[sims] Change Request - More detail when verifying templates (Individual Reports)

[LosOjos]

Hi all,

 

hoping some of you can give this one a boost up the list on SupportNet,

 

it's CR#: 1104-878066

 

I would like to see more detail on the "The verify operation is now running" screen when trying to verify individual report templates. Currently, when you are verifying a particularly large template, it is impossible to tell whether the operation is still running or whether it has crashed. If the dialog told you which tag it was currently verifying, you could not only see that it is in fact still running, but also at which point it crashed (if it does), helping you to diagnose the problem.

 

I appreciate your votes and/or comments

[Sivadam]

Hi all,

 

hoping some of you can give this one a boost up the list on SupportNet,

 

it's CR#: 1104-878066

 

I appreciate your votes and/or comments

I have voted for this but only with a '1'. There are quoite a number of these sorts of issues in SIMS when you do not know if a procedure is still running. When asking about other such instances I have often been told that adding extra functionality to memory intensive procedures can can be counter-productive as it slows down the procedure evn more!

[vikpaw]

Strongly agreed.

I've not had it crash on me for a very long time, but i rarely use it these days unless a tag actually stops working.

I didn't think it was doing a live check back to the db for each tag, that would be ridiculous surely. I just thought it does client side checking on the syntax.

I might go and test something now.

[vikpaw]

It's actually pretty funky

 

Date : 09/04/2011 08:42:23

This file contains the following invalid tags and/or items:

Tag <> is invalid.

Result Tag is invalid as Aspect: "[_test1234test]" does not exist in the system.

Result Tag is invalid as Resultset: "[First Semester Y7]" does not exist in the system.

 

EDIT: That last one is cos i pilcrowed the file and fudged the external id.

 

Gives a lot of hope for using the quick method for altering tags with find and replace, at least you can't totally bork it without knowing.

Edited April 9, 2011 by vikpaw
edit.

[LosOjos]

I have voted for this but only with a '1'. There are quoite a number of these sorts of issues in SIMS when you do not know if a procedure is still running. When asking about other such instances I have often been told that adding extra functionality to memory intensive procedures can can be counter-productive as it slows down the procedure evn more!

 

Thanks for supporting Sivadam - as for memory usage, adding one extra line of text to the status window with the name of the tag being checked would help massively and increase memory usage minimally. With the amount of time it takes to check a template, I suspect that it checks back to the database for each individual tag one by one, whereas I would have thought downloading all aspect & result set information, storing that information in memory, then checking the tags against that would actually be much quicker for larger templates... however, I'll settle for a little more info

 

It's actually pretty funky

 

 

 

EDIT: That last one is cos i pilcrowed the file and fudged the external id.

 

Gives a lot of hope for using the quick method for altering tags with find and replace, at least you can't totally bork it without knowing.

 

Thanks for your support Vik one thing I have noticed (and another reason more information would be useful) is that sometimes it returns an error that a result set doesn't exist, when in fact it does. When it does this, it doesn't mention which tag the "missing" result set is a part of, which makes the information not only useless but "wrong" too! (and I air-quote that because it may be something about the tag itself such as an incorrect result set ID that is actually wrong, but without that information finding it is a nightmare, and I've actually had errors like that returned on templates that work perfectly!)

[NorthernSands]

Duly voted for. I see that it's "published for consultation".

 

I find I have to use the procedure every time, tags like form tutor seem to fail pretty much every time I don't verify the template (so it can't be just checking syntax, can it?).

 

I have other problems with it:

 

• I have a template that's got too many tags for it to check, and the procedure dies before the end.
   
  
• I run two screen and generally have the result selection window on the other screen when I'm adding tags. If I forget, and leave the selection window open when I choose to verify, I get an error and the document disappears! Grrr...
  

[LosOjos]

Thanks for the support @NorthernSands

 

As with certain other features in SIMS, this is a potentially extremely useful tool, it just needs that little extra functionality... hopefully if we keep on making these change requests though we'll eventually get the features we want

[vikpaw]

@NorthernSands if you look at my example it's not just syntax it's a live look at the tables in sims.

 

It could just do with a little marker to say how far it got. Or even a "highlight and check" option for manual intervention.

 

On multiple screens it doesn't often die for me but most screens that deactivate or should close don't. They stay ghosted until you return to sims an save.