September 30, 2010
Dear Everyone:
Still working on the electronic
document management
system Computer Based Training (CBT).
I was t-h-a-t c-l-o-s-e to completing it when they had a Release
(which I helped to test, so I at least knew it was coming) last month.
There's always some changes brought about by a Release, but this
one was kind of special.
The system has two kinds of Search.
A "Simple Search" means you type a word or phrase in a Search
Window and click on a button.
When you do that, the system goes off and searches every document
and certain text-based property fields, looking for that word or phrase.
Then it brings back all the "hits" that it finds, based on your
particular security permissions in the system.
(If you don't have access to a particular place, you won't see
anything stored in that space, even if it meets your Search criteria.)
(This is an extremely simplistic explanation of
keyword searching. In
reality, it doesn't work anything like that.
Most systems have an "indexing engine" built into them.
Every night, around midnight, when it's reasonable to suppose not
many people are using the system, this engine starts going through all
the new documents that were added to the system that day.
As it goes along, it finds words and links each word to the same
word in a special table known as the "keyword table".
When it finishes with the new documents, it starts checking any
documents that were changed that day and does the same thing with them;
this is called an "incremental index".
(When a User runs a keyword search, the system goes
to the "keyword table", finds the word, and then follows the links to
the documents. This is much
faster than waiting for the system to go through thousands of entries.
In fact, this is how most "Search Engines"--like
Google, or
Ask.com--work.)
The second kind of Search is called "Advanced
Search". This allows you to
search on values in certain fields, rather than the "shotgun" approach
of keyword searching. For
instance, you can search for all documents authored by a certain person,
within a certain time frame, regardless of the contents.
So how do you get to "Advanced Search"?
Used to be you clicked on a button called "Advanced Search".
A while back, the programmers replaced the button with a
"drop-down arrow". When you
clicked the drop-down arrow, the only available selection was "Advanced
Search". But some people
didn't like that. They
wanted a button that reads "Advanced Search".
So the programmers put in a button (again), but for
some reason, it only read "Advanced".
Evidently the programmers felt that a button reading "Advanced"
right next to the Simple Search field was obvious enough.
Not so.
More complaints. So in the
least Release, the button was rewritten to read "Advanced Search".
What does that mean to the CBT?
Out of around 217 “slides”, 16 have a screen shot
that shows the “old” “Advanced” button rather than the “New and
Improved!” “Advanced Search” button.
That’s a little more than 7%, so not that much.
However.
There are the “Labs”, which take the student through step-by-step
simulations of many of the system’s functionality.
Those all have to be redone.
The Good News: As far
as I can tell, I still have all the voice recordings on file.
So I “just” have to recreate all the simulations that include the
“Advanced Search” screen, then import the same recordings.
Piece of cake, right?
Now, you’re probably thinking, “So what?
It’s ‘job security’, right?”
Not so much.
The dreaded ROM (Resource Optimization Management; translation:
downsizing) took place last week.
At that time, the popular rumor was that we would hear about our
jobs this week since the “announcements” will go out next week.
“New and improved!” unofficial rumor:
“Notification” will take place next week, followed by the
announcements. So everyone
will be waiting by the phone.
If the “job owner” calls, it means you’re going to be offered a
job (not necessarily the job you think, or think you want.)
If your “sponsor” calls, it means you’re going to be offered a
“transition job” (temporary), or you’re going to be informed that you’re
“left standing”.
What’s “left standing”?
Remember when you were a kid at some birthday party and the
adults made you play “musical chairs”?
There were always one more child than there were chairs.
When the music stopped, everyone scrambled to grab a chair.
The one who didn’t get a chair was “left standing” and lost the
game. Or in this case, your
job. Any job.
More about that next week.
In the meantime, I plan to complete the CBT before
they have a chance to change anything else.
By the time the next Release comes around I’ll either have a job
and will happily revise the CBT again, or I’ll be scrambling for another
job and they can take their Release and…
Keep a good thought.
Love, as always,
Pete
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