See also

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

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All requests for service from from Instructional staff are to go to Chemstry 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).
• In an emergency (time-sensitive situation), in addition to contacting ChemIT, Pat Hine may contact A&S IT support staff (Dani or Tu) directly, too.

Instruction staff who make structural changes to any of their DBs 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 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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• http://chemistry.cornell.edu/courses/add-drop.cfm
• http://chemlabs.arts.cornell.edu/waitlist.cfm

Procedures and processes

Semester-start procedures and processes.

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In the fall, Pat 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. (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), 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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• 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.
• Pat Hine zeroes out each of the ChemGrades DBs before the start of their next use.
  • Pat Hine does this within FMPro, when she needs it done (varies by course).
• Cut off TA's access to FMPro.
  • 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, 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 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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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.

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• Zero out course data on the A&S FMPro server.
• Import data from the correct course backup file.
  • Latest version would be from ~half a work day before.
• If 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 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 true NetID-based access, as a future project.

Enable Pat's view of DB data from home.

The need for this has been reduced since many folks can self-serve, and PatH herself has view-only web access.

• 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 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.

As an alternative, if she knows she'll need it ahead of time, PatH can take a backup copy of any course on a FMPro computer for stand-alone access. This works as long as PatH doesn't make changes on the stand-alone DB that she later expects to see on the production, server-based DB, of course!

Rejected idea, for future reference: With FMPro installed on dept. laptop, access AS's FMPro server off-campus and do the work that way.

Ensure security of FERPA data in Grades DB.

See Michael Hint's emails with Tu and Frank for more on this. Some thoughts, initially:

• FERPA-like data so ChemIT would appreciate understanding the ACL (see for subnet?) and firewall configurations.
  • ChemIT thinks there shouldn't be any off-campus access except via VPN. Thus take off of public net and put into 10-space. But there may be other factors to consider.
• Access to the FMPro DB is controlled by NetID (AD groups). Once in, who else has access to Grades DB FMPro DB itself?
  • Answer: Only accessible to authorized FMPro users or groups.
    • If a user isn't authorized for a DB, they dont' even get to see that the DB is available.
    • If a user enters the fully qualified name to the DB they can't see (because they aren't authorized within the DB), the DB still wont' open.
• Ideal: Make all access via NetID/ NetID p/w, not via FMPro DB's own controls.
  • Control NetID membership via Active Directory groups.
    • Start with Grad TA access, via theTA room kiosks? Also start with faculty access?
    • Once process confirmed, establish procedure for enabling and disabling NetID access to Grades FMPro DB by grads and faculty
      • Can take ChemIT staff less than a minute to do this, and is effective immediately.

• 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

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