm not sure what's going on there. I'll just have to keep an eye on it.

- I received an email about a new process for CPR (Course and Program Request) for adding a Writing Intensive Committee. I'm not quite sure how that's going to work, so I'll need to meet with Ellis before I proceed.

- The scholarship application meeting will be next week, which I'm actually looking forward to. I need a new project.

- For the rest of this week, I'm going to attempt to figure out what is going on with the application to banner process. That has just been a nightmare from the beginning, but I hope to have it fixed soon. I know those at the admissions office would be happy to have that fixed.

- Richard told me that some students were still going into the wireless app to "sign up" for wireless service, even though they no longer need to do this, and it's throwing an error. I'm going to do a usertype check and just not let students get that far anymore.

Since I'll be on vacation starting tomorrow, I thought I would try to get as much wrapped up beforehand. I've managed to make all final requested changes to the international application for admissions and have sent it back for final review. That should be in production starting after the new year!

I've also updated a lot of the code for CPR (Course and Program Request). Some of it was stream-lining code, some fixing errors, and adding new code. One of the major new additions to the Course Request side is the ability to re-population a request with the data from a previous request. I've managed to test successfully with a new course, drop course, and change course with all information showing up in the form to edit. I think it makes a great addition to the process. Next I'm going to work on the same process for Program Requests.

I was asked to add a procedure for Registrar once a request was approved as a check list so they can make sure they have everything changed, but I haven't heard back. Very well could be on vacation, so I will attempt contact after the new year.

I received an email after the db migration from Huber about the echeck process (CLM) that the job was not running. Apparently there was a broken db connection after the move and once that was fixed, the job was able to restart and it appears to be working again without problem.

I've finished all the changes needed to the International application for admissions and finished the admin side to reflect all changes. Sent to international for final testing. Yeah!

So I was working on the International Admissions Application, and I realized that I didn't have an option for an applicant to delete a school they've entered. In previous applications, I had to open another window, do the delete in that, and then reload the current page. I decided this time to use ajax. What a difference. I have all the schools an applicant has entered in a list with an x next to each one to delete. When it deletes, it makes a remote call to another procedure that will remove it from the database and removes the div with that school's info in it. It's pretty sweet.

I found the base code here: http://papermashup.com/jquery-ajax-delete/
Make sure you read the last comment, because I didn't and it took me an hour to figure out why the style was all jacked. The download code needs to have:

div.clear {
clear: both;
}

in the style.

I was able to complete the section for the course and program request application to allow particular people to update and manage all the division and department chairs. I was able to get all the division secretaries added to the portal security to access the page and put them into a table that specifies which division they are a part of so they can only manage those chairs.

So I got an email from Mike Huber stating:

Mike Ross was able to kill the job running on ora (the test instance) and we'll be able to test again tomorrow when the job runs again (on production) to make sure everything is working correctly.

We finally were able to have our first meeting to get the online international app started. We were able to go over the current online application as well as the updated paper application. I'll be creating a new online application that will work very similar to the undergraduate and graduate online applications, giving the student a non-ldap account which will allow them to log in, start an application, and come back later to finish, rather than just giving them one shot to submit everything. This will also reduce the load on the international admissions office going through multiple applications from the same student.

We will reduce the number of pages that they are currently required to print out and mail in. They will still need to print the Financial page and of course mail in official transcripts, etc. Eventually, I will make the application load to Banner and possibly to Hobsons (which I have no idea what this is).

Well, we're still on hold about what the business office want to do for the online payment process for the graduate application. I've suggested to Linda, and she agrees, to just make the application live so that students may apply online, but then need to mail the payment in separately. This way, they can start getting online applications right away, and then when the payment process is decided, I can easily add that in.

I've asked for an alias from Ron, and then Linda and Deb are going to decide where to link it from.

The programmers' new office space is FANTASTIC!! It's such a great space with so much storage and work space. It's so nice to have the open plan to be able to collaborate easily with the other programmers. It makes me wish that I was working there every work day. Such a comfortable and conducive work space, they did great designing and building it.

Well, with all the service requests I was assigned dealing with this issue, no one is getting back to me now. I'm going to have to assume that it's fixed, since I could never duplicate the problems.

I also have a meeting next Tuesday @ 12:15 to go over the final sped application. I'll be happy to see this one ended!

