Terms

• DB = database. As in FMPro DB.

Support and maintenance expectations (DRAFT)

For Chemistry Instructional staff

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

• Please distinguish between a request to fix something broken (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.

• 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 may not work correctly or otherwise need to be tested if structural changes are made.

A&S IT's services and role

• A&S 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 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

If students have questions or concerns about the 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

Procedures and processes

Semester-start procedures and processes. DRAFT:

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. DRAFT:

• 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. DRAFT:

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).

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.
• 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.

See also

• P12 - ChemGrades FMPro DB

Keywords, for searching results

• FileMakerPro, FMPro, FileMaker Pro