March 3, 1995
Dear Everyone:
Even though these Letters are dated Friday, the day I send them out, I
usually wind up writing them after work on Thursday, using the notebook
PC, "Ogden", which I tend to keep it home.
(When “Daisy”, our PC
coordinator, did an inventory of all our PCs she put a label on each
one, including the Serial number, the User ID and the identity of the
PC. When she did this one, she
labeled it "Ogden", so I guess it's official now.)
Anyway, this will have to be a short letter because Ogden has a
lot of work to do this evening. Now
that people are starting to use
Versatile, we’re becoming aware of a problem that we really hadn't
anticipated in the testing phase. When
people want to request a Box they need to know the Box Number.
Stands to reason, right?
We expected that they would do a
Keyword Search or consult a Report to find the Box Number.
But they don't. They tend to use
the GO-88's the transmittal form that you fill out when you send the Box
to storage. When the Records
Center received the Box, they would assign it a number, process it, and
send a copy of the GO-88 back to the Box owner, with the Box Number on
the form. People then used that
Box Number to request the Box when they needed it.
Now, we did realize that
people would still want to refer to that old number, even when
Versatile assigned a new Box Number to each Box as it was imported
into the system. So we put the
old box number into a field called "User Box Number".
You can even request a Box by the
old number provided you also
know the Department Code. Never
mind why, it's too complicated to explain here and you really don't
care, do you? Just take it as a
given that you need both the old box number and the Department Code.
Now, here's the problem: Many
people have no idea what the current Department Code is.
It has been changed due to
restructuring. In fact, it's
probably been changed a half-dozen times since the Box entered the
system. This is also a given:
All Company Departments
restructure on a regular basis. “Austin”
is restructuring even as you read this. Why?
Because it's harder to hit a
moving target.
So we had to come up with a way for people to find these Boxes even
though they don't know what the Department Code is.
Well, we
did find a way and so far
it's working perfectly. We are
importing the phrase "CRMIS BOX NO (####)" into the description of each
Box. When people do a Keyword
Search on the old box number, it pops right up for them.
It's this importing that involve Ogden. All
this week, I've been in Training, with “Miranda” and “Jerry”, teaching
the Bay Area people (the ones called "Designated Users") how to use
Versatile.
This means I can't be at the
office doing the imports. Instead,
at the end of each day, I go home, plug the modem into Ogden, dial into
the Server in San Francisco, and have Ogden do the imports.
It goes a bit more slowly (45
minutes for 20,000 records compared to 25 minutes in the City), but it
beats making everyone wait until I can get back into the office next
week.
So, when I get home, I dial into the Server, tell Ogden to start an
Import, then go take a bath while Ogden, bless his little hard drive,
churns through 20,000 more Boxes. He
goes through about three to four files per night.
So I need to finish this letter
and let him get started.
In other news…
My thanks to those Ashland people who sent checks to pay for their
tickets. I can now pay off my MasterCard.
Good thing, since my car, Taylor, needs about $600 worth of
"your clutch is going out and your (something-or-other) gasket is
leaking." Also, that dratted
screw, the one that fell out of the steering wheel, is still rattling
around in my car as I never seem to find time to take it in.
I have one more week before we embark on the Great
Versatile Trip, “Hobby” – “Lafayette” – “Austin” – “Oklahoma City”,
in which I will enjoy the Houston International Airport no less than
three times in one week. Can't
wait.
Love, as always,
Pete
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