I've gotten a number of service requests in the past week dealing with accountlookup. It seems a number of people were getting 2001 error when attempting to set their password. Unfortunately, I have been unable to duplicate any of these issues, which is extremely frustrating. I've even proceeded to change their password and then log into webmail without any problem.

However, when I try to log into the network with their username and new password, I get the message that their account has been disabled. Obviously, this is not the same as getting a 2001 error within accountlookup, but their does seem to be an issue with the cron job to set the AD password after the ldap password has been updated. They could also be students that no longer have AD accounts. I've sent message to those students I could get a hold of to respond and let me know if they are still having issues.

I was asked to write the front-end for the new expedited pawprint account creation procedure. I've got that finished and it's already integrated into the portal. I'm currently the admin, until I can pass it off onto the appropriate person in admissions. It has no users yet, but will be used by staff members for students in SOAR and summer pre-admits that will want accounts before the normal process is run. It puts the vnumber of the student in a specified table which is then picked up by a cron job written by Ron to create an account for that student every 10 minutes.

Getting most of the kinks worked out of the admissions application load into banner. There's still the issue of the charge for the application fee being put on the student record, and when it's needed. Most students should already have it on there as they will be paying online, which puts all the correct records in tbraccd. But when the student does not pay online, and admissions wants to put their data into banner, that can cause issues. It's easy enough to create a new user with pidm and vnumber, but the money part is very picky.

I've also got all the current api for loading data into the banner tables working pretty good. The high school information will not load unless there is an exact match on the school name, so I'm going to see if I can change the application to have a drop down box based on school city and state, with an "other" box. With how many schools are listed in banner now, that other box will not ever be used, but you never know.

My pre-programming meeting with admissions, it was decided to always insert into students as non-residents until it can be manually verified they are a resident and then changed at that time. It was also decided curriculum data would not be auto loaded either. But now it seems both of those decisions may be reversed, so I'll have to make those changes at that time. Hopefully it will be fairly straight forward, but I'll need to research what the correct api would be for those forms.

There have been cases where spaces are being allowed in names of students who are applying on line for admissions. When these students pay, their record is then created in spaiden, using the information they put into the application. Since it appears that students are adding spaces to the end of their name(s), it's creating havoc in banner, making it difficult to find students and search not working.

Doing a search on first name within the admissions table for trailing spaces, I actually got 720 records! I changed those records to remove the trailing spaces and fixed the code when students apply to trim all trailing spaces from names.

I've finally managed to update Teamwork with current projects and also my staff development hopefuls. Yeah me!

I've realized there were quite a number of updated I needed to do since I hadn't been in there in awhile. It's fairly up to date now, and I'm going to try and stay with it. I even noted that I was added to another task put in my Mike H. (Still not quite sure why I'm on this project, but oh well.)

There are a number of annoyances with this application. Noticeably, the links at the top for project takes you to a search page, rather than a list of your projects; the subtasks need individual assignments rather than follow through from the parent with the option to edit; and it's just not a very sexy application, but maybe I just need to spend more time working with it.

IRB Application has caused me nothing but problems, and it has all been connected with the, then required, pdf creation page. Since the numerous changes with the administration of the IRB, it's become non-important. I've therefore decided to scrap attempting to fix this quagmire, and instead just give the option to print an html page. This should solve many of the issues and make it a much more usable application.

It looks like the admissions application is back in the picture - did it ever really leave? Now they would like the admissions application to link with Banner so they no longer have to manually type in the information from the applications (since they are on different DBs). It would have been nice if they'd let me do this from beginning, but alas, politics. At least we're now working with a better credit card piece as well as starting on ACH. Hopefully that will be up and running soon!

Been working on Prism for what seems like too long. I've been making good progress though. I'm currently finishing up all the tallies required for the admin side and the database back end for the courses that are available. Currently they are all being posted to the website by hand. I'd like to automate as much as that as possible.

I've been going off the readoregon site for the formating, but there are some differences I've needed to make for prismoregon.org site.

Once we get courses in and record which students have taken which courses, I'll be able to finish the reports for that data as well.

It seemed like a week of meetings, or maybe that's just because it started out that way- meeting with Ross first thing Monday morning for a pre-meeting to go over our alpha release of the edsmart entrance application. We needed to make a couple last minute mods before meeting with Kimber and Karen. They are now testing and making running lists of anything that needs to be fixed/update/improved or otherwise worked on. Unfortunately, the entrance app that Ross and I have been working on is a completely autonomous database (data cannot be access from original edsmart program). This means that since they are currently trying to input and extract data from edsmart to use, testing this new application will need to be further down on their list, which always pushes off time lines. We're still doing our best and attempting to pull reports when needed directly out of the tables.

Wednesday I watched a live webinar I signed up for two weeks ago on the top 10 web hacks of 2006 and what they mean for 2007, hosted by Jeremiah Grossman and sponsored by whitehatsec. It was quite eye opening and really gave me some great ideas to make my web apps more secure as well as great resources to keep myself updated with the current vulnerabilities, including Cross Site Scripting Attacks: XSS Exploits and Defense book as well as some great follow up reading web sites. I'll be getting a copy of that webinar to hopefully go through again and gain more information then the first time. They did blaze through quite a bit of info.

Thursday I had an informal programmers meeting to go over a few broad issues that turned out pretty good. We hope to continue with the meetings, including all programmers within UCS. We hope it will end up being very beneficial to all, including the campus at large. You'll be seeing great things coming out of UCS very soon, I'm sure!

As usual, throughout the week was the perpetual edsmart project and the usual emergency fixes that always seem to pop up and pull you away. I've also got the chronic backlog of projects in my inbox to follow up on as well.

After a quick scan of my security alerts yesterday morning and catching up on all the early morning emails (how do people get up before 9am is beyond me), I dove back into EDsmart...

• Kimber has issues with faculty list in edsmart
• sent list of all faculty in table for her review/pruning
• Received list of forms that are a priority
• Gate: Pre-Admission
• Entrance Application
• Gate: Admission to Candidacy
• Work Sample I
• Work Sample II
• Disposition: Fld Exp – Academic
• Gate: Student Teaching I
• • Disposition: Fld Exp – Low Inc.
• Gate: Student Teaching II
• Work Sample I: St. Academic
• Work Sample II: St. Academic
• Disposition: St. Academic
• Gate: Licensure-C2
• Summative Evaluation (TSPC Form)
• Data entry priority by years: Year 2005-2006/ Year 2006-2007
• form has dropped those test scores when they pull the form back up
• 5th tab in the SPED area, (Licensure-C2), I get the following error
• Error Code:-936 Error: ORA-00936: missing Expression Location: Location: coed.util.get_data_numvals
• Table :coe_menu Column : id Version: 0 iVersion: version_name: QryID: 19 Index: 1 SQL:

And then there are the typical everyday interruptions that always seem to crop up...

Though I've been attempting to completely focus on EDsmart, as you can see from my list, there are numerous interruptions throughout the day...

• add Kris Sdhuttpelz to user/faculty list. Gave Kimber instructions for Kris to set password
• Added Brynn Carter to user/faculty list. Kimber sent me her password over email! Told her never do that and Brynn needs to change her password again
• Kimber reports better results from users when using IE
• Explained login dynamics to Kimber and that it's instantaneous when they change their password.
• Tried to explain about LDAP
• Received reply from Beverly.
• Some issues resolved with IE
• degree level still coming up blank
• Will be inputing more data
• didn't send me any specific student data so I could test
• Attempted to track how some of the forms where built and displayed
• Received call from Eric with Core Impact as a followup to web demo.
• Received call from Bob Seay about RSA token demo - wasn't able to get implemented.

I've continued to week out by delving head first into EDsmart. As painful as this is, I'm definitely worried about the timelines. I don't believe they are attainable, but I've started anyway. My work list for yesterday included:

• Tracked down and modified insignificant wording issues on some forms - took forever to find.
• Was able to add a couple options to some pull down menus.
• -Slight unintended consequences on other forms. Still figuring out Mark's system.
• Kimber asked how to remove fake students from the system.
• -No indexes on student table, so not sure if tied to ID field
• -there were duplicates and some null IDs - fixed
• -need to back-track other tables to see if those ID fields need to be updated as well - most likely yes.
• Received 2 page list of issues from Kimber
• -first entry will probably take at least 2 months of constant work.
• -gets worse from there
• Set up mtg with Hilda, Kimber and Bill for Wed 2pm
• Kimber had some printing issues. I believe they're fixed.
• Added Judy Marzaleski and Vick Zgorzelski to user/faculty list
• Was informed Beverly is having issues with error messages and blank fields/lost data.
• -emailed her asking for test students so I could start looking into it.
• Was able to fix, or figure out why they were happening, the following issues from the stack left on my desk.
• -Exceptions from attempting to pull from a column that didn't exist on numerous pages - added to table
• -No drop down list of faculty due to permissions - added Beverly to admin
• -Added option of Endorsement
• -Added options if EI 1&2, SPED I and II
• --Unintented consequences to corresponding form - DEFED
• -Options in SPED forms submit to package that doesn't exist
• added Ron Carey to user/facutly lists

I started my week out by viewing an online live demo for CORE Impact, a company my predecessor had contacted about a penetration testing software. Very snazzy, but I believe it's a bit out of our budget. I also came back to a new project ... EDsmart. Apparently a project worked on for years for the College of Education, but was never completed. Now they would like me to finish it up and or fix it. As the code is an absolute nightmare, on first blush it actually looks like it would just be easier to re-write the entire application! This is no small task, plus there's a nasty looming deadline for audits, so they want to be able to pull reports from this application soon.

I received a call from Mark Girod giving the go ahead to finally put the Institutional Review Board application into production. I haven't touched it in months, it's been done this whole time. I moved all the packages from my schema to the irbapp schema and then asked Ron to update the alias for http://www.wou.edu/irb to point to this new application and to removed all the old links. I've informed Mark, but haven't heard anything since, so I'm assuming he's happy with everything.

The credit card processing on the admissions application can take quite a bit of time. Sometimes so much users were closing their browser pre-maturely, causing errors in the processing process and accounting. You can't control users closing a browser, but I wanted to at least give them notice that something was happening.

I created a pop-up window asking them to wait for the credit process to complete, and then closes once the final page loads. This was a lot more complicated than it sounds, and it's taken me all week to figure it out. There were cross domain issues for windows reading information off other windows that I found out about, as well as banner specific issues. Since I was opening the popup from one procedure and wanting it to close in another, I didn't have access to the variable created using window.open.

How I managed to get around this issue was using window.opener.parent.name, setting the name to end in my final procedure. In my popup, I setInterval("checkup();", 1000); to check window.opener.parent.name for equality to "end" once a second and closed itself when that was the case:

<script type="text/javascript">
<!--
function setup(){
  setInterval("checkupdate()", 1000);
}
function checkupdate(){
  if(typeof window.opener == "object"){
    if(window.opener.parent.name == "end"){
      parent.focus();
      self.close();
    }
  }
}
-->
</script>
</head>
<body onload="setup();">

<script type="text/javascript">
<!--
  window.name='main';
  setTimeout("window.name='end'",5000);
  function wdw(){
    var width = 400;
    var height = 200;
    var left = parseInt((screen.availWidth/2) - (width/2));
    var top = parseInt((screen.availHeight/2) - (height/2));
    var winfeatures = "titlebar=no,width="+width+
      ",height="+height+",dependent,copyhistory,left="+left+",top="+
      top +",screenX="+left+",screenY="+top;
    var newwin =  window.open("./hrglass.html", "waitWin", winfeatures);
    newwin.focus();
  }

-->

</script>

</head>

<body>

  <form name="test" action="" onsubmit="wdw();">

The new application for admissions is in production. Ron ran his script that searches the entire site for a particular link and replaces it. We're leaving the link to log into the old application until Oct. 23, when it will be removed, so applicants who are in the middle of an application will be able to complete it, without having to start an all new application. I've managed to set up a job that will start in two months to run every evening and remove applications that have not had activity for two months and that where never submitted.

We're also working on how to create accounts for prospective students. They will not receive a vnumber until they have paid the application fee, so it would not be feasible to create the account until then. We could create a trigger that will run the new user script when the payment indicator is updated, but that will not catch all the students that will apply by paper, or if they were unable to pay online. I'm going to be looking into where admissions inserts the student's information in Banner and if I can create a trigger from there. It will be more difficult to let the student know of the account from that point, however, so there are still issues to be worked out.

I've moved the application to the admissions schema and tested it. Everything looks like it's running perfectly. We're still having testing issues with woudev for the credit card piece, but that's the last step. It should be production by the end of the week.

I finished the student contact application on Friday evening. It will create a list of students based on certain met criteria, such as admit code, decision, status, major, ethnicity, address, gpa, test scores, high school or community college attended, even an individual. Since it's pulling data from banner tables across a database link, it's a little on the slow side, but it all works. We'll need to create a csv file from the students created to upload to a company that can send out emails, rather then send them out ourselves. This will help keep us off spam lists and ensure our emails continue to be delivered.

I'm currently looking into cooleremail, but it looks like it's all web-based, and so would require upload of the email list each time admissions would want to send out an email to a different group of students. This isn't very practical, so I'm still looking at options. Plus it would cost $$.

I have the new application tied in with banner web credit card app on woudev. It looks like everything is in place, but it needs to be tested. The application itself needs to be tested by admissions staff, and the credit card part should be tested as well. I'm still trying to figure out how to do that, shy of using my own credit card.

Tim Bowman asked me to make some changes to the recruit application I had written for him. They were fairly simple changes, and I completed them. Waiting for his final approval before I put it in production. He wants the recruit application data that is collected to eventually be directly linked with the recruitment application that was written years ago. It needs some major changes and updates, so that will take a bit longer. With my schedule, I'm not sure when that will get done.

I finally have the IRB application finished and sent off to Mark Girod for testing. It kept slipping from the priority list, something that happens all too often, but I decided it was time for the last push to get it out the door. I'm really happy that's done and ready before the Sept 1 deadline (when so many of my projects are due). Hopefully Mark doesn't return with a ton of changes or errors and it can be put into production. It's still in my schema yet, so everything will need to be set up in the IRBAPP schema when it's ready to go, replacing the previous one. Then all links will need to be changed. Yeah!

I have exactly one week before I'll be taking a week off for vacation. Vacation being the default term, since I'll actually be replacing my roof during the time I'll be off. I've decided to make sure I have the admissions application done and ready for complete testing during the time I'll be off so that, one, this project will be out of the way, and two, I'll be able to focus completely on the OFAX project as soon as I return. I believe, once the admissions application is moved off of wilbur, that machine can be re-built. I can't remember if there are any other programs in production on that machine.

The admissions application is actually working fine. The end needs to be tied into the credit card package for payment. I've been told that it's working moderately well, but should probably eventually be re-written. Since I won't have time for that right now, I'll just be using the old code. I just need to work on the admin side of the application for the admissions office. For this stage, the application is stand-alone, and the data must be entered into Banner by Admissions staff. Stage two will see it finally tied directly into Banner.

I'm still working on the IRB application. I've decided to work on each section separately and get each piece converting to a pdf document using coldfusion and then putting them all together as one document when each piece works. It will be such a large document, that doing it all in one will be difficult to debug. I've got three of the sections working great right now, only four more to go.

I've had a little down time from EDI while Nathan does his testing. I've decided to try and finish up the IRB application and get that out into final testing for production this summer. I'm currently working on the final step to transfor the entire application into a pdf document that can be printed, signed, and turned in. It's mostly grunt work, nothing too difficult.

Over a year ago, I created a java program for Steve Taylor. Over the migration to MASH, apparently the set-up was wiped out and he now needs to get back to using it. I spent a couple hours this afternoon installing jdk, netbeans, and setting up the code and class files to be used again. It's actually easier to use now since everyone has local administrator on their machines. I set it up on a lab machines as well as his office machine. It's working great and he appears to be happy.

I've finally figured out how to download the file with the filename rather than download.php. It was actually a header issue:

          header("Content-type: $filetype");
          header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=\"$file\"\n"); 
          header("Content-Length: $size");
          header("Accept-Ranges: bytes");
          header("Pragma: no-cache");
          header("Expires: 0");
          header("Cache-Control: must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0");
          header("Content-transfer-encoding: binary");
          header("Content-type: ".$filetype);
          header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=$file");

I have the generic upload working and the policy specific download working. I'm making the new policy page look as close to the old as possible, I know how some people hate change!

I'm still attempting to attach the new admissions application with the old credit card payment procedures so we can push it out. I'd like to get this done before next week so I can devote all my attention to EDI while Cheryl is here. It's being cranky, and I can't really test it. I'm sure I'll get it done this week, though. I'm not terribly worried about it.

I also need to finish the admin side. I'll need to meet with Dorothy again to see if there are any other modifications she would want to that side of the application.

I've finished all sections for the online application for admissions. It looks great, and I'm really pleased with the flow. I need to figure out how to link it with the previously written credit card piece that will charge the application fee to a credit card. I may need to have Brian help me out with that part so I don't create any issues. People are not so understanding when it comes to double charges, and I can't blame them. I certainly don't want to test it!

I've completed the first version of the application and have sent it off to the IRB Board members for final review. After they've made all required modifications and given the okay, I'm going to create the final cfm document that will convert the entire application to a pdf document that can then be printed out with necessary signature pages. They should be reviewing the application this Thursday and I hope to here back Monday.

The admissions application is nearing completion. I've just finished a difficult step and have the college course work page completed, and it looks pretty snazzy if I do say so myself. I still have the test scores, residency and special circumstances left and then tie it into the existing credit card part of the old application to complete it. Some of it requires input from admissions, so I'm not sure when that will be done, but hopefully not much longer.

The IRB application is very near completion. I'm really pleased with the outcome and I think it will be a huge improvement over the static document that was available before. I'm still waiting to hear from Mark Girod for final review. Once he okays the form fields and layout, I'll make a cfm document to convert all the fields into a pdf printable document.

I've added the final requested fields for the alumni tracking exit interview that I had worked on previously. My understanding is once it's approved by the Provost, I'll integrate the data that is collected into Viking, the alumni database. That should be a fairly easy and straight-forward task.

I also made a small adjustment to the LOS football application as requested by Tim Bowman. It now includes the applicant's name in the subject line of the email that is sent.

I still need to fix the parking application. Cheri had brought the error to my attention and I haven't had the time to track down where it's originating from. I had never worked with the particular application she is having issues with, so I'm not familiar with the layout.

The admissions application has been stalled last week, but I should be able to wrap it up shortly. I know there are very interested parties waiting for this to be completed as it's one of the very last applications still in production on wilbur, so I'm trying to get it completed and tested as soon as I can.

I've been ask to complete the Internation Review Board Application for Western. It's being relocated to be under the new OIRPA site, and since it is research, this makes sense. I actually have quite a bit accomplished. The new application will be a log on app that will take the wou username and password and store the data being entered as the researcher fills in, thus giving them the option to continue the application at a later time without loosing anything. It starts here and you can continue on to get to the log in screen. This will save your username in a local table to keep track of the data. I've also added an activity date column to possibly flush out the users after a certain time frame so as not to keep old data. I'll discuss this with Mark Girod to find an appropriate time limit. I've also had Alex create some nice buttons to make it look a little more professional. I really like these new buttons!

The online undergraduate application for admissions is coming along really nicely. I have the account creation step done and and working through the steps to complete the application. After creating an account, the prospective student would be able to log in here. If you don't wish to go through the application process, I have a couple screen shots of the main menu and the name form to give you an idea of what it will look like.

I'm also working on fixing a couple bugs with the parking application for Cheri and the LOS application for Tim Bowman.

The SATs have modified their test and scoring, and therefore our application for inputing score data was incorrect. Dorothy Hendrickson asked, before the new application is started, to modify the input fields to reflect this change. I've attempted to do this, but re-wording something and adding a field is completely different. It looks like everything is fine in preliminary testing, but problems could arise.

I've finished writing a little app for Troy to use when he's dealing with class folder permissions. It just takes a list of courses and returns distinct vnumbers for all the students enrolled in those courses. It's very simple, but I think it will be very useful.

I've also received notice that students where putting in their entire wou email address rather than just their username in the Banner pin retrieval application I wrote for Registrar. I've modified the wording and added a javascript test that looks for the '@' and throughs an alert. Of course, if someone doesn't read and has their javascript disable, it still won't work (and believe me, this happens).

I'm starting on the re-write of the on-line undergraduate application for admission. I'll be setting up a meeting with Dorothy Hendrickson for next week and modifying some of the extraneous fields that are no longer needed and adding important information that is currently missing. I'll look on OSU site and review other online applications to get a better idea of what we might need.

I will be working on the new admissions application that is currently on Wilbur. It's just too hairy to migrate and it's completely outdated as well. This is just the best time to re-write. It was created using code generating software, so it really will need to be re-written from scratch. That's probably for the best, I don't especially care to wade through someone else's code. It looks to be a fairly easy project, but I'll be forced to leave the end piece for credit card payment, as that is extremely cluggy.

I've ordered a book, Mastering Oracle PL/SQL: Practical Solutions and am excited about the information it contains. I think it will be a real asset with the next projects that I have on the list. It has a great section on the web toolkit and cookies.

I've got the LOS registration form working great, passing it to a cfm file that transforms it to a pdf document so it prints out the same for everyone. It will also send an email to Bowman with the information in it to give him a jump start on the applications before they are mailed. I'm still having trouble on my mac though. It will only download the cfm file and then I have to choose 'open with' and pick adobe reader to open it. It's working great on Windows. I'm wondering if it's a brower set up issue.

I also ran into a weird error with the account lookup application. Joan got a call from someone with an Oracle error when attempting to run the application. It was working fine for me and it has been working perfectly for months. I had no idea what it could be. Mike Ross was able to run a debugger and sent me the code snippet where it was hung up, and I removed it. That made it all run through smooth, though why it would snag now and only for specific people is beyond me.

I've now got access as wtailor on woutst and wouprd to look into the pin reset option through banner. I guess the Registrar's office is not satisfied with the current set up. It currently requires the student to have set up a security question (and then remember the answer when they need to use it), and it seems most are not in this category. Therefore, it requires intervention on the part of someone in the Registrar's to reset their pin. Upon discussion with Bill, I've decided to have the student enter their username and vnumber and then email them their pin. If they can't remember their email password, they can go through the account lookup application. Therefore, that fully automates all steps and leaves the Registrar's office completely out of the loop. They should be happy with this setup.

Last Wednesday, for our all day staff development, I had to spend working on the football recruiting questionnaire. I really want all of this taken care of and finished by tomorrow to be ready to delve into the dual enrollment project. I have a meeting Wednesday in Corvallis to discuss how OSU has implemented the EDI and OFAX with their systems and give me hints on how I can go about doing this for WOU. I'm very excited about this project and I think it will be a great asset for Western.

I've been working on updating the football recruitment questionnaire. The original idea was to automatically input the data into tables that coorespond to the tables of the application used by the recruiting coaches so that the information wouldn't have to be inputed more than once. I even had figured out how to tie everything together to create one, smooth application for all the recruiting needs, including a stand-alone (non-web) application for use in the field that would sync up with the web-app once they returned. However, it now appears that the football division wants to go with a commercial application that won't be able to tie in with our systems, so it looks like my efforts will be wasted. Even the data submitted from the new questionnaire will now have to be inputed at least twice. Bummer.

The admin web site for calendar events has been updated and is working correctly. I've added Content Notice variables and a bulletin issue date to be added to all entries. I've also modified the sorting options and created one based soley on the Bulletin issue date, so it will bring up all events that need to be added to that issue, as requested by Lisa Pulliam. Hopefully, this will increase efficiency and organization.

I've modified the pr event calendar table to be used for the new user interface to the calendar and event submission. I guess they are still planning on using the admin side, so I need to go through and modify that to reflect the table changes.

I met with some of the Writing Center Fellows last night to see how it's going and to check and make sure they know how to use their web pages to grade and modify team info. They seem pretty secure with the use of that part, but there is still confusion on the Wiki side. I feel frustrated with all the instructions we've written up on the subject and people still cannot figure it out. I'll have another meeting at noon today to try and reach the rest of them.

It was brought to my attention today that the education calendar event form was using kitty as authentication instead of sundown, so no one could log in and submit a new event. I created this application before I had streamlined all the logins to go through one package. I had to re-write quite a bit of the code to use the wou_login package and to take advantage of the web_template package. This significantly reduced the size. I've also started updating the admin side of the education calendar. It used a very old web template, not the new one, so I've started migrating the procedures. This will take awhile.

I have a meeting this afternoon concerning FAIT (Freshman Academy Implementation Team). I was hoping to have a couple weeks off from these meetings, but apparently not. With a pilot program, there are always issues to work through.

I've been fixing minor bugs in a couple programs and fielding emails about the Freshman Academy. It appears that I've become the first contact for everything academy related. I have no idea how that happened. We've had some mentors drop out which is frustrating, as it's so far into the term.

The new equipment request form has been put into production. There were a couple little glitches that I fixed right away, and then I realized that the wou numbers were not being recorded for the equipment that was being sent out. I've now fixed that, and hopefully it should work smoothly. I had copied all the data out of the old access database that Classroom Services had been using, but not recently, so I'm still waiting to see if Nathan would like everything moved over, or start fresh. It looks so much better!

Portal Customization

Sun training in San Jose Jan 2 - 7 2005. I learned how to navigate the admin gui, modify and load customization files and learn about the portal's file organization. I had learned how to install the portal through a web course taken previously to understand the initial steps before taking the course. After running through installation, we learned out to create sub-organizations and roles (user groups) through both the gui and bulk loading through amadmin command. We then covered the Display Profile and how the final display is created by combining numerous profiles into one through locking and merging. I learned how to create channels based on the given providers and insert customized data into each one and then display it based on orgs and roles. The course briefly touched on WSRP and SSO.

The admin side of our calendar had been going along smoothly until upgrades where requested. Of course, that had to break something, and I haven't figured out where it's breaking. Unfortunately, it's been lower on my priority list so far with the Freshman Academy and start of term coming up. I'll get it fixed this week and it should be back to perfect, with upgrades. This doesn't interfer with the public side of the calendar, and people can still submit and publish events.

It's been a busy Monday and first day back. It took me some time just to get through email. I started out with a meeting with Lisa Pulliam from PR about tweaking the Calendar administration side to better suite her needs. It's looking like pretty basic requests, I don't forsee any issues with those updates, and everything should go smoothly there.

It appears there have been some changes with the password syncing and account migrations, so I've spent a good portion of time adjusting my account lookup and password reset application to comply with these changes. There had been an error in my application in that it required a digit and special character no matter what, where it should only require three of: 1.Uppercase letter, 2. Lowercase letter, 3. Digit, 4. Special character. That should be all fixed. It's also reading and recording the agreement to the Tech Agreement so it should only ask once.

I'm also getting back to portal, as it has been fixed on sundown. I'll attempt to have a basic working product up this week and try very hard not to break it.

It seemed like everything was working perfectly for the Staff Parking permits. People were able to buy and were charged correctly for any permit they wanted. However, there was a small glitch for the Secondary and Replacement permits on the reporting side. Since the price was always the same no matter when it was purchased, it did not record the term, which of course messes up the report produced. So I've patched that issue for now and will permanently fix it for both staff and student permit applications later this year.

I've also created a new generic login and validation procedures under the wou_util schema in the package wou_login. It only uses sundown, since kitty will be gone by next week. It worked perfectly for me, and I'll add some comments to it soon.

I've been able to connect to Active Directory through Oracle using dbms_ldap procedures and even change some attribute values, however we have yet to access the user password and modify that through my Oracle application, which was the entire point of this project. We are able to connect to our ldap server on sundown and modify those passwords, but that is only the authentication for email and network. To be able to log into the domain, authentication goes through Active Directory.

The syncing can only go from Active Directory to ldap on sundown, not the other way, so we really need to find a way to modify the password through Active Directory so all the passwords will be the same (much less for the users to remember and few sticky notes = better security). Plus, the criteria for those passwords are much stronger. Right now, if a user knows their password, they can hit ctl-alt-dlt and change password, but my application should let users reset their password without knowing what it was. This will also help with migration, as we will make people change their password before they can log into the domain and then it will be even more secure and the same everywhere.

It's looking like the problem may be we need SSL cert to be able to access that particular attribute. This is extremely frustrating. Why can't Windows play nice like everyone else?

It's come to my attention that the account lookup application is only for non-migrated users (using kitty.wou.edu). In the attempt to update the application, we've run into some differences on sundown that is making things difficult. I'll have to find a work around to get it functional, so it won't be as easy as pointing it to a new server. The work around should be done today, and any users that have been migrated and do not remember their new passwords (for email only) will be able to reset them on their own.